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Motivational Practice Motivational Practice

Insights from the Classroom

A l a sta i r H e n ry Pi a Su n d qv ist Ce ci l i a T hor se n

Insights from the Classroom A L A S TA IR HE NR Y PIA SUNDQVIST CECILIA THORSEN

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Art. No 39568 ISBN 978-91-44-11848-2 First edition 1:1 © The authors and Studentlitteratur 2019 studentlitteratur.se Studentlitteratur AB, Lund Cover: Francisco Ortega Cover image: Shutterstock.com Printed by Dimograf, Poland 2019

CONTENTS

Authors 11

Introduction 13

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Part I Setting the Scene

1 Young people and English 23 A changing landscape with changing challenges A l a sta i r H e n ry More than a just lingua franca? 23 A changing landscape for English teaching 27 A fortunate subject? 33 The need for situated approaches in understanding learners’ motivation 36 References 39 2 Understanding language learners’ motivation 43 A l a sta i r H e n ry Different from other types of motivation 43 Integrative motivation and Gardner’s Socio Educational model 45 The L2 Motivational Self System 47 Flow 49 Directed motivational currents 52 © T h e au t h ors and S t u dentlitterat u r

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Contents

Engagement 54 Willingness to Communicate 55 References 58 3 What Motivates Students? 63 A l a sta i r H e n ry Recapping on identities and challenges 63 Motivational strategies 65 Strategies with a focus on classroom activities 67 Not rock-solid golden rules 69 What works here? 71 Popular culture is motivational 73 Exploring national cultures may be more motivational than intercultural experiences 74 Learning materials: Authenticity is crucial 76 Outputs increase investment 78 Creativity and identities are important 81 Classroom games may not be as motivational as activities involving creativity and personal expression 82 Group working and mobile devices 82 References 83

Part II Learning from good practice

4 The MoTiSSE project 89 C e ci l i a T hor se n Investigating motivational practice 89 Designing the project 90 Identifying successful motivators 91 Fieldwork 94 Sorting and analysing the data 98 Research products 99 References 102 4

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5 Motivation and the importance of teacher–student relationships 105 A l a sta i r H e n ry a n d C e ci l i a T hor se n A relational perspective on motivation 105 Teacher–student relationships, and emotional and social intelligence 107 The teachers in the MoTiSSE project 110 Successful motivators 111 The eighteen teachers 111 Motivational practice 113 Creating positive relationships 113 Creating security and self-confidence 115 Providing validation and being sensitive 116 Motivational activities take place in a relational context 119 Motivation and relationships 119 Teacher–student relationships and L2 motivation 122 The teacher 123 The activities 123 Connecting with students in the grade six class 124 Connecting with students in the grade nine class 125 How are these moments of contact motivational? 126 References 128

Part III Motivating Students

6 Motivational activities and identity work 133 A l a sta i r H e n ry Teacher challenges and student identities 133 Documenting the self 137 My profile 137 The book about me 139 A day in the life of me 144 Exploring connections 145 My family tree 146 My Roots 147

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Imagining other worlds 149 Enacting life 151 Life after life 153 An encounter with prejudice 153 A Winter’s Tale and A picture about life 154 Connections and identities 156 References 157 7 Motivation and funds of knowledge 161 A l a sta i r H e n ry a n d C e ci l i a T hor se n English outside the classroom 161 Culturally responsive teaching 162 Principles for responsive teaching 163 Funds of knowledge deriving from students’ social worlds 165 Perspective taking 166 Motivational activities 167 Popular culture as a builder of bridges 167 Creating films and TV-programs 175 Importing a digital game 181 References 184 8 The motivational affordances of ICT 187 Pi a Su n d qv ist Affordance theory and ICT 188 Successful grammar teaching at a rural school 189 The flipped classroom 190 The grammar lessons in focus 191 Two phases: grammar videos and digital tests 192 Teacher and student voices 194 And then there was the subjunctive 196 A teacher’s conceptual change 198 Summing up some important conclusions 199

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Digging into the world of literature 200 Networking with Harry Potter 201 Formative feedback videos with Holes 204 eTwinning for international networking 208 Playing digital games 210 Gaming, L2 English proficiency, and motivation 211 Gaming as good practice 213 Apps, websites, and social media 217 YouTube 217 Facebook 217 Readtheory 218 Kahoot 219 Glosor.eu 219 A purposeful use of mobile phones 220 References 221 9 Activities and creativity 227 Pi a Su n d qv ist The atmosphere of a school 228 No shoes, many blankets, and a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle 228 Wrapped up in a non-threatening English classroom 230 Mobile phones – not a problem 231 A foundation for creative work 232 The role of final artefacts for motivation 232 Audio and video recordings 233 Visual aids in oral presentations 238 Drama 241 Posters 242 Language play as a creative activity 243 References 245

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Contents

10 Motivational project work 249 Pi a Su n d qv ist The problem: One size does not fit all 250 Directed motivational currents 251 Intensive group projects 252 The Music Project 253 The teacher’s introduction of the project 254 The continuation of the Music Project and student voices 257 What are the IGP features of the Music Project? 261 Motivational affordances 261 The London Project 263 The purpose and introduction of the project 264 Motivational currents 267 Teacher and student voices about the London Project 271 What are the IGP features of the London Project? 274 Motivational affordances 274 The Health Project 276 Turbulent times during observations 277 Classrooms, ICT, and Facebook 277 The textbook trigger 279 Role-play instructions, output, and assessment 279 Role-play 1: Anorexia 281 Role-play 2: The sporty guy 281 What are the IGP features of the Health Project? 282 Motivational affordances 282 Returning to the problem 283 References 283

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Part IV Challenges and opportunities

11 Challenges in bridging between cultures of English experience 289 A l a sta i r H e n ry Motivational affordances and challenges for teachers 290 Language awareness 292 Supporting students’ agency: achieving a balance between structure and freedom 293 Positioning students in unwanted ways: ‘redesigning’ activities 296 Unwelcome intrusions into young people’s private worlds 299 Missing the target: the importance of perspective taking 301 Identity and positioning 303 Maintaining integrity: Safety in self-disclosure 307 Project work, goal-setting and assessment 309 References 310 12 Critical Perspectives 315 A l a sta i r H e n ry, Pi a Su n d qv ist a n d C e c i l i a T hor se n Challenges 315 Reflecting on practice 317 Focus on Texts and Materials 318 Focus on Identities and Relationships 318 Focus on Agency and Creativity 319 Focus on Technology and Networking 319 Focus on Language Awareness 319 References 320 Author index 321

Subject Index 325

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PA R T I

Setting the Scene

CHAPTER 1

Young people and English A changing landscape with changing challenges

A l a sta i r H e n ry

In language learning motivation research, it is increasingly recognized that motivated behavior is locally conditioned, that it evolves in specific contexts of learning, and emerges in activities that take place in particular classrooms.

Consequently, the challenges teachers face in creating motivational conditions can vary greatly between settings, and from one classroom to another. For these reasons, solutions are best found not from “blanket prescriptions but in the form of understandings generated through local engagement” (Garton & Richards, 2013, p. xi).

In this chapter we will look at the changing ways in which young people’s encounters with English influence their responses to classroom learning, and, for teachers of English in Sweden, the challenges that these changes present. We will see how young people recognise the existence of two ‘types of English’ and two ‘cultures’ in which it is encountered – one inside and one outside the classroom – and how the motivational dissonances that arise from these two contexts of experience impact on the ways that they approach classroom work.

More than a just lingua franca?

With new local varieties and new dialects of English emerging and developing all over the globe (Modiano, 2009, 2017), globalisation is not only changing the English language. It is also changing the ways in which English is learnt and taught. More a consequence of the particularities of the localised contexts in which English is encountered outside of the classroom, than of the requirements of a particular curriculum or teaching

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tradition, young people’s experiences of learning and acquiring English are becoming increasingly diverse (Ushioda, 2013). In settings where young people spend substantial periods of their leisure-time engaged in activities that are mediated by, or involve encounters with English, the learning that takes place in school will be influenced by the experiences they gain outside the classroom.

As Phillipson (2008) has observed, because English is the dominant language of global popular culture in the form of film, television, music, online media, advertising and product-branding, it can be understood as a lingua emotiva. As a language that generates immediate associations with imaginary worlds of glamour, celebrity and consumer aspirations, English indexes pleasure and hedonism. Seen this way, English is not merely a means of communication that has “simply been transported to Sweden as a lingua franca” (Hult, 2012, p. 251). Rather – and for young people in particular – it is a language that through practices of consumption (material and cultural), triggers identifications with desirable products and desired identities. Thus, in addition to being adapted to suit particular communicative purposes in particular settings of use, a reconfigured English is becoming increasingly implicit in the molding of young people’s identities. Consequently, understanding how students respond to the English that they meet in school requires an understanding of how English is involved in leisure time social practices upon which the imprint of globalization is becoming increasingly visible. For teachers of English, a necessary part of professional practice therefore involves developing knowledge about how English influences, shapes and conditions the ways in which young people see themselves as individuals in a globalized world.

While it is not until later in the book that we begin our exploration of motivational practice, and how teaching that students’ find motivational often involves the forging of connections between social and cultural experiences involving English in and outside of school, to offer a glimpse of the extent to which English exerts an influence on the lives and identities of young people in Sweden today, we can look at an extract from one of the many interviews conducted in the MoTiSSE project. Here a group of ninth-grade students reflect upon the ways in which English is implicated in their lives:

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Hanna:

Jon:

I:

Hanna: Jacob: Emila: Jacob:

Emila:

I: Emila:

Jag har märkt att när jag är liksom, när vi skriver upp saker, när man behöver leta efter saker, så googlar jag automatiskt på engelska eller när jag ska ta anteckningar och sådant, så händer det väldigt ofta att jag skriver på engelska, även när det är svenska.

Jag vet inte hur, men alltså ibland, så kommer jag bara på att jag tänker på engelska. Jag vet inte, men det händer mig väldigt ofta./.../ Jag tänker, alltså det här kanske låter lite konstigt, men alltså jag ser nästan allt på engelska, engelska filmer, lyssnar på engelsk musik. Så om jag liksom typ gör någonting, så... nu börjar jag typ skratta, men då pratar jag för mig själv och då är det alltid på engelska. Mm, okej. Det låter bättre än att göra det på svenska, det är bara konstigt. (skratt) Är det någon annan som känner igen det i vissa sammanhang, att det passar bättre att man har en inre dialog med sig själv?

Jag får väl erkänna det.

Jag tycker att svenska... alltså, det låter väldigt töntigt, tycker jag.

Det är sant.

Alltså, det känns mer grown up att prata engelska. Alltså, svenska språket tycker jag är ganska barnsligt [skratt] det kanske låter konstigt, men...

Jag tycker att det svenska språket låter lite dumt. Eller det låter lite konstigt formellt. Engelska låter lite bättre.

Ja, men du skulle hålla med Jacob att du tycker...

Ja, det är helt klart, det här med svenskan. Alltså, det är många, om det är sådana här små fraser som man ibland säger på engelska och det är inte... Alltså, man skulle inte kunna tänka sig att säga det på svenska, för det låter bara dumt och

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fel och bara allmänt töntigt. Ja, så jag Jacob:

håller med på vad han säger.

Men engelska är så liksom... i och med att det är så mycket liksom överallt, så är det ganska neutralt, alltså det är normalt, det är liksom som ett andra modersmål, liksom.1

Starting at the end of this extract, Jacob says that English is everywhere (det är så mycket liksom överallt). For him it is not question of English being something that is either positive or negative, but rather a simple matter of fact; it is just how things are (så är det ganska neutralt). For this boy English is experienced as akin to having a second mother tongue (som ett andra modersmål, liksom). For these students there is a sense that, as a natural part of life, English extends into school and the learning that takes place there.

As Hanna says, even when subject learning takes place in Swedish, without thinking about it, she can find herself using an English version of Google to look things up. It can also happen, she says, that she finds herself making notes in English, even when the things she learns about are mediated in Swedish (det väldigt ofta att jag skriver på engelska, även när det är svenska).

For these students it is plain that, in school, English is not just a subject to be learnt like any other. It permeates into other learning experiences and is a means by which – in any subject – they are able to access and process information, and develop knowledge.

Like a majority of similarly-aged peers (Swedish Media Council, 2017), Jon says that the media he watches and listens to is almost exclusively in English. In the same sense that Hanna describes how English provides a medium for accessing and processing knowledge in school, and that the mediation of learning through English simply happens automatically without any conscious decision, for Jon English penetrates into his consciousness, mediating his thought-processes and internal self-talk. This, he says, is because he is constantly surrounded by English (jag ser nästan allt på engelska, engelska filmer, lyssnar på engelsk musik), and that as a consequence English can sometimes provide a more appropriate means of narrating his life (då pratar jag för mig själv. Och då är det alltid på engelska.

1 I for interviewer

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Mm, okej. Det låter bättre än att göra det på svenska). The other students agree with Jon, recognizing too how English narrates identities. Jacob, for example, talks about how self-talk in English provides him with the feeling of being more ‘grown up’, while Emila talks about how sometimes English is the only language that can properly mediate certain emotions, and of the impossibility of expressing such feelings in anything other than the English vernacular that surrounds her (det är sådana här små fraser som man ibland säger på engelska och det är inte… Alltså, man skulle inte kunna tänka sig att säga det på svenska, för det låter bara dumt och fel och bara allmänt töntigt).

Of course, experiences of English outside of school and young people’s relationships to the language differ greatly (Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2016).

Certainly, far from all similarly-aged students would regard English as a second mother tongue, or recognize using English in the self-talk that narrates their lives. Nevertheless, the discussion that these students engage in illustrates the extent to which English can be present in young people’s everyday lives and how it filters into their consciousness. What needs to be recognized therefore is that for increasing numbers of young people in Sweden today, English is not simply a resource that facilitates orientations in environments that have become increasingly complex as a consequence of globalization. It is also a resource highly implicated in processes of identity development.

A changing landscape for English teaching The professional task of educating children and young people is constantly changing. Teachers face the never-ending challenge of keeping up to date with developments in their subject, with pedagogical and methodological trends, shifting political directives, technological innovations, and the changing social realities of contemporary life. While the landscape of professional practice is continually shifting, and forever taking on new forms, for English teachers the changes they have to embrace and the adaptations they have to make involve an added dimension of challenge. This is because the role that English plays in young people’s lives is also constantly shifting.

This bears thinking about. Unlike the humanities and the natural and social sciences, processes of knowing and learning that take place in school are not paralleled by informal processes taking place in students’ lives outside © T h e au t h ors and S t u dentlitterat u r

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the classroom. While students are of course aware of differences in formal and informal learning, and make comparisons between learning that takes place in school, and the learning that takes place in connected learning environments (Ito et al., 2013) and in the affinity spaces of online interaction (Gee, 2005; Hayes & Gee, 2010), the divide between the English of free-time activities (as a lingua emotiva), and the English encountered in school (as a lingua academica and a lingua cultura) (Hult, 2017) lacks a parallel in any other subject.

Furthermore, the pace at which dissonances between English encountered in school and English encountered in free-time domains can grow is likely to be rapid. If we compare with other languages, it is of course true that changes in young people’s use of mother tongue languages can also be rapid. However, these changes are counterbalanced by the pace of change in language use within family groups, which is often far less dynamic. For English, changes in social domains have no counterbalance. This means that the gap between the ways in which English is used outside the classroom, and the ways in which it is used in school is likely to continue to expand.

For secondary teachers of English, whose primary aim is to provide the instruction and support that can enable students to develop communicative competence, the expectations of the curriculum and the students themselves that the subject should be meaningful in their everyday lives demands high levels of awareness and reflexivity. The intensification of globalization over the last two decades, and in particular the spread of high-speed mobile networked communication, has meant that the landscape of English language acquisition processes and English language teaching has undergone radical transformations (see e.g. Lai, 2017; Reinders & Benson, 2017). Sometime towards the end of the previous millennium, the status of English in the Swedish educational context shifted from having once been a foreign language (a language primarily learnt in formal settings, and where interactions in local environments are generally rare), to that of a second language (one frequently encountered in local environments). For example, as far back as the millennium turn, Viberg (2000) argued that in Sweden English could be regarded as second, rather than a foreign language.

In the current time, with the third decade of the new millennium close at hand, we might even be approaching a point where the status of English in Sweden is shifting again. As hinted at in the interview extract 28

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at the beginning of the chapter, for young people who spend substantial periods of their free-time in online environments, English has become integrated into their lives, and implicated in their identities to an extent that its influences have moved beyond those normally associated with a second language. In a number of important respects, English is perhaps more akin to an additional language that a child or young person might acquire on a parallel basis to their first language (L1), or, as one of the students in the above cited extract put it, “som ett andra modersmål”. As Ortega (2009) explains, in some circumstances children can begin to acquire an additional language at a point time where the essential pieces of their mother tongue are already in place. In such situations, she suggests, it can often be difficult to conceptually separate processes of second language acquisition from processes of bilingualism.

In Sweden, for many preschool-aged children, English can be highly present in their lives (Keaveny & Lundberg, 2014; Lundberg, 2016). For most, these influences are unlikely to be extensive. However, during the years between the start of school education and the beginning of the final stage of secondary education in grade seven this can change. At this point in their lives, children in Sweden start developing skills in English through frequent interactions with digital media that, for many, can extend to several hours each day (Swedish Media Council, 2017). Even though only few will have contacts with English outside of digital environments, due to the frequency with which the language is encountered in digital forms, in many senses the processes in which children acquire English may be closer to bilingualism than to the acquisition of a second language. Moreover, as a lingua emotiva (Hult, 2017; Phillipson, 2008), English can be highly enticing. Encountered in activities that are stimulating and entertaining, for many children the attractiveness of the language and the desire to be able to use it for selfexpression can fuel high-speed acquisition processes. For older children and young people – particularly those who are engaged in online activities that take up significant proportions of their leisure-time such as digital gaming and fanfiction writing, and which involve high levels of creativity and the development of genre-specific knowledge and skills – encounters with English take place in contexts that are highly identity-congruent.

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expression, but also a means of self-definition. In this sense, many young people in Sweden today can be understood as developing what Arnett (2002) has described as a ‘hybrid’ identity; that is an identity that is the product of influences that cannot be categorised in terms of a combination of aspects that are distinctly ‘local’ or distinctly ‘global’, but where such influences are intermeshed and unentwineable. For young people who develop hybrid identities – such as the students in the interview excerpt at the beginning of the chapter – their sense of self is equally likely to be mediated by English, as it is by their L1 (Henry & Goddard, 2015; Henry & Cliffordson, 2017).

For students who develop ‘hybrid’ identities, English is simply a part of who they are.

It is these changes, and the ways in which they impact on students’ responses to classroom learning, that constitute the currently greatest challenges for teachers of English (Ushioda, 2013). As language teacher educators, it is this challenge that has triggered our interest in the effects that students’ encounters with English in out-of-school domains have on motivation and engagement in school, and it is these concerns which form the background to the MoTiSSE project that was funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), and which was carried out between 2014 and 2017.

Over the years, each of us had become increasingly aware of how changes in young people’s experiences of English outside of school and changing patterns of language acquisition, were affecting attitudes to learning English inside the classroom. In her doctoral research, as well as in subsequent work in which she has investigated the effects of ‘Extramural English’ on language proficiency (Sundqvist 2009; Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2012), Sundqvist has demonstrated how the amount of time that secondary school students spend in English-mediated environments and the things involved in these encounters influence their oral skills and vocabulary development. In her doctoral work (see also Sundqvist & Wickström, 2015) she showed how the students in her study (N=80) spent an average of over 18 hours a week in English-mediated environments (20.8 hours per week for boys, and 16.4 hours per week for girls). For these students, positive correlations were found between the amount of time spent in English-mediated environments and test scores. Further, her findings also revealed that some out-of-school activities had a greater influence on results than others. Importantly, activities that involved higher levels of interaction, such as digital gaming 30

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and visiting English-mediated Internet sites, were found to impact more than activities involving receptive skills, such as listening to music and watching TV and films. Not surprisingly, boys not only spent more time involved with interactive activities than girls, but the impact of out-of-school Englishmediated activities on vocabulary and oral skills was also greater.

Around about the same time that Sundqvist was carrying out this research, in her work on the predictive properties of school grades, Thorsen (2014; Thorsen & Cliffordson, 2012) discovered that compared to other school subjects such as mathematics and Swedish, from the 1970s onwards the predictive power for achievement at subsequent educational levels of school grades in English had become progressively weaker. Reflecting on these results, Thorsen traced the reason to changes in young people’s free-time activities involving English. Over time, knowledge in English appeared to be gained in circumstances increasingly different to the two other core subjects of Swedish and mathematics. She argued that a possible explanation “might be found in the development of the status of English in recent years. Access to video games, Internet, films, and other media has increased immensely in the past few years, with the consequence that English, to a much greater extent than previously, is often learnt outside school” (2014, p. 142).

Aware of these findings, and results of his own work which indicated declines in motivation to learn English among boys between grades six and nine (Henry, 2009), in a number of articles Henry (2013, 2014) developed a series of proposals about the reasons why experiences of English outside school might impact negatively on motivation to learn in school, and why it might lead to negative responses to classroom activities. Like Sundqvist and Thorsen, he too used statistical techniques to show how, for a sample of first year upper secondary students, the perception of already being a competent speaker/user of English meant that there was little motivation to further develop skills through effort in the classroom. He also showed how, in a context where English constitutes “a constant background presence” in language learning in school (Ryan & Mercer, 2011, p. 166), holding the belief that English language skills were primarily developed outside school was connected with low motivation to learn English in school. Thus he argued that approaching learning with the ‘mindset’ that out-of-school contexts constitute the best places to learn English could have negative effects on motivation to engage in formal learning (Henry, 2014), a © T h e au t h ors and S t u dentlitterat u r

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proposal subsequently supported in empirical work (Henry & Cliffordson, 2017). Finally, he has also argued that students who perceive that English encountered in school is somehow not as ‘real’ as English encountered outside school would experience that things done in the classroom lacked authenticity, and that this too could negatively influence their motivation (Henry, 2013). Unlike the proposition that mindsets privileging naturalistic acquisition would impact negatively on motivation to learn English in school (Henry & Cliffordson, 2017), this remains to be established, and presents an interesting topic for future research.

Of course, these changes and their effects have been noticed by teachers too. The challenges presented by changes in young people’s social practices and encounters with English are perhaps best encapsulated by Eva Olsson, a teacher of English and French (and now a faculty member at the University of Gothenburg), who offers the following personal reflection: As a teacher, I often feel stunned by the miracle of learning; 12-year-old pupils arrive to lesson one in a French course with almost no prior knowledge of the language at all and then, after a few months, they are able to understand texts and to communicate with others to some extent. Sometimes I wonder how it happened. Since most pupils come across very little French outside of school, I conclude that the pupils learn the greatest part of the French they know at school and at home, doing homework.

Teaching English is different since the pupils have studied the language for several years when I meet them, at the age of 13–16, and since they are surrounded by English outside of school, watching TV, listening to music or playing computer games, for instance. The miracle of learning that I experience when teaching English is of a different kind; sometimes I am amazed by the fluency and range of vocabulary some pupils demonstrate when they leave school at the age of 16. The two hours of English provided by school every week could hardly explain the level of some pupils’ proficiency; it seems likely that they have also benefitted from contacts with the language outside of school. This group of pupils sometimes seems slightly bored at school; it is not always easy to create challenging English lessons on different levels at the same time. (Olsson, 2011, p. 1).

For students who might be “slightly bored” with what is on offer in the classroom, and who have confidence in their skills (and the manner in which

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they have been developed), providing motivational teaching constitutes a major professional challenge.

A fortunate subject?

The changes in young people’s encounters with English outside school, and the changing responses to classroom learning that they can trigger, are also reflected in quality evaluations of secondary school English. In the evaluation of English in secondary schools commissioned by the National Agency for Education (Skolverket) and carried out in 2003 under the leadership of Mats Oscarson and Britt-Marie Apelgren, students were found to have generally very positive attitudes to English. As Oscarson and Apelgren (2005) reported, “Students believe that the subject is valuable and they want to learn more (even though they already know quite a lot), they think it is important (but not so easy) [and] they would like to have a greater allocation of hours” (p.

83). Drawing attention to students’ extensive contacts with English outside school, and the implications that the influences of these encounters have for classroom teaching, Oscarson and Apelgren talk about how connections are made between knowledge and skills in English that derive from formal learning, and those stemming from informal acquisition. As they explain: It is not unusual that students bring different types of English-language material (song-lyrics, articles, instructions etc.) to school so as to ask their teacher questions about for example word choice, sentence formulations and content.

In this way students’ everyday knowledge of the subject meets with subject knowledge in school or, if we can put it this way, informal knowledge meets formal knowledge, which in turn often enhances “the desire to know”. (p. 84)

Concluding their summary of the state of the subject of English in secondary school, they view English as a ‘fortunate’ subject: English is a fortunate subject in the sense that students can so directly see the benefits of their learning through their continual meeting with the language outside of school. The same is true, if to a somewhat varying degree, for other subject areas of the curriculum. To clearly focus on and to take account of students’ informal learning and experiences outside school we believe is therefore increasingly important and increasingly productive approach in work to develop Swedish secondary school education. (p. 90, original emphasis) © T h e au t h ors and S t u dentlitterat u r

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In their evaluation Oscarson and Apelgren emphasize positive attitudes, interactions between formal and informal knowledge, an approach to learning where students identify everyday applications for knowledge gained in school, and, as a consequence, benefits for skills development. However, over subsequent years, the sense that English might be a “fortunate subject” has begun to be called into question, not least by teachers faced with the task of motivating students seemingly bored in English classrooms, and who experience the daily demand of creating “challenging English lessons on different levels at the same time” (Olsson, 2011, p. 1). Indeed, less than a decade after Oscarson and Apelgren’s report, the next evaluation of secondary school English, this time carried out by the newly established Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen), provides a rather different picture of students’ motivation.

In an evaluation based on extensive questionnaire surveys, interviews with students and teachers, and observations of English lessons at 22 different schools, the Inspectorate (2011) paint a rather sobering picture of how, in less than a decade, the situation in secondary classrooms had changed; the complementary and mutually beneficial interactions between in-school and out-of-school English noted by Oscarson and Apelgren in 2003 appeared to have given way to a situation where formal and informal uses of English had become increasingly divergent. While the Inspectorate note that Swedish students continue to perform extremely well in international comparisons – a longstanding trend where students generally outperform peers in other continues (for a discussion see Lundahl, 2012) – they voice a number of concerns. In respect to the roughly 300 English lessons that were observed, the Inspectorate make the following observations: • While there is a secure and supportive environment in English classes,

there are few challenges. Although students work dutifully with activities that are often structured around commercially-produced learning materials, they generally do so without enthusiasm.

• An insufficient number of activities are aimed at developing communicative skills, and in far too many lessons teachers and students communicate in Swedish.

• An overwhelming proportion of lessons do not offer opportunities for student influence, for students to work with areas and issues of 34

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1 Young people and English

interest to them, or are in some way suited to students’ particular needs.

• There is generally insufficient use of ICT. In addition to concerns about the learning environment in English classrooms, the Inspectorate identify an additional cause for alarm.

In common with previous evaluations, responses to the Inspectorate’s questionnaire reveal that the students surveyed assess that around half of what they know in English comes from contacts with the language outside of school. However, unlike in previous evaluations, where school and freetime English were seen to complement one another (Oscarson & Apelgren, 2005), the Inspectorate report that many students now differentiate between ‘school English’ and varieties of English encountered outside the classroom: [Students] talk about how in their free-time they communicate in English in authentic situations, for example on the Internet and how they watch English films without Swedish text. They often have little difficulty in understanding English song lyrics. Their encounters with English outside school are poorly utilized in many of the inspected schools. In school many students do not feel as confident when responding to questions or participating in discussions.

Bridging between these two “cultures” and enabling the English language to be equally as natural in as outside school, is of the greatest importance”. (p. 8 my translation)

Commenting on how young people recognise the presence of two ‘types of English’, and two ‘cultures’ in which it is encountered, the Inspectorate note that this impacts on responses to classroom learning. While like previous evaluations students are still positive about English lessons, they may value them for somewhat different reasons. Rather than being appreciated because of their importance in developing an increasingly essential life-skill, English lessons are viewed positively because they are seen as providing a period of respite in an otherwise demanding daily schedule. As the Inspectorate observe, “it has also emerged in some interviews that students see English lessons as an opportunity to ‘take it easy’ during the day. The format is familiar and the demands are not so high” (p. 23 my translation).

Having painted this rather negative picture of mundane and uninspiring classroom routines, where all too frequently communication takes place in © T h e au t h ors and S t u dentlitterat u r

35

Alastair Henry is Professor of Language Education at University West.

Pia Sundqvist is an Associate Professor of English Education and Linguistics at the University of Oslo and Karlstad University.

Cecilia Thorsen is a Senior Lecturer in Education at University West.

Motivational Practice Insights from the Classroom

Motivational Practice provides a rich account of how teachers who are successful in motivating their students negotiate classroom relationships, and create engaging learning opportunities. It sheds light on how motivation emerges through teacher–student relationships, and in classroom activities.

Drawing on examples of motivational practice from the Motivational Teaching in Swedish Secondary English (MoTiSSE) project, the book will help in-service and preservice teachers of English to develop perspective-taking skills that can enable them to teach in ways that students find meaningful, relevant and engaging.

This book offers a wonderful combination of a comprehensive survey of motivation theory and a rich collection of practical classroom activities – in short, everything you ever wanted to know about motivation! The accessible style and the readerfriendly structure is the icing on the cake. All in all, this is a very useful teacher’s resource – highly recommended.

ZO LTÁ N D Ö R N Y E I , U N I V E R S I T Y O F N OT T I N G H A M

This is a rare book, presenting examples of excellent English teaching from real school classrooms and discussing them with reference to the latest theories about learner motivation.

Lärare i Engelska i Sverige, ni är lyckligt lottade!

M A R T I N L A M B , U N I V E R S I T Y O F L E E DS

Art.nr 39568

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