AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

Swedish Student Preferences Concerning the use of Native Speaker Norm English in Classroom Teaching

by Sara Engelin




Institution: Mälarden University
Department:
Year: 2016
Keywords: native speaker norm English; Swedish English; English learning; attitudes; variants; Humanities; Languages and Literature; Humaniora; Språk och litteratur; English; Engelska
Posted: 02/05/2017
Record ID: 2133128
Full text PDF: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-32998


Abstract

This study is based on a previous study made by Ivor Timmis (2002). It explores how important Swedish students find learning English to be and to what extent Swedish student want to conform to native speaker English now that it has become a global language with a multitude of common variants. (Sweden formerly allowed only British and/or American native speaker varieties in English education but have now allowed for other variants as well). The focus of this study was the attitudes and preferences of 69 university students from Västmanlands län and the data was collected using questionnaires. The results suggest that a clear majority of students prefer to learn native speaker English in areas of pronunciation, formal grammar and informal grammar.  Over half of the participants desire to master both formal and informal native speaker English grammar. The results also suggest that even though the students desire to learn informal native speaker English grammar, not all students understand what that means. Based on these results and Timmis’s, this study suggests that the majority of the Swedish university students that participated in the study would prefer to be taught native speaker English, but not all students. Some effort to teach more informal grammar might be wanted by the students since a great majority wish to learn it, but cannot identify it.