As English dominates the Internet, most education systems need to prepare pupils to perform L2 in... more As English dominates the Internet, most education systems need to prepare pupils to perform L2 information searches. Generating efficient search terms and understanding the information retrieved requires good vocabulary knowledge. This study examined the relationship between vocabulary knowledge, L2 online searching, and attitudes towards online searching. A sample of Swedish pupils’ abilities in locating suitably difficult texts and learning words were tested by comparing their Vocabulary Size Test scores with the lexical density of their search results and subsequent text production. Long-term vocabulary recall and self-efficacy for searching online were also tested. The results indicate that pupils tended to read and write texts below their ability level. They were unaware that they could achieve more as their self-efficacy measures indicated high confidence levels despite rather modest skills. The challenge posed by the findings is to enable teenagers to recognize how much more ...
As English dominates the Internet, most education systems need to prepare pupils to perform L2 in... more As English dominates the Internet, most education systems need to prepare pupils to perform L2 information searches. Generating efficient search terms and understanding the information retrieved requires good vocabulary knowledge. This study examined the relationship between vocabulary knowledge, L2 online searching, and attitudes towards online searching. A sample of Swedish pupils' abilities in locating suitably difficult texts and learning words were tested by comparing their Vocabulary Size Test scores with the lexical density of their search results and subsequent text production. Long-term vocabulary recall and self-efficacy for searching online were also tested. The results indicate that pupils tended to read and write texts below their ability level. They were unaware that they could achieve more as their self-efficacy measures indicated high confidence levels despite rather modest skills. The challenge posed by the findings is to enable teenagers to recognize how much more effectively they could use the Internet, without damaging their confidence.
Studies conducted over the past sixty years have reported stereotypical gender representation in ... more Studies conducted over the past sixty years have reported stereotypical gender representation in school materials. Initiatives to counteract sexism have led to improvements, and the most overt gender-biased examples are less visible today. Despite this, studies still report gender imbalances. Since language has an enormous impact on how normative perceptions are created, increased knowledge about how we communicate and create knowledge about gender is needed. This study focuses on gender in EFL textbooks used in Swedish primary school. To reveal patterns of representation, a corpus was constructed and tagged to enable searches. The study reveals both equal and unequal representations. Equal patterns are shown in the numerical representation of proper names, and in verbs and adjectives collocating with females and males. However, animals and fantastic characters identified as either male or female in the books show traditional gender representations, with male characters not only oc...
Vocabulary and the textbook : An analysis of the teaching material Good Stuff aimed at school years 4-6
Syftet med detta arbete är att åskådliggöra variationen i det ordförråd som presenteras i läromed... more Syftet med detta arbete är att åskådliggöra variationen i det ordförråd som presenteras i läromedelsserien Good Stuff för skolår 4–6. Mer precist har följande forskningsfrågor behandlats: (i) Vilka ord är mest frekventa i böckernas texter? (ii) I vilken utsträckning förekommer och på vilket sätter sker återanvändning av orden? (iii) Vilka semantiska domäner finns representerade i det ordförråd som presenteras i de tre böckerna? För att besvara dessa frågor har en korpus av alla texterna i de tre böckerna skapats. Analysen visar att läromedlet till viss del stöttar ordinlärning (t.ex. genom övningar som kräver djupare mental bearbetning), men att det också skulle kunna förbättras i detta hänseende, i synnerhet gäller detta ordfrekvens och återanvändning av orden.The aim of this study is to shed light on variation in the vocabulary presented in Good Stuff, a teaching material aimed at school years 4–6 (age group 10–12 years) in Sweden. More precisely, the following questions have be...
Aktivitet: The Importance of Frames in Meaning Extension
Conference of the Swedish Association for Language and Cognition : 10/06/2009 - 10/06/2009, 2009
“Words are picked up along the way” – Swedish EFL teachers’ conceptualizations of vocabulary knowledge and learning
Language Awareness, 2021
Vocabulary is a core feature of language proficiency, requiring explicit attention in the languag... more Vocabulary is a core feature of language proficiency, requiring explicit attention in the language classroom. As teachers’ conceptualizations influence their teaching, their understanding of vocabulary deserves closer attention. Yet, few teacher cognition studies focus on vocabulary, and even fewer on non-native teachers’ conceptualizations of vocabulary. This paper presents an interview study with Swedish EFL teachers at secondary school level. Fourteen teachers were interviewed about their beliefs and practices in relation to vocabulary development in the classroom. The study shows that despite a general understanding of the importance of vocabulary in language learning among the teachers, vocabulary was not seen as a learning objective in its own right. Closely connected to this understanding, the teachers showed a great reliance on incidental vocabulary learning, where words were understood as “picked up along the way” while doing other things, such as reading and playing games. It was also found that although the teachers showed an awareness of the many aspects involved in word knowledge, they mentioned few methods to work with them. The study suggests a need for a more explicit focus on vocabulary instruction in the language learning classroom
Aktivitet: Annual Hawaii International Conference on Education
This study investigates Swedish student teachers’ beliefs about seventeen commonly held views on ... more This study investigates Swedish student teachers’ beliefs about seventeen commonly held views on language learning and language teaching. Their beliefs were surveyed by means of a questionnaire dis ...
Improving learning outcomes in the Swedish school system
The lack lustre performance of Swedish compulsory schoolsover the past few decades does not need ... more The lack lustre performance of Swedish compulsory schoolsover the past few decades does not need to define its future.As this report will show, the main challenges facing the Swedisheducation syste ...
Aktivitet: Semantik i fokus
Did you grasp that
"DID YOU GRASP THAT? Grasp is one of a number of verbs in English which can be used for both... more "DID YOU GRASP THAT? Grasp is one of a number of verbs in English which can be used for both physical and mental acquisition. Physical acquisition refers to the concrete action of laying hold of something with one’s hands and can be interpreted either literally or figuratively. In the former case what is grasped is a concrete object and the grasping is actually done with the use of one’s hands, e.g. grasp a rope. In the latter case, however, the grasped object is usually of a concrete character but the grasping is only performed metaphorically, e.g. grasp the nettle. Mental acquisition, on the other hand, refers to a metaphorical extension of the concrete action, where the laying hold of is made not with one’s hands but with the use of one’s brain. Mental acquisition in this context is thus the same as understanding. The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of the different usage patterns which grasp exhibits in actual language production. In order to achieve this, the 100 million word British National Corpus (BNC) has been searched. The analysis of grasp reveals that in most cases the verb appears in what could be labelled prototypical contexts and uses, but also that there are deviations from this prototype. The present study is the first in a series of analyses of acquisition verbs in English, which will also include acquire, buy, gather, receive and seize. "
Aktivitet: National Forum for English Studies
Aktivitet: SALC 2009
Aktivitet: Language, Communication and Cognition
Aktivitet: International Conference and Constituting Meeting of the Swedish Cognitive Linguistic Association (SweCLA)
Aktivitet: International Conference and Constituting Meeting of the Swedish Cognitive Linguistic ... more Aktivitet: International Conference and Constituting Meeting of the Swedish Cognitive Linguistic Association (SweCLA)
Lärarstudenter som medforskande aktörer i praxisnära ämnesdidaktisk forskning
Vocabulary is a key factor in successful language acquisition and as thetextbook is central in th... more Vocabulary is a key factor in successful language acquisition and as thetextbook is central in the teaching of English, ideas behind vocabularyinput in teaching materials should be based on researc ...
“The Text Comes First” – Principles Guiding EFL Materials Developers’ Vocabulary Content Decisions
Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 2021
One core aspect of learning a language is developing vocabulary, an endeavor that requires a stru... more One core aspect of learning a language is developing vocabulary, an endeavor that requires a structured and principled focus in the classroom. As the EFL textbook has a central position in the language learning classroom, it should have an important role to play in structuring vocabulary development. Yet, what guides decisions concerning the vocabulary content in textbooks has not been thoroughly studied. This paper presents an interview study with eight Swedish materials developers of frequently used EFL teaching materials aimed at school years 7–9. The results show that the materials developers focus primarily on providing engaging texts and base the vocabulary content on end users’ opinions and their own intuition. The study also indicates that word lists are construed as a tool primarily for reading comprehension rather than for vocabulary learning. The study concludes that vocabulary research findings appear to have a limited impact on decisions about vocabulary content
This article reports the findings of a comparative analysis of two English teaching course book s... more This article reports the findings of a comparative analysis of two English teaching course book series which are widely used in school years 4Á6 in Sweden: Good Stuff and New Champion. The analysis comprises comparisons of the vocabulary component in the teaching materials and examines the extent to which words Á adjectives, nouns and verbs Á recur in the books, whether there is a common core of words in the two series and, finally, whether vocabulary in the two teaching materials corresponds with accepted measures of English high-frequency words. The study shows that variation in vocabulary is considerable in individual books, within a series and between the two series; all textbooks contain a high proportion of one-time and low-frequency words. As a result, it is difficult to pin down a common core vocabulary. The study further shows that even though many words do correspond to general high-frequency words, as much as one-third are not found among the 2,000 most frequent English words.
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Papers by Marie Nordlund