Teaching Vocabulary and Literature in Swedish EFL Classrooms. Strategies in Upper Secondary School

Sammanfattning

The aim of this small-scale exploratory study is to explore upper secondary school EFL teachers’ vocabulary teaching strategies when working with literature, and how it may differ from when literature is not in focus. A mixed method was utilised with both a questionnaire and interviews, where there were seven survey responses and two interviews. Across the findings, three main themes were identified. These themes were students’ needs and interests, the importance of context, meaningfulness and usefulness, and active use and depth of vocabulary in activities. Overall, the teachers employed a variety of activities, where both different aspects of word knowledge and student strategies were highlighted. All teachers reported having incorporated vocabulary teaching when working with literature. This, combined with the importance of context that was emphasised by teachers and prominent in their reported practices, suggests that literature may be a meaningful way of providing context for learning and practicing vocabulary, which can be useful when presenting and working with words. Additionally, the findings suggest that there may be benefits to teaching and learning both vocabulary and literature when they are integrated, such as working with comprehension of texts and practice of language skills with the words. The findings also indicate that factors such as students’ needs and interests can impact teachers’ approaches to teaching vocabulary, and, in line with previous research, the importance of incorporating explicit work with vocabulary in the EFL classroom. This study offers some insight into upper secondary school teachers’ approaches to teaching vocabulary in combination with literature in a Swedish EFL context.