| dc.description.abstract | Despite the fact that the English Curriculum in Norway does not make the use of textbooks compulsory, most teachers in Norwegian schools use a textbook or a smartbook to teach English from 1st to 10th grade. This project investigates in form of an intervention study if the use of authentic material as opposed to textbooks/smartbooks increases student engagement and participation in the 8th to 10th grade EFL classroom in Norway, which may lead to higher learning outcomes in English, as language fluency. Furthermore, this project examines the students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards replacing the use of textbooks/smartbooks with student classroom-based research and authentic material exclusively. For this study, a lesson plan which uses exclusively authentic material has been developed and implemented in a 9th grade class at a school in Stavanger for a time period of 5 months, the autumn semester in 2022. Before and after the intervention, the students participated in two surveys. In addition, English teachers in lower secondary school, mostly but not exclusively from Stavanger in Norway, participated in this study by completing an online survey.
The findings of this study show that using authentic material exclusively, in the form of videos and movies, and conducting student classroom-based research using the internet, do increase the students’ engagement and participation in class, making them more confident and fluent in their English skills. Additionally, the students are overall willing to use authentic material exclusively in their English classes, especially videos, movies and online games. Most teachers, however, are willing to use authentic material regularly, but not exclusively.
The research concludes affirming that authentic material can be used exclusively in the EFL/ESL classroom in Norway following the Norwegian English Curriculum, as opposed to textbooks/smartbooks, and that it is also recommended for students’ engagement and participation in their English classes. This study shows that authentic material and the students’ motivation contribute to increase the students’ proficiency level in English. Nevertheless, this study suggests that authentic material is recommended to be used exclusively from 9th grade and onwards, only if there is a good and positive classroom environment, where teacher-student and student-student relationships are safe and trustworthy. Since students in 8th grade in Norway come from different primary schools and many students and teachers meet for the first time when starting in 8th grade, it might not be recommended to use only authentic material and doing student classroom-based research until the whole class and the teacher have gotten to know each other and feel safe and comfortable with each other. This way a positive and safe classroom environment is created, where everyone has the chance to participate freely without being judged or misinterpreted, but encourage to speak up, share their findings, make mistakes and learn from each other. | |
