Grammar teaching in Swedish upper secondary schools: what the syllabus says and what teachers do

Sammanfattning: This study aims to explore what the syllabi for three English courses in the Swedish upper secondary school suggest about grammar instruction and compares this with active English teachers’ interpretations of them. A question that has been researched for this study is if there are any possible connections between what the syllabi may suggest about teaching grammar and how teachers answer that they teach it. The first part of the study is based on the syllabi for English 5, 6 and 7. The second part is made up by results from a questionnaire which 39 English teachers responded to about their views on grammar and the syllabi as well as on their own experiences with teaching grammar. The teachers work in upper secondary schools in the southern part of Sweden and are of different ages and have different amount of experience. A qualitative analysis was carried out of the syllabi with the help from the subject commentaries on the subject of English provided by Skolverket and a web-based questionnaire was sent out active English teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools. The result from the questionnaire was quantitively analyzed and complemented with commentaries from the respondents. The findings show that not many suggestions are made in the syllabi on how grammar should be taught, with the exception for disfavouring of audiolingual exercise methods, only that it should be taught. Some connections to how the surveyed teachers responded that they work with grammar can be found to how the syllabi talk about teaching in general and grammar instruction.