Teaching English 5 to Swedish vocational students : student attitudes, motivation and adaptation of teaching

Sammanfattning: There has been research that suggests that an anti-studying culture is present in vocational programs in Sweden (Högberg 2009), and that teachers need to adapt their teaching to the students’ vocational interests in order to create an interest in learning (Lindahl 2015; Riley & Eriksson 2014; Smagorinsky et al. 2010). This study investigates how three teachers working at a vocational school in a rural area of Sweden teach the English 5 course. This entails investigating how the teachers perceive student attitudes, how they adapt their teaching, and also how they work to raise motivation among the students. The method used for this is semi-structured personal interviews along with a qualitative content analysis. The results of the study showed that attitudes among students are generally good with some exceptions, where lacking proficiency seems to be a factor regarding poor attitudes. It became evident that the main tool for raising motivation among the students is the adaptation of the teaching. The results also showed that some student groups are more interested in learning English than others, likely because of some students seeing English more a useful tool for their future working life. The issue of social structures regarding the Swedish educational system is also brought up. There is an implication for teachers regarding the adaptations – there has to be a balance between making vocational students interested, while still making sure they do not miss out on any content, i.e. that they get equal opportunity to learn as other students.