Audiovisual Input in the Swedish EFL Classroom

Sammanfattning: The aim of this essay is to gain insight into how audiovisual input is used in the classroom as a tool to teach vocabulary. This is done by exploring the use of digital audiovisual input in the form of film, documentaries, short videos, and cultural video content in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. Audiovisual input contains a few key elements: audio, video, and on-screen text; the core concept of audiovisual input is to assist the comprehensibility of the aural language in the input to help students develop their vocabulary word knowledge and grammar. The study focuses on the positive learning effects of using audiovisual input for students’ vocabulary acquisition. Through semi-structured interviews with three upper-secondary school teachers of English as a foreign language in Sweden, the study examines the participating teachers’ perspectives on using film to teach vocabulary and how their views and practices align with current research on the topic. The findings suggest that the participating teachers view the use of audiovisual input in the classroom positively, and that their views and practices are mostly concurrent with relevant theory and research on vocabulary acquisition from audiovisual input. This study contributes to the understanding of the role of audiovisual input in vocabulary learning, and highlights the potential of film and other audiovisual media in the EFL classroom.