Kultur-Språk-Medier
Degree Project in English Studies and Education 15 Credits
Pronunciation Teaching in the Swedish
EFL Classroom
Uttalsundervisning i det svenska EFL-klassrummet
SIGRID ANDERSSON
Department of English and Education Examiner: Anna Wärnsby Date of Final Draft: Supervisor: Eric Pudney
Abstract
This essay aims to explore how Swedish teachers of English view the shift from a Native Speaker ideal to English as a Global Language in connection to pronunciation teaching. The essay also aims to explore how the teachers teach this in practice. By interviewing five professional teachers, the results of the study showed that most of the teachers did not teach pronunciation explicitly and believed that pronunciation teaching should be integrated into other parts of language learning. None of the teachers claimed to expect their students to be able to speak with a native accent but believed that the previous views on pronunciation teaching, to some extent, still lingers on. Furthermore, all teachers did use American English or British English when teaching pronunciation but did not expect their students to use these dialects when speaking English. The
teachers believed that their students mainly spoke with a dialect influenced by American English since this dialect is what the students mostly hear outside the classroom.
This essay is primarily relevant to Swedish EFL teachers and students who are becoming teachers of English, but this study may also contribute to global research within pronunciation teaching. Because of the lack of guidelines regarding
pronunciation teaching in the syllabus, the insight in the views and teaching methods of pronunciation teaching can function as a guideline and inspiration for how to teach pronunciation in a continuously globalized world where the views on the English language continually changes.
Keywords: English as a Foreign Language (EFL), Pronunciation, Syllabus, Native
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ... 1
2. AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 3
2.1.AIM ... 3
2.2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 3
3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ... 4
3.1. SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ... 4
3.2.ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE ... 5
3.3. SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND THE NATIVE SPEAKER IDEAL... 5
3.4.ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE ... 7
3.5.PRONUNCIATION TEACHING IN THE SWEDISH CURRICULUM ... 9
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 12
4.1.QUALITATIVE RESEARCH INTERVIEW ... 12
4.2.PARTICIPANTS AND CONTEXT ... 13
4.3.RESEARCH ETHICS ... 14
4.4.INTERVIEWS ... 15
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ... 17
5.1.WHAT ARE THE PROFESSIONAL TEACHER’S VIEWS ON PRONUNCIATION TEACHING IN CONNECTION TO ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE IN THE SWEDISH EFL CLASSROOM? ... 17
5.2.WHAT METHODS AND DIDACTIC CHOICES DOES THE PROFESSIONAL TEACHER REPORT MAKING WHEN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION? ... 22
5.3.WHAT VIEWS DO THE TEACHERS’ LEARNERS HAVE ON EGL VERSUS NS WHEN LEARNING PRONUNCIATION? ... 26
6. CONCLUSION ... 29
REFERENCES ... 31 APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW GUIDE ... 35
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1.
Introduction
In the Swedish classroom, students are introduced to English in the early years of elementary school. The Core Content of the Swedish syllabus for English year 7-9 describes how the students should get the possibility to work with communication and reception. The students should be able to understand “Spoken English with slight regional and social accents” (Skolverket, 2019). In the comment material to the syllabus for English, Skolverket (2017) states the expectation of students being able to
understand English with regional and social accents as necessary because of the increased usage of English no longer being nation-bound and therefore should be seen from a social instead from a national perspective (p.8). This view on reception
correlates with the shift views on EGL, where English functions as the world’s lingua
franca, and where it is the most commonly used language between individuals who
have another first language than English (Simpson Davies & Patsko, 2013). But another crucial part of using a language is speaking, where the students should be able to use “Language phenomena to clarify, vary and enrich communication such as
pronunciation, intonation, and fixed language expressions, grammatical structures, and sentence structures” (Skolverket, 2019). In this section, it is not explicitly mentioned how pronunciation should be viewed. In addition, pronunciation is not further stated in the syllabus or the knowledge requirements, which may lead to confusion about if, how, and to what extent, teaching pronunciation in the classroom should be conducted. In the previous syllabus LPO94, it is explicitly stated that the aim of pronunciation is that the students should aim to speak with a “British or American accent” (Modiano, 2009). This specific aim of teaching pronunciation has not been replaced with any other guidance to the expectations of how the students should be able to pronounce English. However, the views on English as a language is stated in the reception section of the syllabus and can be connected to the changed views on English as an international language. Modiano (2009) states that today, the views on pronunciation teaching has shifted towards EGL. Since the majority of English speakers today are non-native speakers (NNS), the view on what pronunciation correctness is has shifted (Jenkins, Modiano, & Seidlhofer, 2001). Since it is stated in the syllabus, pronunciation is still a
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skill that needs to be taught; however, it is not clearly stated how. Research also shows that since the view on how to pronounce English in the Swedish classroom has shifted, teachers can find it challenging to apply these norms on their pronunciation teaching in the classroom (Hult, 2017). The research on pronunciation teaching has also been somewhat limited. Moreover, research has mainly focused on ESL teaching and learning methods in other areas, such as learning and teaching grammar (Lightbown & Spada, 2013). The limitation of research within this area is visible both in teachers’ programs, but also in the overall classroom-oriented research (Baker & Murphy, 2011). This may lead to teachers finding it difficult and feel that they do not possess the tools or have the confidence to teach pronunciation in the ESL classroom (Bai & Yuan, 2019). When asking Swedish teachers about their views on English as a Global
Language, Forsberg et al. (2019) found that although teachers aim to teach English as a global language, the Native Speaker-ideal is still used in Swedish classrooms today (p. 53).
This essay aims to explore how Swedish teachers view pronunciation teaching within their classrooms, in the notion of the absence of guidance on how to teach
pronunciation. Because there is a limitation of research within the pronunciation area (Baker & Murphy, 2011), this may lead to teachers finding it difficult to teach, as well as a feeling of lacking the tools and confidence to teach pronunciation in the ESL classroom (Bai & Yuan, 2019). The essay also aims to explore the teachers’ beliefs on the shifted views on pronunciation teaching, from being explicitly mentioned as a Native Speaker standard in the previous curriculum to not being specified at all in LGR11. Since production is an essential part of using a language, it is essential for teachers to understand how to assess these skills, and how to teach them. This essay aims to add research to the unresearched area.
Through a qualitative study, the essay explores how Swedish EFL teachers work with pronunciation in their classrooms. The essay also explores their views on English as a global language, and how the shift in views on pronunciation teaching has affected their didactic choices when teaching ESL in the classroom. This study aims to add research within a field that especially lacks EFL teachers’ views on pronunciation teaching.
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2.
Aim and Research Questions
2.1. Aim
This essay aims to explore how professional teachers interpret and conduct pronunciation teaching in their classrooms. Furthermore, it explores professional teachers’ beliefs and experiences of EGL and the NS-ideal when teaching
pronunciation. Additionally, the essay explores the professional teachers’ perceptions of how their learners view English from an NS or EGL angle.
2.2. Research Questions
What are the professional teachers’ views on pronunciation teaching in connection to NS and EGL in the Swedish EFL classroom?
What methods and didactic choices does the professional teacher report making when teaching pronunciation in the Swedish classroom?
What views do the teachers’ learners have on EGL versus NS when learning pronunciation?
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3.
Theoretical Background
In this chapter, the relevant key terms from the research questions are unpacked and explained through previous research within the area. The first section of this chapter briefly describes how a second language is learned. The following sections of the chapters present the theoretical background of the NS ideal and English as a Global Language. Finally, the final section in this chapter presents the Swedish syllabus for English states regarding pronunciation teaching.
3.1 Second Language Acquisition
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research explores how learners acquire an implicit mental representation of a second language when already requiring his/her first
language (Keating, 2015). In the 1980s, Krashen presented his views on SLA, where he claimed that SLA could only occur in an implicit form without any linguistic rules such as grammar. Krashen (1982; 2009) claimed that the explicit learning of a language where the learners are corrected when making errors would prevent their language development. Krashen referred to explicit learning as “learning” and implicit learning as “acquisition” (Krashen, 1982; 2009).
Krashen’s theory has since then been questioned and re-formed. Today, many
linguistics believe that a combination of both implicit and explicit learning is needed to learn a language (Lundahl, 2012). Ellis (2009) has further developed Krashen’s theories, and he describes the implicit learning as a process where the learners are unaware that they are learning. On the other hand, explicit learning is a process where the learners are aware of the learning process itself (Ellis, 2009). Krashen’s SLA theory claims that these two systems are separate learning processes, unaffected by each other. However, Ellis and many other linguists seem to view these as two continuous processes that can affect each other (Lundahl, 2012). In the notion of pronunciation, Krashen (1982; 2009) argued that pronunciation is not learned, it is a process that occurs implicitly (Müller, 2013). A study from 2019 explored how pronunciation learning was affected by three different teaching methods, and the study did, in fact, find that explicit pronunciation
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teaching can be beneficial since the learners are taught how to notice and practice pronunciation. (Saito & Plonsky, 2019).
3.2 English as a Second Language
According to Lightbown and Spada (2013), when learners learn a second language, prior knowledge about their first language can be both an advantage as much as a disadvantage for the learning process. Since the students have already developed language strategies within their first language, they can apply these to the second language. At the same time, their previous language strategies can result in the students not understanding the specific characteristics of the language that are going to learn (p. 37). Another difference when learning a second- and a first language is also the amount of time that learners are exposed to the language. When learning their first language, learners are exposed to that language in their everyday lives and are exposed to their first language far more than to their second language (Lightbown & Spada, 2013). Research shows that if the learners’ first language has similar stress and rhythm as the English language, it is easier for the learner to become proficient in their English pronunciation (Lightbown & Spada, 2013).
3.3. Sociolinguistics and the Native Speaker Ideal
A language can be defined both linguistically and sociolinguistically (Davies, 2003). Bright (2015) says that the term Sociolinguistics is challenging to define, but one way to explain the term is that it “deals with the relationships between language and society” with the focus on linguistic diversity (p. 12). Politically, languages can be used as defining groups and individuals, sometimes with the desire to belong to a specific group, or the desire to belong to a group because this specific group stands for a certain prestige (Davies, 2003). Furthermore, a language can lead to identification where language can identify a speaker in the same way as religion, gender, or race. Davies (2003) claims that in this case, language is symbolic rather than communicative where a
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specific group share of the speech community, standard language, language use, and stereotypes (p. 55) Although the members of a community may find a specific foreign language superior to their own, this language may not be used within their community. The attitudes of the members of a particular speech community are the foundation of that specific community (Davies, 2003).
Davies (2003) continues to express the misconception of the beliefs that the English language is not standardized. Although there is no English Academy, English is standardized by the media, computers, and centralized educations systems.
Furthermore, if there would be a standardized form of English, this standardization would change since it is a process that must change during a time (pp. 62-64). In addition, when a language is used in educational materials, the language will become standardized both with the learners of the language and the NS (Davies, 2003).
Although there is a standard English from a communicative viewpoint, there can be an advantage for second language speakers to retain their foreign accent. By retaining their accent, the speaker chooses not to be included in the target language/accent’s cultural knowledge and expectations (Davies, 2003). A study from 2002 explored both teacher and student attitudes towards NS versus the EGL pronunciation ideal. The study showed that a majority of the students preferred to be able to speak as the NS-ideal, where a small majority of the teachers thought that the EGL ideal was to be preferred when teaching pronunciation (Baker & Murphy, 2011). In the notion of the NS-ideal, Baker, and Murphy (2011) present a study conducted in 2005 showed that many teachers in primary school still preferred the Native Speaker (NS) model when teaching
pronunciation. However, teachers teaching in upper secondary thought that
intelligibility should be the primary focus when teaching pronunciation. Although some teachers think that the goal to teach EGL pronunciation is desirable in theory, many teachers find the expectation of them teaching English as a Global Language hard to achieve (p. 36). According to Modiano (2003), a reason for this is that, in Europe, the belief that the NS-ideal, focusing on American English (AmE) and British English (BrE), is the “correct” way of speaking English still lingers on within the educational community. This view on pronunciation is disvaluing the other forms of English that are often to be found in the classroom (p. 35). Modiano (2003) continues to address the problems with aiming for an NS speaker ideal and states that in some countries, a
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specific dialect or accent is considered to be socially inferior. When educators prompt their students to use a specific accent of English, the teacher forces the students into a hierarchical system (p. 37). In the notion of socially inferior groups, learners often aspire to belong to a community of speakers that is usually imagined, which are
communities that may not be existing communities of language. However, they are still extremely powerful abstractions where the context of students being exposed to these communities is usually limited to the classroom (Alastair & Goddard, 2015).
The preferred accent within many educational systems is the Received Pronunciation (RP) English, which is viewed as the standard accent of English (Modiano, 2003). This accent is closely associated with the upper-middle and the upper classes of British society. In addition, because of RP being the preferred accent on the channel BBC, it is also commonly referred to as “BBC English.” Although many EFL educational systems and faculties view this to be the correct form of English, there are many varieties of English even within Great Britain, which means that the RP accent, spoken by only 3-5 percent of the English population, can not be viewed as the standard form of BrE
(Rotter, 2019; Modiano, 2003). Today, there has been a shift in the views of the English language, where many learners of English aim to identify to the community of Global English, a globalized, cosmopolitan, world-citizen identity (Alastair & Cliffordson, 2017). Although English is viewed as a global language, Carrie & McKenzie, (2018) found that learners usually view these accents to hold a higher status than other accents, meaning that they are viewed as the standard accents of English (p. 3).
3.4. English as a Global Language
EGL is when English is used between speakers that do not have English as their first language (Baker & Murphy, 2011). However, when English is used around the world, researchers have used many different terms when describing English as an international language. Kachru’s Three-Circle Model categorizes the varieties of English into three circles; ‘The Inner Circle’ that includes countries such as New Zealand, the USA, and Great Britain, where English is used as a first language. ‘The Outer Circle’ where English is spoken as a second language, for example, Nigeria. ‘The Expanding Circle’ includes countries where English does not function as a foreign language. However, it is
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used in areas such as tourism, business, and education. In Kachru’s model, Sweden would be placed within the Expanding Circle ( Kachru cited in Lundahl, 2012).
A vast amount of terms are used to describe English language communication between speakers. And apart from the terms, English as a Global Language and English as an International English, the term lingua franca is also commonly used. Jenkins (2006) states that terms such as “International English” “English as a Global Language,” “World English” are widely used without further details of what they mean in practice (p. 160). For example, if the term “International English” is used, it suggests that there is only one form of English that is easy to differentiate from other forms of English. This view has led to many EFL researchers using the term “lingua franca” instead. Moreover, according to the Cambridge Dictionary (2019), Lingua Franca is defined as a language spoken between groups that do not share the same language. None of the sources refer to English as being the specific language that is spoken between different groups. However, the Cambridge Dictionary (2019) describes English as “the
international business community sees English as a lingua franca.” A definition supported by Bolton (2018) that adds the university environment where English is the definition of the term Lingua Franca (p. 6). Modiano (2003) has conducted extensive research regarding English as a Global Language, focusing on the European Union and the widespread use of English within the member countries of the EU. A new dialect of English called Euro-English, where there are no standard structures, and the language is influenced by the variety of the speakers’ native language (Jenkins, Modiano &
Seidlhofer, 2001). Jenkins (2001) claims that within this Euro-English dialect, the intelligibility is the primary factor rather than focus on a specific pronunciation standard (p. 68).
Furthermore, when second language speakers with different native languages communicate in English, they seem to adapt their pronunciation to increase the intelligibility. Also, speakers of Euro-English seem to accept the pronunciation differences when communicating. For example, some sounds do not exist in the
Swedish language, as well as there are sounds that speakers of Spanish have difficulties pronouncing (Jenkins, Modiano, & Seidlhofer, 2001). In general, many of the ESL speakers are highly efficient when communicating in English, since they have
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experience of using English in cross-cultural forums, which leads to the EFL speakers being able to speak an English that is easy to understand (Modiano, 2003).
But how do Swedish adolescents acquire English as a Second Language? Sundqvist and Sylvén (2014) states that adolescents have access to English on platforms such as the internet, music, games, advertisements, and movies. In contrast to other countries, Sweden does not dub English speaking movies. Instead, the movie is shown in its original format with subtitles (p. 4), where the programs broadcasted usually originate from the USA (Alastair & Goddard, 2015). Because of all the platforms where English is used, many Swedes come in contact with the language on a daily basis, and in their research, Sundqvist and Sylvén (2014) found that adolescents are devoting more hours to English outside the classroom than in school (p. 17). In the notion of what accent students prefer to use when speaking English, Carrie and McKenzie (2018) add that except the amount of exposure to an accent, geographical proximity is also a factor that affects what dialect a learner decides to use while speaking English. However, as the social factors still play a significant role, where the learners’ may feel a closer affiliation to a geographically distant countries’ political and social culture (Davies, 2003; Carrie & McKenzie, 2018).
3.5. Pronunciation Teaching in the Swedish Curriculum
In Sweden, all professional teachers are obliged to adapt their teaching to the
Curriculum, which is developed by the Swedish Government. Although the curriculum should function as a point of reference for professional teachers to follow, there are different factors that influence how the curricula (and syllabuses) are used in practice. Ennis (1990) describes John Goodlad et al. (1979) different perspectives of curriculum implementation, where the implementation of a curriculum is complex and highly subjective, Goodlad’s perspective is explained by different domains that affect the use of the curriculum (p. 79). ‘The formal domain’ is the perspective where official
documents have been developed within the school system and approved by a governing representative. ‘The perceived domain’ is the teacher’s interpretation of what is taught in the classroom, and in this domain, the teachers’ values and experience have a significant influence. Finally, ‘The operational domain’ regards how the curriculum
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standards are executed in the classroom (Ennis, 1990). There can be a difference in teachers’ beliefs about the curriculum and how they teach these in practice (Eklund, 2003). In the notion of Goodlad et al. (1979) theory of the curriculum is more than a formal document that is strictly followed, it can be interpreted differently. Pronunciation is stated in the sentence “Language phenomena to clarify, vary, and enrich
communication such as pronunciation, intonation and fixed language expressions, grammatical structures, and sentence structures.” This sentence is the only time
pronunciation is mentioned in the syllabus for English. Furthermore, in the Knowledge Requirements, the students should be able to “[…] express themselves simply,
understandably, and relatively coherently. To clarify and vary their communication, pupils can work on and make simple improvements to their communications” (Skolverket, 2019).
Lundahl (2012) states that when teaching English in Sweden, the focus should not be limited to the ideal of the English of the Inner Circle. Furthermore, The Swedish syllabus for English states that teaching should “[…] provide pupils with opportunities to develop knowledge about and an understanding of different living conditions, as well as social and cultural phenomena in the areas and contexts where English is used” (Skolverket, 2019). Lundahl (2012) describes this as an awareness of English being used in other places in the world than only Inner-Circle ones such as New York or London (p. 84). Baker and Murphy (2011) suggest that curriculum considerations play a role in the in-class teaching of pronunciation (p. 41). The Swedish Department of Education, Skolverket (2017) describe the globalization of English by stating that students should be able to see beyond the traditional and previous thoughts of English as a nationally limited language, which in the end, would result in increased tolerance and intercultural awareness (p. 6). Furthermore, in the core content of the Swedish syllabus for English, one of the communicative skills is that the students should
experience “Spoken English with slight regional and social accents” (Skolverket, 2019). Skolverket (2017) explain this paragraph by stating that because of the increased usage of English in contexts such as in the digital world, the language is no longer nation-bound and should be seen from a social, rather than a national, perspective (p.8). In the previous curriculum from 1994, it was clearly stated that the NS ideal was the aim of English pronunciation teaching, but has since then focused on the use of English as a Global Language (Modiano, 2009). Although Skolverket’s (2019) interpretation of
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pronunciation teaching changed the view from an NS ideal to EGL, the latter term is never explicitly mentioned in the curriculum (Skolverket, 2019).
When asking Swedish and German teachers about their views on English as a Global Language, Forsberg et al. (2019) found that although teachers aim to teach English as a global language, the NS-ideal is still used in Swedish classrooms today. Moreover, teachers tend to use a mix of American English and British English when teaching, indicating that teachers still believe these dialects to be the “correct” forms of English (pp. 50-51). However, the comment material for the syllabus for English states that students have different needs and experiences of the English language. Students have learned English in a different context and have different mother tongue languages. Because of this, the paragraph where pronunciation is mentioned should be seen as a guideline rather than a point of reference (Skolverket, 2017). Although the intercultural aspect is mentioned in the curriculum, and efforts to include various English-speaking countries in the education system, it has not affected the practices of Swedish teachers where students learn about the conditions of countries such as Great Britain and the USA (Tholin, 2014).
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4.
Research Methodology
This chapter describes how this study was conducted together with the selection process when finding participants to interview in the study. This chapter also presents the ethical aspects of a qualitative interview and how these apply to this study.
4.1 Qualitative Research Interview
The qualitative research method focuses on insight, meaning within a context where the researcher interprets the collected data. The results in this essay are based on a
qualitative study of five professional teachers on their views on pronunciation teaching related to the changes in English as a world language. When researching within
education, the goal is usually to give an insight into how teachers think, since teaching is a complex subject area (Simpson, 2005) This study aimed to get a broader knowledge of specific teachers’ methods and didactic choices, which in the basic form, aims to extend the researcher’s knowledge about a specific phenomenon (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). In this study, the interviews were recorded to be able to return to my interviews when compiling the “Results” chapter in the essay. The most common form of
documenting an interview is through voice-recoding, where the researcher can return to the interview repeatedly (Kvale, 2007)
In this essay, the result is based on a qualitative study where five interviews with professional teachers were conducted. The interviews were recorded and then
transcribed. Many types of research use transcriptions when conducting interviews, and even claim that this is necessary (Kvale, 2007). Bryman (2011) states that the process of transcribing can be time-consuming, where a single interview can take up to six hours to transcribe. In addition to this, the amount of text that transcribing results can be
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transcribing and claims that the aspect of transcribed interviews as an interpretation is often overlooked. He further expresses that the conventional view of transcriptions is that transcriptions are hard facts or proof from the conducted interview. Transcriptions are, in fact, a process where the researcher transforms one narrative form to another where a part of the oral language is lost. Language expressions such as tone of voice and body expressions were not included in a transcript, where the final transcription of the interview can lose its context (p. 3). With this in mind, the researcher had to be transparent regarding in what form the interviews were transcribed to since there is no standard form of how to transcribe interviews (Kvale, 2007). In the transcriptions, I have decided not to include pauses, noises, or some of the probe questions. The reason for this is that, according to Kvale & Brinkmann (2014), the quotes in the transcriptions are more precise if leaving out pauses and additional sounds that the interviewer and participants made during the interviews (p. 331).
4.2 Participants and Context
It is usually challenging to know beforehand how many participants a study will include. According to Edwards and Holland (2013), the chosen number of participants depends on two main factors: the purpose of the research and the time limit for the research (p. 67). Because of the ten-week time frame of this research, the number of participants is limited. However, since the qualitative research method often focuses on getting an insight within a different subject (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015), the number of interviews does not have to be vast. Even a single interview can give enough
information for the research (Edwards & Holland, 2013). Because of the possibility of gaining useful information from a few participants, together with the time limit of this project, I have decided to interview five professional teachers. The sampling in this study is a purposeful sampling where participants of the study are selected based on what information the researcher wants to gain. Furthermore, these participants are criterion-based selected, meaning that the participants of the study meet specific criteria that benefits the study, which in this case is professional teachers (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015).
I decided to interview professional teachers that I either have worked with myself and professional teachers within my social circle. This decision was based on the time limit
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of the research, where it is easier and more time-efficient to get in contact with professional teachers’ through my social circle. It also allows me to save time by knowing that they teach English as a subject before I conduct the interviews. However, because of the selection of participants within my social circle, the participants in this study is not limited to a single age group, one school, and equivalent professional experience. The city where the teachers worked is a diverse city with different student groups and teachers, all different experiences, and this study adds more significant and varied insight into how pronunciation is taught in the Swedish EFL classroom. The participants in this study were the following:
- Participant 1: Has been teaching English for two years and is currently working with year 7-9
- Participant 2: Has been teaching English for five years and is currently teaching year 9 but has previously taught English at an upper secondary level.
- Participant 3: Has been working as a teacher at the upper secondary for eleven years and has been teaching English for seven years.
- Participant 4: Has been working as an English teacher for ten years with students grades 7-9.
- Participant 5: Has been working as a teacher for thirty years and is teaching year 7-9.
4.3 Research Ethics
It is essential to distinguish between the process of seeking knowledge versus
conducting research. According to Vetenskapsrådet (2017), the research should aim to gain new, or additional, knowledge about a particular area (p. 19). Similar research within this area has previously done, however, not with the same participants or with the same interview guide as in this essay. The research in this essay gives additional insight into teachers’ views on the NS speaker ideal in a classroom context.
Furthermore, it is vital for both the participants and the future readers of this essay to be aware of what context the research is conducted (Vetenskapsrådet, 2017). With this in mind, I have informed all of my participants about why this study is conducted, and how the information they give me is used.
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All the participants in this study are anonymous, which means that any information about the participants that can be traced to a specific individual is not included in this essay. Since research can only be conducted with the consent of the participants, it is essential to give the participants as much information as possible about the study. If the participants are not informed about the previously mentioned parts of the study, they are not able to give their legal consent. In addition to these steps, the consent must be carefully documented (CODEX, 2019). As previously mentioned, the consent of a participant can only be given if s/he is informed of the circumstances of the research. According to CODEX (2019), the information to the participants should include:
- The plan for the research - The aim of the research
- What methods will be used in the study
- What possible risks and impacts the study may have - Who is responsible for the research
- That the consent is voluntary
With the rules of CODEX (2019) in mind, the participants were given the information above by e-mail before participating in the study.
4.4 Interviews
The interviews took place at the participants’ workplace to make it convenient and accessible for the participants to conduct the interview (Edwards & Holland, 2013). The interviews in this study were recorded. According to Merriam & Tisdell (2015),
audio/recording is the preferred method when conducting interviews. Because note-taking during interviews can be a challenging task for the researcher, it can be
challenging to choose what information is relevant or not during the interview session. Additionally, it can be difficult for the untrained interviewer to write at a pace where s/he will be able to write down everything that is said (p. 131). Another reason to favor an auto-recorded interview is that the researcher can focus on listening to and keep eye contact with the participants and asking probe-questions (Edwards & Holland, 2013). When interviewing the participants, some of the participants may give answers that need to be developed further. If this occurs, a method that can be used is probing
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through probe questions. Probing can be expressed in different forms; silence, gestures, or full sentences (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Since it is impossible to know if probe questions are necessary before conducting the interviews, the probe questions are not included in the interview guide. Since this essay explores how teachers apply the Non-native speaker ideal to their pronunciation teaching in their classroom, the questions are mainly experience and behavioral questions. The study aims to get an insight into the teacher’s work in his/her classroom, which means that questions regarding actions and activities are the main focus (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015)
The interviews were semi-structured, which means that an interview-guide was used. However, they contain both structured and unstructured questions. The semi-structured interview is based on questions regarding a specific issue, field, or subject. Although the questions may be asked in a different order and allowing the participants to give open-ended answers, the researcher has a specific goal with conducting the interview
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). For the complete interview guide used in this research, see Appendix 1.
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5.
Results and Discussion
As previously mentioned, this essay aimed to explore what didactic choices professional EFL teachers made when they applied the changed views on pronunciation connected to English as a Global Language in their EFL classroom. In addition to this aspect, the essay aimed to explore teachers’ views on working with English as a Global Language and how they teach this in practice in their classrooms. This chapter present the results of the study, together with a discussion connected to the theoretical background. The first section answers the question of how the participants view the changed views on pronunciation. In the second section, the results regarding pronunciation teaching are discussed. The final section of the chapter explores the participants' beliefs on how their students perceive English pronunciation in the classroom.
5.1 What are the professional teacher’s views on
pronunciation teaching in connection to English as a
Global Language in the Swedish EFL classroom?
The definition of English as a language spoken by people from countries all over the world is named differently depending on who you ask. Researchers such as Jenkins (2006) has tried to define what the different terms for English stands for, without finding an explanation of what all of them means explicitly. The participants in this study did not have a unitary word for this form of English and instead seemed to have the same view on English in the Swedish classroom than giving it a specific term. The participants used “English” as a description of the language when it was taught and learned in the classroom.
After interviewing five teachers with varied work experience, working at different schools, and with different ages, the study found that the majority of the participants found that the shifted view on the NS-ideal connected to pronunciation teaching has gone in the right direction. Most of the participants that were interviewed claimed that the word has become more globalized and that this view has affected their
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pronunciation teaching. Two of the teachers had personal experience of living abroad for an extended period, where they spoke an English that was outside the NS-ideal, where one of the teachers lived in Trinidad, and the second teacher lived in Australia. The second teacher was also a native speaker of West African English, something that had affected her views on English as not being a language that is only spoken in specific countries. She states, “I try to continuously teach my students that they shouldn’t
assume that the major dialects are the correct ones. Today, it is more common to use English as a second language than a first language” (Participant 2, interview, December 3, 2019)
Participant 3 agrees with this view of English as a language that is not limited to the accents of Great Britain and the USA. She claims that the English language has
separated itself from these countries, where many people use English as their everyday and professional language. Participant 4 says that the students must be aware of the different accents in English, and she is actively discussing this with her students: “when the students are commenting on an accent, they are unfamiliar to […] I explain to them that this person actually can speak English, s/he speaks like that in that specific area” (Participant 4, interview, December 4, 2019). Based on the teachers’ views on English as a language that is not defined by specific nations and cultures, they have all moved away from viewing the English language as a language owned by speakers from countries such as the USA and Great Britain. This view on the English language could be explained by using Kachru’s Three-Circle-Theory (Lundahl, 2012), where the teachers claim that this view on the English language, where it is divided into three separated circles, is no longer applicable to the usage of English today. Participant 5, who has been working with several curriculums and student groups, says that she sees a change in both the view on pronunciation in the syllabuses and the students’ abilities regarding pronunciation. She states that when she previously taught English, her students did not have the connection to the language as they did before:
[…] previously, we taught and learned the language just for the language’s sake. Maybe I had one student in my class that would travel to England. Today, they meet English all the time. (Participant 5, interview, December 6, 2019)
All the participants in the study agree that most of today’s students are highly proficient in pronouncing English words in general. All the teachers believe that the reason for
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their students' pronunciation skills is that students are daily exposed to English through social media, television, music, and video games. Again, this resembles with Krashen’s (1982; 2009) theory of SLA, where a language is primarily learned when the students are not aware of the learning process. Lightbown and Spada (2013) describe the difficulties learners may have when learning a second language because of the lack of exposure to their second language. Although this may be true, based on the participants' answers, this is not applicable to their students. In addition, Swedish students learn English from an early age (Skolverket, 2019), and because of English being a part of their everyday life, Swedish students are most likely exposed to English more than other languages.
When the participants were asked about their views on the NS-ideal, only one of five teachers said that she prefers her students to use BrE or AmE in her classroom.
Participant 4 describes this with BrE and AmE being the accents that her students hear and listen to outside school and are, therefore, easier to understand. In the notion of English as a Second Language, the participants stated that in the connection to pronunciation teaching, the students’ first language did to some extent affect their students’ pronunciation, but that this was usually not a problem since all the teachers believed that the focus should be intelligibility rather than being able to pronounce the words in a particular accent.
Although the participants’ view on intelligibility being the essential factor of
pronunciation teaching, Participant 1 give an additional view on students who speak English with a strong influence of Swedish word order and intonation, also called Swenglish. She said that many of her students who spoke Swenglish were lacking knowledge within other areas within the English Language. On the other hand, students who are proficient in English do not have a Swenglish accent. In contrast to the teachers in Baker and Murphy’s (2011) study, the participants stated that they did not prefer an NS ideal when teaching pronunciation in the classroom. However, when asked what accent they used in their own teaching, most of the participants did, in fact, use BrE or AmE. When the participants were asked to explain why, they said that when learning English themselves, they were expected to speak either BrE or AmE. Participant 1 claims, “When I went to school, it was important for us to use a British pronunciation” (Participant 1, interview, December 3, 2019).
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Moreover, two of the participants described that NS pronunciation continued to influence their English language learning at the upper secondary and university level. Participant 4 described that in the upper secondary school, she was forced to choose between either BrE or AmE, where they were prohibited from using accents such as Mid-Atlantic English. She claimed that this focus on BrE and AmE continued at the university, where her professors wanted her to choose between these two accents. When asked what accent the participants used in the classroom, all except one teacher said that they used either AmE or BrE, when asked why the participants stated that it is because of their personal experiences of English as a language.
[…], my accent is American. I have never been exposed to other dialects of English since I have never traveled to Australia or South Africa. It is the cultural community I have felt the most connected to, both through popular culture in Sweden and through my own traveling (Participant 3, interview, December 4, 2019).
Participant 5 has similar reasons for speaking mainly BrE or American in her
classroom, referring to having friends in these countries where she changes her accent depending on if she is with her British friends. While four of the five participants mainly spoke BrE or AmE in their classroom, Participant 3 has another experience with English, where she is a native speaker of West African English. Despite this being her first language, she does not speak this in her classroom because she has been studying in Australia and has friends from England. She also adds that she watches a lot of American movies, which has led to her speaking with a mixed accent.
Even though the participants claim not to prefer an NS ideal when teaching English, four of five participants choose to use either AmE or BrE. Although they do not prefer to use an NS ideal when teaching, the majority of the participants taught NS
pronunciation, which is in agreement with Baker and Murphy’s findings (2011) where the expectation of teachers teaching the EGL standard is, in fact, hard to achieve (p. 36). In addition to the participants' own experience from learning English with an NS ideal and being surrounded by mainly AmE in their spare time, one participant emphasized an additional factor that may contribute to the challenge of learning EGL. She states that “You can see that teachers’ who are approaching their retirement are very strict about
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maintaining the BrE standard in pronunciation. They argue that BrE is easier to understand and more distinct for the students to understand” (Participant 1, interview, December 3, 2019). Participant 2 also states that this view of the NS ideal is still present in the teaching community, where she thinks that it is merely “something that still lives on.” Participant 4 states how she has been arguing with a colleague about if BrE or AmE is the correct form of pronunciation where her colleague has been telling the students that they are not allowed to pronounce specific words with a particular accent. Again, this outdated view on the NS ideal is problematic. Firstly, there is a risk of forcing the student to view a specific accent as superior to other accents of English. Secondly, the students are thereby forced into a hierarchical system of English
(Modiano, 2003). Finally, the preferred accent of BrE is often RP, a language which is limited to a minor group of speakers, which make this view on BrE as a standard accent even more problematic (Modiano, 2003).
Participant 2 stresses the limitations of finding relevant teaching material, where she claims that it is challenging to collect material where the students get to experience a wide range of different accents. Her view, at least when assessing reception, the National Test of listening does expect the students to understand different dialects, which can be tricky since there is a lack of variety in what material to use when
teaching pronunciation. Additionally, Participant 1 expresses that it is inevitable to use a specific accent when teaching pronunciation and that this usually results in her using BrE or AmE when teaching and assessing her students.
To summarize, all the participants of the study said that they did not believe in the NS standard when teaching pronunciation in their classrooms. However, as Forsberg et al. (2019) found in their study, the majority of the participants did use a BrE or AmE when teaching English to the students. As one of the teachers stated, the reason for her, and other teachers, using these accents is that it is easier to understand these forms of English. Which, again, resembles Forsberg et al. (2019) findings of the view on these dialects being the correct use of English. They also believe that, although the shift from NS ideal to EGL, the teaching environment at their schools, to some extent, still holds on to the NS ideal. But, how do the participants teach pronunciation explicitly in their classrooms? This will be explored in the following section.
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5.2 What methods and didactic choices do the
professional teacher report making when teaching
pronunciation?
As previously mentioned, in the core content of the syllabus for English, one of the skills in the production and interaction section is “Language phenomena to clarify, vary and enrich communication such as pronunciation, intonation and fixed language
expressions, grammatical structures, and sentence structures.” (Skolverket, 2019). Since this is the only time pronunciation is stated, the study wanted to explore how teachers implement this in their classroom practice.
When Participant 2 worked with pronunciation in her classroom, she did it in connection with vocabulary teaching, where she read different words aloud to the students, and they read after the teacher. At the same time, she never explains to the students that the goal is to practice pronunciation:
I never have a class where I tell the students that we are going to practice
pronunciation. Instead, I choose a text containing words that I know the students struggle with, and I write these words on the whiteboard. After that, I ask the students to pronounce the words after me (Participant 2, interview, December 3, 2019).
Participant 3 agrees with this view on pronunciation teaching. She states that
pronunciation teaching becomes a part of her teaching when the students are preparing for an oral presentation or a discussion-test. This view resembles with Krashen’s (1982; 2009) theory of how language acquisition is mainly acquired when the students are not aware of the learning. Furthermore, Participant 1states that she would never comment on pronunciation specifically, but tries to show the students different accents through music and clips with people from different areas where English is used. With this in mind, the teachers' views on SLA supports Krashen’s theory, but also Rod Ellis (2009) theory of implicit learning where, in contrast to Krashen’s theory, both implicit and explicit teaching can be beneficial for SLA.
Five of the six participants were teachers at middle and elementary schools, where the foundation of their teaching is the English syllabus in LGR11. Participant 3 taught at the
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upper secondary level, where the word “pronunciation” is not stated in the syllabus. The teacher claimed that this is “[…] that part of language development is probably handled in the previous grades” and further stated that they do not focus on pronunciation specifically in the classroom. Furthermore, none of the teachers believed in correcting their students’ pronunciation if it did not affect the intelligibility of the language, a view on language learning that resembles with Krashen’s view on error correction as
prevention for learners to develop the language (Krashen, 1982; 2009). She continues to claim that “I stay away from correcting specific words. However, I try to introduce clips and movies to show my students how words can be pronounced” (Participant 2,
interview, December 3, 2019.
All the participants stated that they do not explicitly teach pronunciation and that pronunciation teaching in embedded into other teaching areas such as vocabulary, listening, and reading. In the context of pronunciation teaching, none of the participants believed in Ellis’s (2009) theory of a combination of implicit and explicit learning. But, has the changed views on English as a Global language specifically affected the
teachers' in-class practice when teaching pronunciation? Participant 5, who has been working as a teacher for thirty years, and therefore has followed with multiple curriculums, states that she can see a change in the views of pronunciation in the curriculums and the material teachers were supplied with.
I remember that we really practiced this, we read text aloud in the classroom and used the phonetic writing to pronounce words. These kinds of tasks were in the textbooks; however, today, these tasks are not included in the textbooks for English (Participant 5, interview, December 6, 2019).
This view agrees with Modiano’s (2009), where there has been a change in the curriculums from an NS ideal to teaching EGL. Participant 2 states that she actively works with teaching the students not to assume that the main accents are the only form of English spoken. She continues to explain that she teaches her students that there is a vast majority of dialects used all over the world. In the notion of English as a Lingua France, Participant 3 states that it is self-evident that the students should own their dialect, and continues to explain that she never expects her students to speak AmE because that is the dialect she chooses. Her views on the English language are that since it is used by more second-language speakers within areas such as business, it is no
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longer only associated with England as a country. As previously mentioned, none of the teachers use the terms EGL or Lingua Franca and is referring to the English language as English. Jenkins (2006) described the difficulties within the linguistic community when trying to distinguish the different terms for English used by second language learners (p. 160), which, in this case, could be the reason for the participant not labeling the English language in their classrooms.
When teaching pronunciation, the participants said that their main focus is
intelligibility, not specific accents, which resembles the Knowledge Requirements for English year 7-9, which states that students should be able to “[…] express themselves simply, understandably and relatively coherently. To clarify and vary their
communication, pupils can work on and make simple improvements to their
communications” (Skolverket, 2019). Participant 1 states that her students should be able to make themselves understood, which is a view she shares with Participant 4: “I have always believed that the most important thing is that they can speak […] And I tell the students that there is a different way of saying things, but if you make yourself understood, it is fine.” (Participant 4, interview, December 4, 2019). In addition, Participant 1 and 5 also agree with intelligibility being the main focus when teaching pronunciation. As Jenkins et al. (2001) state, speakers within the European Union, who speak a form of English called Euro-English, are more accepting when it comes to pronunciation differences. They are also used to speak in a cross-cultural context where they have developed strategies to understand and produce an English that is easy to understand (Jenkins, Modiano, & Seidlhofer, 2001). This accepting view on varieties in the English language can be seen in the participants' answers. Participant 5 states that in the English classroom, you have to accept the differences with the students’
pronunciation. She states that the form of English a specific student uses is probably spoken somewhere in the world. Participant 3, who is a teacher at the upper secondary, says that at this level, there is more focus on the communicative aspects of the language. The goal is that the students should be able to communicate in English, and the upper secondary, there is also a focus on the differences between informal and formal language.
Participant 2 states that when she pronounces a specific word to the students, she sometimes shows how to pronounce the words with different intonations. She also shows the students how specific sounds can differ in different accents but states that this
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is mostly for fun, not with the aim that the students must learn these specific varieties of English. Participant 3 also reads specific words to her students and says her students can choose what dialect they prefer to when repeating after her. She claims that, in the upper secondary, the textbooks still contain phonetic writing, which she uses as a foundation when teaching pronunciation. Except for reading the words aloud to the students, she also uses the students' abilities in her teaching, where they often discuss in groups. Participant 3 states that this form of teaching English, when students with different pronunciation discuss topics together, helps the students to develop their pronunciation further. Participant 5 also does not teach pronunciation explicitly to her students, she says that it is always a part of her English teaching within other areas of the language, she claims that since the students are always surrounded by the English language, she simply does not find pronunciation teaching relevant. She also states that the majority of her students are aware of how most words are pronounced, which therefore means that pronunciation teaching is pointless. The only time she would focus on pronunciation teaching is if she hears a student that is highly proficient in English mispronouncing a word, if that occurs, she usually writes the word on the whiteboard and pronounces the word to the whole class.
Unlike the other participants, Participant 4 does work explicitly with pronunciation teaching in her classroom. She claims that, although phonetic writing is not in the textbooks today, she uses this to teach pronunciation. She believes that phonetic writing is still essential to know, and wants to prepare her students for the upper secondary school where her students may encounter phonetic writing. An example of her teaching methods is that she uses cards with phonetic writing, where the students are supposed to interpret the writing and then match it with a picture of, for example, the animal that the phonetic writing describes. But are there other reasons for the participants not to teach pronunciation in their classrooms? When asked if they, like many other EFL teachers, felt unsure about how to teach pronunciation (Baker & Murphy, 2011), none of the participants could apply this insecurity to their own teaching. Participant 5 said that she does not feel insecure at all; she just “goes for it; there is no prestige within my
teaching.”
To conclude, four of the five participants claimed that they did not work explicitly with pronunciation teaching in their classroom. The only situation the participants would
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acknowledge pronunciation explicitly is if their students obviously have problems with a specific word. Furthermore, they would never expect their students to acquire a specific accent, and would never correct their pronunciation if it did not affect the intelligibility. Participant 4 is the only teacher who actively works with pronunciation teaching in her classroom, where she uses phonetic writing as a foundation of
pronunciation teaching.
5.3. What views do the teachers’ learners have on EGL
versus NS when learning pronunciation?
Although English has become a global language with researchers and EFL teachers claiming that the intelligibility is the primary focus, the teachers say that, in their schools, they can see a tendency of the students preferring some accents before others. The participants say that a considerable amount of their student prefer AmE when speaking English. Participant 1 estimates that three-quarters of her students prefer the American accent, and Participant 4 states that as many as 90% of her students prefer to speak English with an American accent. This resembles the results of Baker and Murphy’s (2011) claim that in opposition to the teachers' claims of intelligibility being the primary skill that the students should achieve, a majority of students do prefer to speak as an NS of English (p. 36).
When asked why they think that their students view the NS ideal as the correct way of speaking English, the participants say that it is because of the influence of social media, music, TV, games, and the internet. In addition, Sundqvist and Sylvén (2014) say that Swedish students are exposed to English through advertisements and movies where, in contrast to other countries, the clips are not dubbed (p. 4). The participants further believe that exposure to AmE leads to a view of AmE being the correct form of English, and Participant 3 says she believes that the use of English is also connected to a
sociolect that the students want to feel connected with. As Davies (2003) states, there are two definitions of a language, linguistically and sociolinguistically (p. 12), where the former deals with the language within its society. He further states that a language can symbolize different speech communities where the language acts as a way for the speaker to feel connected to a specific group. The desired speech communities are often groups that the speaker finds superior to other speech communities (p. 55). For
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example, many of the participants’ students may find AmE superior to other dialects, but BrE is also a dialect the students view as superior where: “Some students want to learn BrE before we do the National Test because they think that they will receive a better grade if they can speak BrE” (Participant 2, interview, December 3, 2019). Participant 1 also claims that the students’ views on BrE and AmE being the preferred accents is visible in her classroom, where she says that the students who are high-proficient in all areas of English, usually speaks BrE. Participant 2 says that she has never told the students that one accent is superior another, but says that she believes that these views on BrE and AmE being the superior accents still lingers on, and states that her students tend to laugh when she speaks English with her native West African accent. She also thinks that her students would laugh if she tried to speak other accents, such as Indian English, and says that she has high-proficient students who have Indian English as their NS accent, that refuse to speak in class because of the fear of being made fun of. As Modiano (2003) states, there is still a view on AmE and BrE being the preferred accents of English, where other dialects are disvalued by the learners (p. 35). Participant 4 says that she has experienced students laughing when showing them Indian English in her classroom, although this is an accent spoken by millions of people.
In the notion of Euro-English, a version of English developed within the member states of the European Union (Modiano, 2003), Participant 5 claims that her students do speak a “more laid back” form of English, a view that she shares with Participant 3, that says her students speak mainly AmE, but still, claims that it is a relaxed and neutral form of English. Participant 1 also experience her students speaking a relaxed and neutral form of English, saying that in the city she works in, there are multiple students with different first languages, where many of the students depending on their first language, cannot pronounce specific sounds. Participant 4 also claims that her students have mixed backgrounds that affect their pronunciation. However, both participants agree that it is the intelligibility that is the main focus when talking. According to Davies (2003), there are advantages for learners to preserve their first language dialects when speaking a new language. From a sociolinguist perspective, the learners can then decide not to engage in cultural expectations (p. 72). Participant 5 states, because Swedish students use English in their everyday life, speaking to people from all over the world, where everybody has a different view of English.
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To summarize, the participants claimed that their students did prefer the AmE pronunciation when speaking in the classroom. The NS ideal is still present in their classrooms, where the students tend to believe that BrE and AmE will give them a higher grade when speaking English. In addition, the participants say that their students are widely exposed to English through channels such as social media and television. There is also a view on other dialects of English being inferior AmE and BrE, where today’s students are making fun of dialects such as Indian English. Although students tend to have an AmE accent when speaking, they still speak in a somewhat neutral way, focusing on intelligibility, which can be explained by their extensive use of English when speaking to people all over the world.
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6.
Conclusion
To conclude, the findings of this study was that none of the participants seemed to believe in the NS ideal, which agrees with Skolverket’s (2019) removal of the previously specific stated aim to speak with an NS ideal; however, the study showed that the majority of the teachers still used a BmE or AmE accent when teaching English. Because of the removal of the guidelines of pronunciation teaching, the result showed that the teachers also had different views on how to teach pronunciation in their classroom, where some of the teachers still used the phonetic alphabet.
Moreover, the teachers did think that the NS ideal is no longer relevant in the
multicultural classroom and did not think that their teaching has been affected by the changed views in pronunciation teaching. Furthermore, none of the participants worked explicitly with pronunciation teaching in their classroom and viewed pronunciation teaching as an integrated part of the other skills of language learning. The participants state that they only correct pronunciation errors when the intelligibility of the word is affected.
Finally, the participants believed that because of the high exposure to English in their students’ everyday life, today’s students are aware of different accents and how to pronounce words that makes them intelligible. However, the participants claimed that their students did mainly use AmE when speaking English, and the view of BrE and AmE being the superior accents, to some extent, still lives on.
6.1 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research
The limitations of the study were mainly limited by the time frame of the essay, where the number of participants could be extended if there had not been a time limit of ten weeks. Another limitation of the study was that the participants all worked at schools in the same city, at multicultural schools, where many of the students had another first language than Swedish. Because of these limitations, the study can not be viewed as a generalization for how pronunciation teaching is conducted in all of Sweden.
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Suggestions for further research would be to conduct more interviews with teachers working in other areas of Sweden where the student groups may be more homogeneous. Furthermore, the qualitative study could be combined with a quantitative study, where the participants would be given surveys based on the research questions, which would result in a more visible result.
Finally, since there is a general lack of research in pronunciation teaching, it would be interesting to explore the students’ views on pronunciation teaching and to learn in the classroom. By asking the teachers how they experience their students’ views on
pronunciation teaching, this study does, to some extent, explore how students view this area. However, interviewing students would be a valuable contribution to the research in pronunciation teaching and learning.
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