1. Introduction
This thesis is a qualitative study of how the teaching of oral English skills in the Norwegian lower secondary school has changed and developed since the 1974 curriculum. Through conducting interviews with teachers and pupils from each of the four curriculum periods since 1974 (M74, M87, L97 and LK06), and analysing textbook materials from each curriculum period, this thesis sets out to map changes and developments in the teaching of oral English during this period.
1.1 Background
Norway’s current national curriculum, LK06, states that five basic skills are required in order for pupils to learn and develop. The basic skills are defined as being able to read, express oneself orally and written, develop numeracy, and being able to use digital tools. These five basic skills are included in every subject’s competence aims, including English. This means that oral skills are one of the five most important skills for Norwegian pupils to acquire (LK06, English subject curriculum).
For young Norwegians, being able to communicate in English is of great importance.
As Norway is a country in cooperation with many other countries in various circumstances, it is important that the Norwegian school teaches pupils appropriate communication skills in English. Norway is also a multicultural society where many people with whom one might need to converse do not speak the native language. In addition, teenagers often travel abroad with their parents and being able to speak English will in many cases be valuable when one is in a foreign country. As oral communicative skills are so essential in a teenager’s social life and education, it is also important to gain school-based research in this area. This thesis therefore aims to make a contribution to the research on lower secondary learners’ oral skills.
The research is primarily based on interviews with four lower secondary school EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers (one from each curriculum period from and including 1974) and four former lower secondary school pupils (one from each curriculum period from and including 1974). After the curriculum of 1974, M74, three other curricula followed with the purpose of changing, improving and modernizing the way pupils were taught English:
M87, L97 and LK06, which was revised in 2013. As an interview is a qualitative research
2 method and the sample is a relatively small one, one will not be able to generalise about the findings. One will instead be able to gain impressions of the teaching and learning of oral language since the 1974 curriculum period. In addition, written textbook materials will be analysed in relation to the oral tasks that they provide. Since the study, in addition to the interviews with the teachers and the pupils, also focuses on teaching material and the
curricula, it will approach the issue through different perspectives on how the teaching of oral English skills in the lower Norwegian secondary school has changed and developed since the 1974 curriculum.
1.2 Aims and scope for the research
The main research question of this thesis is: ‘How has the teaching of oral English in the Norwegian lower secondary school changed and developed since the 1974 curriculum?’ The thesis also addresses the following two additional research questions:
‘How did the teachers teach oral English in each curriculum period?’
‘How did the learners experience the teaching of oral English in each curriculum period?’
With both an EFL teacher and a former pupil representing the different curriculum periods, the thesis aims to answer these three research questions. The study aims to explore how the focus of the curricula and textbook materials on oral and communication skills has changed over the years, as well as if the teachers’ methods of teaching oral skills and the pupils’
development of oral skills have changed.
The author’s expectations are that English oral skills have gradually become more important since the 1974 curriculum because Norway has become much more of a
multicultural society since then. In addition, Norway’s involvement in international
cooperation and business is continually increasing. Another assumption is that children have gradually become increasingly more exposed to oral English through media, such as music, video games, television and social networks over the years, and that this has resulted in them performing better than before when it comes to basic oral skills, especially pronunciation and vocabulary. This also suggests that Norwegian pupils may be more positive to learning oral skills now than they were before and that speaking in class is much easier for pupils today than it was before.
3 1.3 Relevance
Because it is of utmost importance for young Norwegian learners to acquire good English oral skills, it is important to contribute to this field of research. In 2009, the Ministry of Education in Norway published a document called “Språk åpner dører” (Language opens doors). The document describes a strategy of how to strengthen the basic learning of foreign languages.
The main goal of this strategy was to increase school-based research on foreign language learning in order to improve pupils’ foreign language skills. This document shows that
research on language teaching in Norwegian schools in general, including research in the field of English oral skills, is needed.
Furthermore, as far as the author is aware, the topic of how the teaching of oral English in Norwegian lower secondary schools has developed since the 1974 curriculum is one that has not been researched before. It will complement, for example, Maier’s (2005) study on changing practices in the teaching of writing in Norwegian lower secondary schools since 1974.
1.4 Outline of thesis
The thesis consists of seven chapters. Following this chapter, Chapter 2, ‘The Norwegian national curricula from 1974 to 2006 (2013)’, provides a short presentation of the contents of the four national curricula that have guided how Norwegian teachers have taught the English subject since 1974.
Chapter 3, ‘Literature review’, attempts to define what oral skills are and what oral speech consists of. In addition, it presents the history of language teaching in Norway and in Europe, the different teaching methods that have been utilised since the early 1960’s, relevant related research, and it presents different ways of teaching oral skills.
Chapter 4, ‘Methods’, presents the methodological approaches employed in this research. The chapter includes theory on the different methods of research applied, as well as on different ways of constructing an interview, the principal research method in the thesis.
Additionally, it explains the process of piloting, selecting samples, making the interview guides used for this qualitative study, and ethics and validity. It also explains how the textbook materials were analysed.
4 Chapter 5, ‘Results’, presents all data collected from the eight interviews and the analysis of four different sets of textbooks and their corresponding materials.
Chapter 6 discusses the results and Chapter 7 provides a conclusion to the entire thesis.
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