The language of the classroom

All of the teachers were clear on the fact that they spoke mostly English in class today. The exceptions were Marit and Anny, who would often switch to Norwegian to give general messages that had nothing to do with the English subject, or when teaching grammar. The way Marit and Anny used Norwegian, for giving important messages and explaining

especially difficult grammar, supports the study of Rye (2014), who found that this was how

97 most Norwegian EFL teachers used L1 in their lessons. All of the teachers expected their pupils to speak English at all times in lessons.

Grete spoke mostly Norwegian in her lessons during the M74 curriculum. She spoke English when preparing her pupils for a text, when reading a text, and when she talked about the text with her class after reading it. However, she would translate what she said into English into Norwegian often or most of the time. Ole’s use of English in lessons had gradually increased during his years of teaching English. The L97 curriculum focused on pupils learning English in same way as they had learnt their first language, similar to the direct method (see section 3.2.2). Marit had therefore followed the L97 curriculum and spoken a good deal of English in her classes during the late 1990’s. However, she would often translate what she said from English to Norwegian, especially in the 8^th and 9^th grade.

Anny spoke mostly English in her classes. If she ever used Norwegian, it would often be in relation to giving the pupils messages that were not related to the English subject or,

especially for weaker pupils, for checking if they had understood a task given in the English language.

When comparing the teachers’ answers on their use of L1 or L2 during the curriculum period that they represented, it is clear that the amount of English used by the teachers in the study has gradually increased over the years. This is also what one would have expected of EFL teachers, especially in relation to the changing curricula and their increased focus on oral and communicative language.

The teacher representing the LK06 curriculum in this study, Anny, claimed that the focus was much more on fluency, vocabulary and pronunciation today when assessing and correcting pupils’ oral English skills. Whether the pupils chose to speak in an American, British, or any other accent, was not of importance. For Anny, what was of some importance was that, if the pupils chose an accent, they needed to stick with it.

However, in the M74 period, the curriculum stated that the pupils were to speak English Standard Pronunciation, but that a pupil who had been taught an American

pronunciation should not be forced to change it to British pronunciation. Grete claimed that during the M74 curriculum, all of the pupils had to speak RP English, but that it was

acceptable to speak with an American accent as long as they had a private American influence in their life. Ole explained that during the M87 curriculum there were no set rules on how pupils should speak English as long as pupils were consistent. What Ole explained seems also to be the general rule today. The idea of making the pupils speak in a set way seems to have been disregarded by the M87 curriculum, and thus by the teachers from the late 1980’s up to

98 the present. This further implies that in today’s English classrooms, the focus is not on accent, but on being able to communicate and to be understood while using the English language.

When it comes to getting the pupils to speak in class, the author initially expected that the pupils would be more active and easier to get to speak in class during the most recent curriculum period (LK06), compared to the three earlier curriculum periods, especially M74 and M87. This expectation was based on the assumption that pupils nowadays would have better basic oral skills. On the basis of the sample, however, this does not appear to be the case. Although Grete considered today’s pupils to be better English speakers than her pupils in the early 1980’s, she had not experienced it to be more challenging to get the pupils to speak English in class before compared to now. All of the other teachers, except for Ole (M87), confirmed that it was in no way any easier to get pupils to speak in class today. It all had to do with the classroom environment and, to some degree, classroom organisation. Marit (L97) explained that she often divided her pupils into suitable groups in order to make them more orally active. Ola stated that it was probably more difficult getting the pupils to speak during the M87 curriculum period than today, and he believed this had to do with the pupils being more insecure and inexperienced at that time. However, he added that it was still difficult to get pupils to speak English in class, but that it was possible as long as the teacher was a good language model.

From the pupils’ perspective, one can see the same tendency of the classroom

environment being the reason for them wanting or not wanting to speak in class. However, the pupils’ perspective shows a much more divided reasoning than the teachers could provide. All of the pupils had some sort of problem with speaking in class. Ola (M74) and Petra (M87) did not like speaking in class, as they both considered their oral English to be poor and they had issues with the English subject in general. Anders (L97) did not mind speaking in class, because his oral English skills were acceptable. Even so, he generally preferred not to speak English. Berit (LK06), who considered her oral English skills to be good, did not enjoy speaking due to the fact that she was afraid that the other pupils would think that she was showing off. These views show to some extent that the interviewed pupils had better oral English skills in the two later curriculum periods than the two first ones, and thought speaking English in class was something that they both managed. However, for different reasons, they preferred not to. This could be because they might have found speaking English in a

Norwegian classroom uncomfortable (c.f. Henry, 2014). Or it might be because of their attitude towards the subject, which resulted in them not being interested in participating, or, as

99 Berit explained when her class were set to work in groups, one was afraid of giving an

impression of showing off.

When it comes to the pupils’ perceptions of their teachers’ oral English, and whether it had an impact on whether they found the teachers’ way of teaching the English subject to be good, all the pupils, except for Berit, said that they thought their teachers’ oral English was good. If they had not thought so, it might have had an impact on how they considered their teaching abilities. Berit considered her American teacher to be a better teacher than the other teacher she had had in the 8^th and 9^th grade and admitted that her American teacher probably had much to do with her oral English proficiency.

However, this small sample does not really confirm Jensen et al.’s (2011) findings on pupils’ perceptions of their teachers’ oral skills affecting the way they consider their teachers’

teaching competence, nor the pupils’ perception of their teachers’ teaching competence affecting their perceptions of their teachers’ oral English.

What Ola, Petra and Anders all had in common was that they all considered their teachers’ oral English was good when they were in lower secondary school and they all agreed that this could have had an impact on how good they considered their teachers’

teaching ability to be. However, they also shared the claim that they were not critical towards their English teacher and that this might be the reason why they thought they were good teachers. For example, Berit seemed to be somewhat critical in choosing a native-speaker teacher whom she preferred over another teacher. However, this was one pupil’s viewpoint, which was different from those of the other three pupils.