English Varieties in Swedish Upper Secondary School : An analysis of Listening Exercises in Swedish National Tests

• Main Author: Lingemyr, Jesper
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Högskolan i Gävle, Engelska 2017
• Subjects: Listening Exercises; English Varieties; Upper Secondary School; English as a Second Language (ESL); Swedish National Tests; British English; American English; Mid-Atlantic English; Australian English; New Zealand English; General Language Studies and Linguistics; Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik; Specific Languages; Studier av enskilda språk
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-23579

The purpose of this project was to find out what varieties of English that Swedish upper secondary school students are exposed to in the classroom and to what extent they are exposed to different varieties. This was conducted by looking at preparation exercises for the listening part of the Swedish National Tests. These exercises are created by Göteborgs Universitet and are available online for everyone and show how the real national test will be done. By listening and analyzing every speaker’s variety they were sorted into British, American, Mid-Atlantic, Australian or New Zealand varieties. A total of 91 speakers were analyzed and the results showed that Students are exposed to mostly British English with half of the speakers using a British variety. One fourth of the speakers used American English while the rest were divided into Mid-Atlantic, Australian or New Zealand varieties.