English language education is designed to prepare learners for the needs of the world today and in the future. This article explores Norwegian teachers’ ideologies of English in society and English in school to consider locally relevant 21st century English language teaching (ELT). Language ideologies construct certain social realities that shape teachers’ understanding of English and contextually meaningful ELT. Data was generated through extensive interviews with 12 teachers in basic education in Norway. Data were inductively analyzed using methods from grounded theory and resulted in a conceptual framework of teacher ideologies. Findings reveal English as a natural, supranational language in modern Norwegian society, but also as personal and threatening. English in school, on the other hand, is foreign, communicative , historic and cultural , humanistic , for learning interdisciplinary content , and in flux . The final category explores self-reflexive questions teachers raise about ownership and identity, diversity, digitalization, and global orientation. In considering new directions, findings suggest the need for a metalanguage for English in non-native contexts that better encompasses experiences in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world. A current initiative to support teachers in exploring new and locally appropriate directions in ELT is then recommended.
Teachers' interpretations of the core aims of a school subject open or constrain what can be taught and learned in the subject in school. The global spread of English and its changing status in the world have impacted how English as a school subject is understood and what it is meant to achieve. This article explores teachers' understandings of the core aims of English as a school subject at the end of basic English education in Norway. Data consist of interviews with 12 teachers across six schools in a large school district. Qualitative analyses of the data identify four core aims: 1) acquiring content knowledge of English-speaking countries, 2), developing communicative language ability 3) developing linguistic knowledge of English and 4) developing the democratic citizen. While acquiring knowledge and learning to communicate in English are dominant in teacher understanding IntroductionThe spread of English through globalization, technology, and migrationtogether with the rise in non-native users of English -is challenging previous definitions of what it means to know or to be proficient in English (Graddol, 2006;Jenkins, Cogo, & Dewey, 2011). As English increasingly becomes a language of contact for diverse speakers, new understandings of English competence potentially conflict with the established understanding and practices of the English language classroom (Hult & King, 2011;Nauman, 2011;Seidlhofer, 2011). Moreover, in many countries, changes in English education have often been top-down and rapidly implemented, assuming the benefits of early education and underestimating the teaching challenges involved in implementation (Hu, 2007).In anticipating a new subject curriculum for deeper learning of central elements in English as a school subject (Kunnskapsdepartement, 2017), it is timely to investigate how teachers understand these elements and the relationships between them. While much research on English language teaching in Norway has focused on developing specific English language skills -such as reading (Bakken, 2017;Brevik, 2014;Charboneau, 2012), writing (Burner, 2016), speaking (Bøhn, 2015;Bøhn & Hansen, 2017), and vocabulary development (Hestetraeet, 2012) -less research has focused on the overall aims of the subject and even less on teachers' understanding of these aims and how they expand or constrain what can be learned in the subject.The aim of this article is to investigate teachers' interpretations of the central aims of English as a school subject at the end of lower secondary school. The final years of lower secondary represent the culmination of 10 years of mandatory English education for all students in Norway. While the goal is not to The article begins with a discussion of current international trends in English language teaching and how these trends can be seen in Norway. This is followed by a description of the research design and analytical process used to explore teachers' understandings. The patterns in teacher understanding of the core aims of the subject are then presented...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.