Bridging the gap between university and upper secondary school English studies: The ULE project

Abstract

2The ULE project 2.1 The process After initial discussions between ourselves and the upper secondary school, it was decided to only involve one teacher and one class for the pilot project. The project was set up using the open access learning management system Moodle (see https://moodle.org). This learning platform allowed us to enrol secondary school students and teachers onto the specially-designed module, where instructions, lectures, two short assignments, and feedback could be given by university teachers, and where students could submit their work. This also reflects the mode of instruction for our online English courses at Mid-Sweden University.The content was designed to reflect first-term undergraduate university-level English language studies. The teacher then explained to the class about participating in the project as part of their classwork, and received a positive response.In the following lesson, students received two articles, together with a glossary for each, to read in class in advance of our meeting the students to introduce the project.To guide the students into the project, we met the students during their regular English class, and introduced the students to the aims and content of the project, the theme, topic and assignments (see 2.2), and the learning platform (including how to log-in and how to negotiate the platform). They also received information on how to log-in, and how to do the first assignment, on paper. The students were at this point asked to sign a permission form allowing us to use their work (which would of course be anonymised) for subject didactic and/or linguistic research and for teaching on the upper secondary school teacher education programme at Mid-Sweden University. It was explained to them that although the assignments were compulsory, as part of their school coursework, giving permission for us to use the material was entirely their choice. Happily, all students chose to sign the form, including a few students who were absent from the initial introductory session. For those who missed the session, a written instruction guide was uploaded in Moodle. Classwork and the assignmentsThe theme for the project, the US presidential election, was decided on in collaboration with the teacher, the idea being to select a topical issue from the English-speaking world. We based the classwork and written assignments on one of the assignments on our first-term undergraduate English course at Mid-Sweden University. The classwork was designed to take up as many as six of their scheduled English classes at upper secondary school (or part of these classes). The first class was when they were to read the two articles, the second

A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Upper Secondary School Students’ Vocabulary Development

“…It improves the learner's overall academic success, reading comprehension and opportunity to succeed in higher education (e.g., Laufer and Ravenhorst-Kalovski 2010;McMillion and Shaw 2009;Pecorari et al 2011;Yu 2009). Teachers and researchers frequently identify learners' vocabulary knowledge as in need of additional improvement, and overall, there appears to be a lack of a systematic approach by teachers in terms of vocabulary teaching (e.g., Nation 2001;Schmitt 2008;Schmitt, Jiang and Grabe 2011;Schmitt and Schmitt 2014;Walker and Allan 2018). It is within this context that this study takes place, examining how lexical input from a textbook and use of individual vocabulary notebooks affect Swedish upper secondary school students' vocabulary acquisition.…”