“Writing is Processing What You Have Read”: Using Written Input-to-Output Tasks in the Swedish Upper Secondary School

Abstract: The Swedish national syllabi for the subject of English challenges upper secondary students to not only produce text, but to interact with and through it; students should actively engage with the learning process through reading, writing, and speaking. Previous research within this field has investigated the relationship between reading and writing, as well as how to use writing to complement the reading process in the ESL classroom. Such tasks have been defined as input-to-output tasks. This thesis aims to research how and why ESL teachers in the Swedish upper secondary school might use input-to-output tasks in their classrooms. Therefore, multiple interviews with currently working upper secondary ESL teachers were conducted, and through the theory of constructivism we have investigated how and why input-to-output tasks are used. The results of this thesis suggest that when Swedish ESL teachers use input-to-output tasks, they usually construct them as either a pre-task or an end-task to their reading projects. Unearthing the reasons for why teachers might use these tasks has proven difficult, seeing as the teachers usually discuss their arguments for working with fiction in the ESL classroom, rather than explaining their use of writing tasks. Our material shows that there is a difficulty in separating reading and writing, and that teachers might not always be aware of what literacy skills they are promoting. Finally, this thesis has outlined suggestions for further research that might aid the understanding of how to incorporate input-to-output tasks in the most beneficial way.