English in the digital era : Swedish grades 4-6 teachers’ use of pupil’s extramural English experience of new media

Abstract: Technology advances at a fast rate and pupils encounter a larger amount of English outside school than they do in the EFL classroom. In addition, an update to the Swedish curriculum (LGR 11), that concerns digitalization takes effect in July this year (2018). That is why this thesis aims to explore Swedish EFL teachers’ use of pupils’ extramural (out-of-school) English experience of new media in the EFL classroom. New media is a means of mass communication, a product or service that provides entertainment or information through a computer or the Internet. New media is generally created by the users and for this thesis, relevant new media are social media, social networks sites, online streaming, fan sites and gaming. The results of this study show that about two-thirds of the 27 teachers surveyed in this study have used new media in their English teaching sometime in the last two years. Most of the teachers use it because they are interested in new media, to catch the attention of the pupils or because they find the content of new media useful for their teaching. One-third of the teachers did not use new media and reported that they did not have sufficient knowledge on how to use new media in their English teaching. The results also show that even though new media is used by many of these teachers, the use of it is basic and few reflections are made during the use of new media. Further research about why teachers lack knowledge and how the use of new media can be extended would arguably give a better understanding of teachers’ use of pupils’ extramural English experience of new media.