What Methods do Primary School Teachers use to Expose Students to English?

Abstract: Previous research shows that exposure to the target language affect students' performance. Learning English as a second language can be promoted by using different methods and exposing students to English in the early years of education. The aim of this study is to investigate what methods primary teachers use to promote students' English developement and, what amount of time primary teachers expose students to the English language during a school day. The first research question in this study is what methods do primary teachers in the study use to promote students' English in primary school? The second research question is what is the amount of English that primary school pupils are exposed to in a school day? The method that was used in this study was triangulation, which involves an online survey, interviews and classroom observations. The study was conducted among primary school teachers in Sweden. A total of 31 teachers responded to the survey, three of them participated in interviews. After the interviews, two of them also took part in classroom observations. The results from this study show that most teachers use English during English lessons, but speak Swedish when needed. Most teachers use English in addition to English lessons, mostly in morning gatherings. When promoting methods were investigated, results show that body language and gestures are used with a high frequency during exposure in English. The results in this study also indicate that the most common teaching materials in English lessons are film, working sheets and song.