"Something that you're passionate about" : Motivation and Integrated English in VocationalProgrammes

Abstract: The importance of motivation in language learning has been emphasised and paid more attention to the last decades, and the topic of student motivation has also been touched upon in the Swedish school system. The issue of low results in the vocational programmes have been scrutinised both in media and the National Agency of Education, which resulted in an integration between the character subjects and the core subjects. The idea is to increase the students' motivation to the core subjects by integrating them with the character subjects in the vocational programmes. Therefore, integration is executed by teachers in vocational programmes, and included in the curriculum for upper secondary schools. The aim of this study is to investigate students' attitudes toward integrated and non-integrated English, and how it influences their motivation. 10 interviews have been carried out in the Electric and Construction programme, and the data has been analysed using a thematic analysis. Themes have been selected and discussed in relation to the aim and research question. The result shows that the students feel that the integrated English is useful, but that non-integrated English within their personal interests is the most motivating content in the English course. Students want to be more involved in their education and the need to express their unique personalities seems to be of importance when it comes to learning English. The results indicate that the concept of integration might not be the most motivating aspect to focus on, but rather the individual aspects of the students and what they feel is motivating