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Mara HaslamSenior lecturer

About me

Senior Lecturer in English with language educational orientation at the Department of Teaching and Learning.

I have worked as an English teacher and a language-teacher educator since 2002. I have extensive experience in teaching the English language to non-native speakers, but I particularly enjoy teaching pronunciation. My experiences in the pronunciation classroom fuel my research interests in second-language phonology. I received an M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Utah in 2004 and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Utah in 2011. I have worked at Stockholm University since 2012, first at the Department of English and now at the Department of Language Education since 2014.

Teaching

I work primarily with preservice teachers who are learning to teach English in the Swedish school system. Since Swedish schools are required to begin their English teaching no later than grade 3, all primary school teachers need to learn how to teach the English language. My work is therefore focused on teaching English to young learners. I also teaches pronunciation to preservice teachers. Other teaching interests include educating teachers how to teach English to the deaf.

Research

My research interests lie in the area of second language phonology. I am currently running research projects that have to do with intelligibility of English as a Lingua Franca and effects of orthography on second language phonology acquisition.

Research projects

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • The importance of aspirated initial stops in English as a lingua franca

    2016. Mara Haslam, Elisabeth Zetterholm. Proceedings of the 7th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, 66-75

    Conference

    A significant proportion of the population of the world is made up of users of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Jenkins (2000) published the Lingua Franca Core (LFC), a syllabus for ELF pronunciation, including the claim that the fortis/lenis distinction must be preserved on English stop consonants for successful ELF intelligibility. The present study evaluates the relationship between Voice Onset Time (VOT) and how the sounds are perceived by ELF listeners. 101 tokens produced during ELF interaction which contained the stops /b/, /p/, /d/, /t/, /g/, or /k/ were played for 9 Swedish listeners, who could indicate that they heard either the word or its minimal-pair counterpart, e.g. bees or peas. The relationship between VOT and perceived stop was analyzed, with the expectation that longer VOTs would be associated with fortis consonants and shorter VOTs would be associated with lenis consonants. Results followed the predicted pattern for /d/ and /g/ but not for /t/ and /k/. In addition, the pattern observed for /p/ and /b/ is the reverse of the pattern found for the other consonants. These results suggest that further research into the LFC’s claim about the fortis/lenis distinction and other LFC claims are warranted.

    Read more about The importance of aspirated initial stops in English as a lingua franca

  • Teaching the Sound System of English

    2018. Mara Haslam. The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching

    Chapter

    The sound system of English is complex and varied. English learners bring their knowledge of other sound systems to the learning of English, and differences between sound systems may cause problems for them in listening and pronunciation. Choosing appropriate goals for pronunciation and listening, using perceptual training in addition to pronunciation training, and helping learners acquire strategies for dealing with problems with listening and pronunciation will help to facilitate successful communication beyond the English classroom.

    Read more about Teaching the Sound System of English

  • Flipping the Classroom with Routine and Innovation

    2020. Mara Haslam, Oliver Smith, Ylva Sandberg. Teaching, Technology, and Teacher Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic, 465-472

    Chapter

    This chapter discusses experiences with online teaching in pre-service teacher education. During a ten-week course for future primary school teachers of English in February-May 2020 a flipped classroom course design with seminars on campus was suddenly shifted to distance education. Our teacher response to the situation encompassed three main areas: increased flexibility, increased student autonomy, and development of innovative repertoires of formative assessment. Our recommendations include that teachers should look for ways to build on proven physical classroom strategies in the digital environment.

    Read more about Flipping the Classroom with Routine and Innovation

Show all publications by Mara Haslam at Stockholm University

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