I have worked as a teacher educator at Stockholm University for eight years and have taught various courses in language education for student teachers of English and Modern Languages. During the spring term of 2024 I teach the course 'English in the Classroom' for student teachers in school years 4-6 and the courses on English language teaching for student teachers in lower and upper secondary school. I also supervise degree projects and do teaching practicum visits.

The title of my PhD was L2 Instruction and Collocation Learning: Classroom intervention research on input processing with L1 Swedish adolescent learners of English. I defended my PhD on March 29, 2019 with Dr Elke Peters from KU Leuven as the external examiner. I continue to do research with clear applications for L2 learners and teachers, notably the researcher-teacher collaboration project Word Up! together with Tore Nilsson from the Department of Language Education and Fanny Meunier from Université catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium. My research interests also include mapping adolescent L2 learners’ vocabulary size and depth.    

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Extramural English in Teaching and Learning: From Theory and Research to Practice P. Sundqvist and L.K. Sylvén, Palgrave Macmillan 2016

  2019. Per Snoder. ELT Journal 73 (1), 95-97

  Article

  Sundqvist and Sylvén’s book focuses on extramural English (EE), a term coined by the first author to denote L2 learner-initiated involvement with English outside the classroom walls. The book provides an overview of theory and research related to EE and discusses the implications it has for L2 English teaching and learning. The impetus for writing this volume was the lack of a comprehensive handbook for ELT practitioners, student teachers, teacher educators, and researchers that addresses the new challenges of teaching L2 English in the 21st century to primary and secondary school learners, many of whom engage in English-mediated activities in their spare time. The authors are based in Sweden, the educational context for the specific EE-labelled research reviewed in some sections of the book. It may in some respects be more relevant to that context, as extreme EE consumers have been identified among adolescent Swedes, a case in point being Olsson (2016), whose participants in one category spent an average of seven hours per day on EE. However, the book explicitly involves target readers around the world.

  Read more about Extramural English in Teaching and Learning: From Theory and Research to Practice P. Sundqvist and L.K. Sylvén, Palgrave Macmillan 2016

• How dictogloss can facilitate collocation learning in ELT

  2019. Per Snoder, Barry Lee Reynolds. ELT Journal 73 (1), 41-50

  Article

  This instructional intervention investigated the potential for the text reconstruction task dictogloss to facilitate the learning of English verb–noun collocations, for example ‘carry a risk’. Research has shown that learners have difficulties in using such collocations, but few useful instructional techniques are on offer. Participants in the study were 64 L1 Swedish adolescent learners of English. The effectiveness of two modified versions of the dictogloss was compared in a within-subjects design. This implied that participants in pairs co-reconstructed two texts containing target collocations, where each co-reconstruction was preceded by a specific priming activity to induce learners to process collocations as intact wholes. Results showed that having learners elaborate on the meaning of collocations in a pre-task activity outperformed a form-oriented pre-task activity on all measures, notably for productive knowledge on delayed post-tests. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research and their implications for ELT.

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• L2 Instruction and Collocation Learning

  2019. Per Snoder (et al.).

  Thesis (Doc)

  An important dimension of learning a second language (L2) is to build up a store of recurring word combinations that native speakers use. These so-called formulaic sequences (FSs) serve many functions in fluent language use. One category of FSs is collocations, defined in the present thesis as combinations of a verb and a noun in English with a significant attraction to each other, for example ‘carry a risk’. Research has shown that L2 English learners struggle with the appropriate use of collocations but reviews of instructional interventions have concluded that few guidelines for effective pedagogical treatment of collocations are available. 

  The thesis has investigated the impact of L2 instruction on collocation learning by manipulating the conditions for input processing of treatment materials containing target collocations (TCs). Three classroom pre-test/post-test intervention studies (Studies I-III) were conducted, with a total of 165 L1 Swedish adolescent learners of English. Study I compared a form-focused approach to a meaning-focused approach to the same materials to find out why the former may be more effective than the latter as shown in previous studies. Study II focused on the effects of three manipulations of the materials: how deeply the learners process the TCs, whether re-exposures to TCs are spaced or concentrated, and whether the learners process TCs with or without post-test announcement. Study III examined the potential for a collaborative text reconstruction task to facilitate TC learning. Two modified versions of the task were created that contained different types of priming to the TCs in a pre-task activity.

  Results of Study I show that learners in the form-focused condition, having studied decontextualized TCs and been introduced to the term ‘collocation’, were able to connect words that they previously only knew as single words into collocations. Results also show that a researcher-developed version of stimulated recall interviews was successful in probing learners’ mental processes. As for Study II, surprisingly, neither deep processing nor a spaced re-exposure schedule was effective for TC learning, while post-test announcement was. Results of Study III reveal that a pre-task activity that induced learners to elaborate on TC meaning outperformed a pre-task activity with a form-focused elaboration of TCs, notably for the delayed post-test of productive TC knowledge.

  Taken together, the results of Studies I-III show that L2 English teachers, with relatively small changes in their classroom procedures, can actively contribute to increasing their learners’ collocational competence, an integral part of more advanced proficiency. It is hoped that the successful implementation of the three studies will inspire more instructional interventions on L2 vocabulary learning in Swedish schools and universities, targeting single words and FSs.  

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• Improving English Learners’ Productive Collocation Knowledge

  2017. Per Snoder. TESL Canada Journal 34 (11), 140-164

  Article

  This article reports on a classroom-based experiment which tested the effects of three vocabulary teaching constructs on the learning of English verb-noun collocations, for example shelve a plan. Laufer and Hulstijn’s (2001) ‘involvement load’ predicts that the higher the motivational-cognitive load of a task, the more effectively it promotes word retention. ‘Spacing’ refers to the advantage of spreading out learning opportunities for words as opposed to massing them. ‘Intentionality’ comprises two word processing modes: intentional learning (post-test announced) and incidental learning (post-test unannounced), where the former is claimed to outperform the latter. The constructs were integrated into an intervention study with 59 adolescent L1 Swedish learners of English in within- and between-subjects designs. Learners processed target items three times when performing tasks that operationalized the constructs. Three post-tests of productive knowledge of target items were administered. Statistical analyses of gain scores show that neither involvement load nor spacing had a significant positive impact on learning gains. Significant effects were found on three measures for intentional learning when compared to incidental learning. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research and their implications for English language teaching (ELT).

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• Assessing Modern Languages in Swedish Upper Secondary Schools

  2016. Per Snoder.

  Article

  The purpose of this report is to provide an example of how Italian for beginners at a Swedish upper secondary school (students aged 16-19) was assessed in light of the new Swedish foreign language syllabus. After an introduction of the new syllabi for modern languages, the reader is invited to follow my learners of Italian at Kärrtorps gymnasium outside Stockholm from their first encounters with the new language at the start of the course in August to the final examination period nine months later, when the knowledge requirements from the syllabus were assessed and summarized for the course grade.

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• Using qualitative methodologies in research on formal L2 collocation learning

  2016. Per Snoder. Collocations Cross-Linguistically, 193-218

  Chapter

  This article reports on a quasi-experimental study of formal L2 collocation learning focusing on intermediate level EFL learners in two Swedish high schools. The study aimed at investigating the potential for qualitative methodologies to account for the learning of target items (verb-noun collocations) in form-focused compared to meaning-focused treatment conditions. Using a pre-test/post-test design, the study utilized two verbal reports – introspective think-aloud protocols (TAPs) and retrospective stimulated recall interviews (SRIs) – to probe participants’ memory processes of learned target items as displayed in post-tests. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. Results showed that the introspective report as a rule put too much cognitive strain on participants in both conditions, while the retrospective report offered insights into the mental mechanisms of participants that had processed target items with an explicit focus on target forms. Implications for language pedagogy and further research are discussed.

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Show all publications by Per Wennlund at Stockholm University