I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• English in Sweden: Functions, features and debates

  2024. Spela Mezek. World Englishes

  Artikel

  English has for a long time had a strong position in the Swedish sociolinguistic context. English is ubiquitous in the contemporary Swedish public sphere, and good knowledge of English can be found in all sections of society. Far from only being used as a lingua franca for international communication, English is today also pervasively used in domains of business, higher education and academia, as well as in the media and for entertainment purposes. This growing presence of English in Sweden has led to language debates about the status and the role of English in Sweden and concerns of whether English is a threat to Swedish. This article discusses the status and the manifold functions of English in Sweden and describes the uses and features of English in the Swedish context. It concludes with a discussion of the current debates on the uses and the role of English in Sweden.

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• English-medium instruction in higher education in Scandinavia

  2024. Spela Mezek, Beyza Björkman. The Routledge Handbook of English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education, 190-203

  Kapitel

  This chapter provides an overview of the background of English-medium instruction (EMI) in the Scandinavian region. While there are different views on what the Scandinavian region covers geographically, for our present purposes, we include, alphabetically, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. In our overview, we will touch upon some important differences that these four countries have despite the frequent discussion of the homogenous nature of these countries. Among these differences are the status of the local languages, the history of higher education, and the different implementations of EMI, which we believe are important. In search for a better and more nuanced understanding of EMI in the region, we will discuss the development and expansion of EMI in Scandinavian higher education and draw some conclusions on the differences and similarities that emerge from our review. We also argue that we need continued, fine-tuned research that carefully considers the histories and current sociolinguistic realities of these countries, thereby explaining the many faces of EMI in this geographical region.

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• Enabling student engagement in an academic English writing course: Emergency remote teaching at a Swedish University

  2022. Spela Mezek, Kathrin Kaufhold. International perspectives on teaching and learning academic English in turbulent times, 56-65

  Kapitel

  Student engagement and dialogue around writing are central to a genre-based academic writing pedagogy. These pedagogical principles are more difficult to achieve in emergency remote teaching such as the one imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. The sudden shift from face-to-face to online teaching required changes in course design. This chapter reports on the Swedish experience of teaching an interdisciplinary postgraduate EAP course during a period of emergency remote teaching and how what was learnt can be applied in the future. It describes how the university-wide implemented video conferencing tool and online learning platform were used in line with the pedagogical ethos of the course. While these tools provided a space for learning and synchronous and asynchronous communication, they also presented challenges in terms of the ability to interact spontaneously and the additional time needed to organize activities in a virtual learning environment. Cognizant of the opportunities and constraints of these tools, core elements of the course were redesigned through teacher collaboration and co-learning. This was done with the aim of better enabling student activity through small-group peer interaction and scaffolded peer feedback. These measures were intended to counteract the students’ sense of social isolation and help them feel a part of an academic community. The chapter concludes with a reflection on how the lessons learnt could be used when returning to the classroom.

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• Assessment and English as a medium of instruction

  2022. Anna Kristina Hultgren (et al.). Journal of English-Medium Instruction 1 (1), 105-123

  Artikel

  As English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) continues to expand across the globe, there is a glaring absence of research on assessment. This article reviews the scarce literature to date and maps out a research agenda for the future. Drawing on Shohamy’s (2001, 2007) Critical Language Testing and McNamara et al.’s (2019) notions of “fair” and “just” language assessment, our reading of the literature to date is that it has revealed considerable complexities around implementing assessment in EMI contexts, with key questions centring not only on what and who to assess but also on how and why assessment should take place. In outlining a research agenda for the future, we suggest that one way of bypassing such challenges may be to carve out a greater role for assessment for learning in higher education. This could capitalize on – and raise stakeholders’ awareness of – bodies of knowledge that are well established within applied linguistics about the integral role of language in learning. Whilst we acknowledge challenges in securing institutional buy-in for putting this agenda into practice, we suggest that doing so could turn assessment challenges into opportunities and significantly enhance learning not only in EMI contexts but beyond.

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• Scaffolding L2 academic reading and self‐regulation through task and feedback

  2021. Spela Mezek (et al.). TESOL quarterly (Print)

  Artikel

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• Participatory appropriation as a pathway to self-regulation in academic writing

  2019. Raffaella Negretti, Spela Mezek. The Journal of Writing Research 11 (1), 1-40

  Artikel

  Over the years, research on writing has increasingly emphasized the value of adopting a sociocultural perspective to understand how social context and social interaction relate to writing regulation. Using the theoretical lens of participatory appropriation, this study investigates the self-regulatory behavior of three successful Bachelor essay writers in literature, and how the interaction with their supervisors supported students’ development of writing regulation in disciplinary-relevant ways. Data was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews at three key moments in the term; Pintrich’s self-regulation framework was used as coding heuristic to trace participants’ self-regulation behavior over the term. Self-regulation data was cross-analyzed with data coded as participatory appropriation to identify the overlap between students’ self-regulation of writing and their social experiences, especially the dialogue with their supervisors. Our results show how the supervisors acted as agents of socialization, providing frames for adoption of disciplinary-relevant ways of thinking and doing, as well as indirectly sustaining the students’ motivation and re-conceptualization of the writing experience. Overall, this investigation responds to calls for inquiries of self-regulation against the backdrop of the social context in which it is embedded.

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• Laughter and humour in high-stakes academic ELF interactions

  2018. Spela Mezek. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 7 (2), 261-284

  Artikel

  This study investigates the uses and functions of laughter and humour in a corpus of nine PhD defences/vivas. The data include the PhD defences in their entirety, including monologic and dialogic talk by participants from a variety of research cultures. The defences were video-recorded and transcribed, and laughter episodes analysed according to who laughed, who the source of “the laughable” was, what the reason for laughing was and at what point laughter occurred. The analysis reveals that a majority of laughter was non-humorous, produced by one person, and had the function of mitigating face threats to speakers and others. Humorous laughter was usually produced by more than one person and had the function of relieving tension, creating a non-adversarial atmosphere and building a community. These results are connected to the communicative purposes of the participants; the participants’ mutual aim is to examine an academic work and confirm the candidate’s membership in their chosen specialisation, which requires cooperation from all parties. Furthermore, although the participants come from different research cultures where humour can have a different presence and function, this study shows that laughter and humour are frequent and fill an important function in ELF interactions in high-stakes academic situations.

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• Engaging with Terminology in the Multilingual Classroom

  2017. Hans Malmström (et al.). Classroom Discourse 8 (1), 3-18

  Artikel

  In some academic settings where English is not the first language it is nonetheless common for reading to be assigned in English, and the expectation is often that students will acquire subject terminology incidentally in the first language as well as in English as a result of listening and reading. It is then a prerequisite that students notice and engage with terminology in both languages. To this end, teachers’ classroom practices for making students attend to and engage with terms are crucial for furthering students’ vocabulary competence in two languages. Using transcribed video recordings of eight undergraduate lectures from two universities in such a setting, this paper provides a comprehensive picture of what teachers ‘do’ with terminology during a lecture, i.e. how terms are allowed to feature in the classroom discourse. It is established, for example, that teachers nearly always employ some sort of emphatic practice when using a term in a lecture. However, the repertoire of such practices is limited. Further, teachers rarely adapt their repertoires to cater to the special needs arguably required in these settings, or to exploit the affordances of multilingual environments.

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• PhD defences and vivas

  2016. Spela Mezek, John Swales. The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes, 361-375

  Kapitel

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• Reading EAP

  2016. Lisa McGrath, Jessica Berggren, Špela Mežek. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 22, 152-164

  Artikel

  This study investigates the reading strategies used by academically novice, but high proficiency L2 students of English enrolled in a teacher education programme at a major Swedish university. Data were obtained from personal reading blogs kept by the students as they undertook course reading at home. An analysis revealed that students employed various reading strategies; however, there was limited evidence to suggest that students employed these strategies routinely. The most common strategy reported was connecting to short-term writing task. While students reported reflecting on their reading, they did not appear to amend unsuccessful strategy use, or re-use successful strategies. The study reveals the difficulties and limitations of high proficiency L2 students who lack experience of reading academic literature in English, and discusses pedagogical implications for reading blogs.

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• Learning subject-specific L2 terminology

  2015. Spela Mezek (et al.). English for specific purposes (New York, N.Y.) 38, 57-69

  Artikel

  In the globalised university environment, many university students are expected to learn subject-specific terminology in both the local language and the L2 (English) by learning from two media in two different languages: lectures in the local language and reading in L2 English. These students' bilingual learning is greatly affected by the learning strategies they employ. An experiment was designed to investigate the effects of student choice of learning media and the order of media on their learning and perception of learning of terminology in English. The results confirm that added exposure to terminology in different media, even in different languages, contributes to learning and show that, in some circumstances, learning terminology from reading may be more effective than learning it from a lecture. The results also show that students do not correctly judge their knowledge of terms learnt from different media in different languages and that they underestimate knowledge gained from reading in L2. Implications for teaching are discussed.

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• Learning terminology from reading texts in English

  2013. Spela Mezek. Nordic Journal of English Studies 13 (1), 133-161

  Artikel

  Student note-taking strategies can provide an insight into how students learn subject-specific terminology in L2 from L2 reading. This article explores the relationship between reading, note-taking strategies, and the learning of English terms among Swedish students. Students participated in an experiment in which they were presented with new terminology and could take notes. Their learning was measured with a multiple-choice test. Results show that students who took more extensive notes and who engaged with the text better learnt more terms. Pedagogical implications for subject and LSP teachers are discussed.

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• Multilingual reading proficiency in an emerging parallel-language environment

  2013. Spela Mezek. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (3), 166-179

  Artikel

  Rapid changes have taken place in the linguistic environment of higher education in Europe, where many students attend parallel-language courses, leading to a use of English (officially a foreign language) for academic purposes alongside the local language. This study investigated the relationship of Swedish students’ reading habits and abilities in Swedish and English. Their reading abilities were assessed with an interview and a Swedish and English reading test, and their reading habits with an interview, questionnaire, and Author Recognition Test. The study found correlation between English reading ability and some of the reading habits measures which is more reminiscent of situations where English is an official language. This was reflected in the students’ reading habits. Their leisure reading included both Swedish and English material, and their choice between the two depended primarily on factors such as quality and availability, and not language. So for these students there is little difference between reading difficulty in L1 and L2. These results suggest that many students in the parallel-language environments are highly biliterate, implying very different EAP requirements than encountered elsewhere. Implications are discussed.

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• Advanced Second-Language Reading and Vocabulary Learning in the Parallel-Language University

  2013. Špela Mežek.

  Avhandling (Dok)

  Due to the internationalisation of higher education, the use of English at higher education institutions has become widespread. Today an increasing number of students participate in courses with the local language as medium of instruction but with textbooks in English. These have been called parallel-language courses, because they are expected to facilitate learning disciplinary discourse in two languages: the local language and English.

  This thesis reports an exploration of Swedish students' reading and learning from English textbooks in parallel-language courses. The overarching aim was to investigate the relationship between the students' Swedish and English reading habits and reading proficiency, their academic biliteracy, and incidental learning of subject-specific terminology in English from reading. The study also set out to identify pedagogical solutions to facilitate students' reading and learning from reading in English.

  The investigation comprised four studies which utilised a variety of methods and approaches, both qualitative and quantitative. Participants were Swedish and British students of biology and Swedish students of English.

  The results show that many Swedish students are capable of reading and learning from texts in Swedish and English without experiencing serious difficulties, although additional support is required for the learning of English terminology. The findings also indicate that some students' difficulty when reading in English is not due to poor English language proficiency, but rather a range of other factors such as weak general literacy skills, low motivation, low subject and vocabulary knowledge, note-taking strategies, slow reading speed, and time. For some students, learning is also rendered difficult by their self-perceptions and beliefs about reading and learning.

  Based on my findings, I propose a range of practices for EAP and subject teachers to adopt in order to improve reading and learning in parallel-language courses.

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• Reading in tertiary education

  2012. Diane Pecorari (et al.). Quality in Higher Education 18 (2), 235-256

  Artikel

  This paper reports the findings of a study of undergraduate student use of, and attitudes toward, textbooks and other assigned reading. More than 1200 students of various subjects at three Swedish universities were surveyed. Most students said reading played an important role in learning generally and attributed positive characteristics to their textbooks. However, students’ self-reported reading behaviour was at odds with these attitudes, with many students reporting some degree of non-compliance with reading assignments and a small group of students expressing active resistance to completing reading assignments. Although textbooks were perceived as valuable, students reported a preference for learning course content from other resources, such as lectures and lecture notes. Textbooks were perceived as alternatives, rather than complements, to attending class. Differences were found across academic disciplines. Implications of these findings for educational administration and classroom practice are discussed.

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• English in Slovenia

  2009. Spela Mezek. English Today 25 (4), 28-38

  Artikel

  Slovenia, like many former Eastern bloc countries, is now coming to terms with the increasing popularity of English.

  Today English is the most widely used foreign language in Europe. It is used in business, education, science, the media, advertisements, music, graffiti, and in many other places, although its greatest use can be found in commerce, culture, science and education (Phillipson, 2003). The presence of English is felt more in some parts of Europe than in others, however. In the Scandinavian countries, for example, English manifests itself in all parts of society and the knowledge of English is so high that some consider it a second language (McArthur, 1996). In Eastern Europe, the acquisition and use of English has traditionally not been as widespread, although in recent years, the picture has changed greatly, as English has become more and more popular in what were formerly Eastern bloc countries.

  In many ways Slovenia has been following the trends in other Central and Eastern European countries. The influence of English has been growing since the Second World War and in particular after the end of the Cold War. Its influence has intensified even more after Slovenia became an independent country. Today, Slovenes feel both cautious and enthusiastic about English. There is extensive legislation to protect the Slovene language, while at the same time there is a ‘certain enthusiasm for both “western” ideas and the world language, English’ (Schlick, 2003: 4).

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