Approaches to Developing Written Academic Register Awareness in Upper Secondary School English Education in Norway: An Analysis of Current Practices and Corpus-Based Teaching Strategies

Abstract

Akademiske og formelle registermål har vorte ein del av dagens læreplan for videregåande skule sin engelskopplæring i Noreg. Sidan akademiske register er ei utfordring for EAL-elevar, må tilnærmingar for å betra forståing om skriftleg akademisk register kartleggast og forbetrast. Fyrst skisserer denne oppgåva dagens engelsklærarar sine tilnærmingar og nokre av deira ressursar for å fremja forståing av akademisk register. Engelske lærebøker analyserast ogso med tanke på tilrettelegging for oppgåver med fokus på registerforståing. Tilbakemeldingene frå lærarane og det teoretisk rammeverket tyder på at lærebøkene ikkje alltid er nyansert i måten dei framstiller akademiske register i oppgåvene. Lærarane har andre tilnærmingar til akademisk registerforståing som går forbi desse tilgjengelege oppgavene. Seinare, ettersom corpusforskning har vore sentralt for å utvida forståinga vår rundt akademiske register, undersøkast corpusbaserte tilnærmingar til undervisning som ein mogleg veg framover for å fremja registerforståingssøvingar og -oppgåver i vidaregåande skule. Lærarane sine tilbakemeldingar på desse oppgåvene tyder på at det framleis trengst nokre justeringer før corpusbaserte registerforståingsoppgåver passer inn i VG1 klasserommet, men at det finnes ei mogelegheit for implementering. Det er likevel behov for meir forsking rundt forståing for akademisk register før ei endeleg vurdering kan gjerast om vegen vidare.

Academic and formal registers aims have become a part of the current curriculum of upper secondary school English education in Norway. As academic registers pose a challenge for EAL learners, approaches to developing written academic register awareness need to be researched and refined. First, this thesis delineates the present approaches of in-service teachers of English and some of the resources these teachers use to promote academic register awareness. English subject textbooks are analysed as to their facilitation for tasks with register awareness focus. The feedback from the teachers and theoretical framework indicate that the textbooks are not always nuanced in the way they portray academic registers in their tasks. The teachers have other approaches to academic register awareness that go beyond these available tasks. Second, as corpus research has been pivotal in broadening the understanding of academic registers, corpus-based approaches to teaching are examined as a possible avenue for furthering register awareness exercises and tasks in the upper secondary school classroom. The teachers’ feedback on these tasks indicates that there are still some adjustments needed before corpus-based register awareness tasks suit the upper secondary school grade 11 classroom but that this possibility is not entirely closed. However, more research is needed before a final judgement can be made as to the way forward in developing academic register awareness.