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Database of Teaching Sources

A database of selected, reviewed, tested, assessed and validated e-learning based language teaching sources addressed to Higher education students for the learning of 18 different European languages.

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English - Swedish Audio Language Course (Swedish as foreign language)

Date of Publication

n/d (ongoing)

Target Group

Students

Domain Area

Business & Communication
Tourism

Learning Scenario

Autonomous learning
Classroom Context

Target Language

Swedish

Language of Instruction

English
Swedish

CEFR level

A1
A2
B1

Type of Material

Audio
Guiding resources (online course/book)

Linguistic Features

Vocabulary
Grammar
Prosody

Skills

Listening
Speaking
Reading

Description

This online course is available in either MP3 format (it is possible to download it), or directly on this website. Book 2- English-Swedish for beginners (physical book) can also be bought at Amazon. The book2 language course English - Swedish is also available at the iPhone app Learn Swedish or Android app Learn Swedish
The course Swedish as a foreign language includes 100 lessons which are free. All the texts are spoken by native speakers (we can listen to two different accents) and the learners do not need prior grammar knowledge.
On the website you are shown the table of contents of the book, where you can find a display of 100 lessons, ranging from topic areas to grammatical ones. This is a useful resource for the development of listening and speaking skills.
The first 60 lessons cover lexical areas like people, getting to know each other, food and drink, people, family members, among others adequate for a beginner level. The remaining 40 are about grammar topics: asking questions, possessive pronouns, conjunctions, verb tenses, etc.
You can click on the topic area and listen to and read (optional) the sentence, phrase or word.

Case study

This resource is ideal for beginner learners who want to learn Swedish as a foreign language in an autonomous way, in any place and time of their convenience. However, in the classroom context, I would focus on one topic area at a time and work on that before moving to the next topic. This course focuses mainly on useful daily phrases and not so much on loose words, without a context. Even though the first lessons, e.g. People and family, focus on some basic vocabulary related to people, then the other lessons already deal with phrases related to the topic and to the context. So, it meets the objectives of a communicative approach, even though there’s no interactive communication. However, to do so, I would ask my students to work in pairs and then, after listening to and repeating the phrases given in the topic ‘Getting to know each other”, for example, they would have to prepare and simulate a conversation between them using the phrases practised. That way, they would get closer to a real context, even though only chunks of language would be used.

Guidelines

Even though more adequate for autonomous learning, as learners can check and focus on the phrases and words they need to know for their travel and business purposes at their own pace and time, this resource can also be used in the classroom as it can assist the lecturer in getting the students to practise pronunciation and to get familiar with useful phrases and grammar structures useful for being able to speak the language at a beginner level.

If the resource is to be used in the classroom, the following suggestions could be implemented:
Warmer: The lecturer sets a context. For example, two businessmen meet in Sweden. One is a non-native speaker (Ex. American) and the other is Swedish. The Lecturer elicits from the students the words or phrases that are most useful when travelling, more specifically to Sweden. L. elicits from students words related to nationalities. Focus on words like “American, Swedish, Where are you from? Where do you come from?”
Step 1: The lecturer selects two or three topics for the lesson, e.g: getting to know others) and asks the students to listen to the phrases on the online course (lesson 3) and repeat them.

Step 2: Students work in pairs, and they can try to write down the corresponding words (we’re giving the option of show or hide the written text in Swedish: ex:
Do you come from America? K----- n- f--- A------?

Step 3: Students then in pair again simulate a conversation between them, using the phrases from lesson 3.

Review

Category
Rate
Comprehensive approach
Capacity to match the needs of lecturers and students

5

Added value
The provided tangible improvements

4

Motivation enhancement
The capacity to motivate students to improve their language skills

3

Innovation
Effectiveness in introducing innovative, creative and previously unknown approaches to LSP learning

5

Transferability
Measurement of the transferable potential and possibility to be a source of further capitalisation/application for other language projects in different countries

5

Skills assessment and validation
Availability of appropriate tools for lecturers to monitor students’ progress and for students to assess own progress and to reflect on learning

3

Adaptability
Flexibility of the contents and possibilities for the LSP lecturers to adapt the contents to their and to students’ need

5

Usability
Assess the technical usability from the point of view of the lecturer and the student

5

Accessibility
Assess the accessibility from the point of view of the lecturer and the student

5

Comments:
This resource is rather motivating as it is easy to use. Furthermore, it allows the learner to select topic areas according to his/her own needs. This resource is easily accessible and very user-friendly.
. As its contents are separated into different topics, it allows transferability to different areas and working specific language chunks.
Regarding innovation, it does not introduce innovative approaches to the language. However, the audiolingual method is still rather effective in lower level of language learning. It is also a plus the fact that we get two different accents for the phrases.
Despite its usefulness in terms of pronunciation practice, the fact that it doesn’t cover a more interactive communication approach to the language can be a downside. However, this should be complemented with other teaching/learning materials.
Website of the Teaching Source:
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