Student Engagement with Curricular Literature in English. An Indication from Students in Tertiary Education.

English: Previous research suggests that Norwegian students in higher education struggle with English academic literature (Hellekjær, 2009) and instruction (Hellekjær, 2010; Schwach, Brandt, & Dalseng, 2012). The present study seeks to explore student perceptions concerning curricular literature written in English, and asks: How do Norwegian learners in higher education engage with mandatory English academic literature, and how do their perceptions about English compare to their views on curricular literature in Norwegian? In order to investigate this, a mixed-method approach is implemented, namely a questionnaire (N=142) and single-person interviews (N=5). The study was carried out with the help of mainly graduate-level students from teacher-training programs attending higher education in Norwegian. Participants from the current study report that they prefer Norwegian over English texts, indicating a preference for reading in the mother tongue. Regarding reading in English, they report that they find English more difficult than Norwegian. A possible explanation of this experience of difficulty is that they spend more time on looking up novel words when reading English, something which is confirmed in the interviews. Thus, reading English is more time-consuming. There are concerns that Norwegian will be pushed out as a result of English’s increased presence in academia (Bukve, 2012; Gjengedal, 2013). However, indications are given that the students from the study do not consider English as an invading force, and if they do recognise its increased role, they do not care. This thesis sheds light on a little researched student group in the context of academic reading in English, namely students from teacher training programs. Recommendations are made to including more English at undergraduate-level to bridge the gap between secondary and tertiary education, namely by introducing academic English earlier and through texts which are not as complex as the ones found at graduate-level