English Language Teaching in Two Countries in the European Union– Spain and Sweden : A comparative study

Abstract The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is a tool, developed by the European Commission, which has been used as a base in the development of curricular documents in many countries. This would suggest a high level of similarity between the language teachings in different European countries, but how similar are they really? The aim of this thesis is to make a comparison between the general approach to foreign language teaching in two European countries, Spain and Sweden. It is important to note that the purpose has only been to find out what differences and similarities can be found between the two countries and not to make any kind of judgement as to what English teaching is preferable. A design consisting of two methods has been used to carry out the investigation: text analysis and in-depth interviews. The analysed texts are the English syllabus for upper secondary school in Sweden and the syllabus for the first foreign language in the Spanish upper secondary school. As a complement to the text analysis, interviews have been made with two English teachers from each country. The results that were found show that the two syllabi are similar in the way that both have been inspired by the CEFR and both promote Communicative Language Teaching. However, they also show several rather striking differences. The Spanish syllabus appears, for example, to focus much more on grammatical and phonetic knowledge than the Swedish one does. The results of the interviews, which cannot be generalized, indicate that the two English teachers in Sweden look for guidance in the syllabus and other official documents, while their Spanish colleagues prefer to turn to the textbooks, since they trust that the editors have made sure they follow the official regulations. This study shows that there are many differences between the language teaching in Spain and Sweden, despite the fact that both syllabi relate to the CEFR