Chapter 3
Morpho-syntactic development in the input
A study of second language learning textbooks
This article reports on a study of textbooks used in “Education in Swedish for Immigrants”, in which morpho-syntactic progression is examined in terms of frequency of occurrence in the textual input and is related to learners’ development as defined by Processability Theory (Pienemann 1998). The study is one of two parts of a research project that aims to relate second language instruction through textbooks to research on morpho-syntactic development. The first part was concerned with order of introduction in the learning objectives (Flyman Mattsson 2016), and the second part will be presented in this article. The present study confirms that there is a lack of consensus in the definition of morpho-syntactic progression. If the texts do not represent the learners’ level of development, this may slow down or inhibit progress.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical background
- 3.PT
- 4.Teachability hypothesis
- 5.Representation in the input
- 6.Previous research on textbooks
- 7.A study of learning objectives in textbooks for “Education in Swedish for Immigrants”
- 8.Data and method for analysis
- 8.1“Education in Swedish for Immigrants”
- 8.2Method of analysis
- 9.Results
- 9.1Progression between courses
- 9.2Morpho-syntactic difficulties within single texts
- 10.Discussion
-
References
-
Textbooks in the study
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Textbooks in the study
Brusewitz, T. & Renlund, B.
2008 Framåt B. [
Forward B] Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

Brusewitz, T. & Renlund, B.
2009 Framåt C. [
Forward C] Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

Ekblad, U. & Söderqvist, C.
2012 Språkvägen – för sfi kurs B. (
Language road – sfi course B). Stockholm: Sanoma Utbildning.

Ekblad, U. & Söderqvist, C.
2013 Språkvägen – för sfi kurs C. (
Language road – sfi course C). Stockholm: Sanoma Utbildning.

Latvala, I.
2012 Fantastiska texter från hela världen (
Fantastic texts from the whole world). Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Levy Scherrer, P. & Lindemalm, K.
2007 Rivstart A1+ A2 (
Flying start A1 + A2). Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

McShane, M.
2007 Svenska till max. Nybörjarbok (
Swedish to the max. Beginners). Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

McShane, M.
2007 Svenska till max. Textbok 1 (Swedish to the max. Textbook 1). Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

McShane, M.
2010 Svenska till max. Textbok 2 (Swedish to the max. Textbook 2). Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

Mörling, M.
2008 Framåt A. (Forward A). Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

Svensson, M.
2012 Extra! Läs- och skrivövningar för sfi kurs B. (Extra! reading and writing exercises sfi course B). Stockholm: Natur & Kultur.

Tarras, L. & Stiernstedt, M.
2008 Samspråk 1. Om livet i Sverige (Conversing 1. About life in Sweden). Stockholm: Bonniers.

Tarras, L. & Bernhardtson, E.
2008 Samspråk 2. Om livet i Sverige (Conversing 2. About life in Sweden). Stockholm: Bonniers.

Wikner, S. & Wikner, J.
2012 Svenska – och mycket mer/ABC. Alfabetisering (Swedish – and a lot more/ABC. Literacy). Wikners förlag.

Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Keßler, Jörg‐U. & Anke Lenzing
2022.
Grammar in Foreign and Second Language Classes. In
The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching,
► pp. 1 ff.

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