The Effect of Media Habits on L2 English Proficiency: A study of L1 Norwegian lower secondary pupils

Abstract

This thesis explores the possible significant interactions between lower secondary school pupils’ English proficiency and the extent and characteristics of English language exposure from their media habits and out-of-school activities. The English language has manifested itself in the Norwegian society, and teenagers are exposed to considerable amounts of English in their everyday lives. A quantitative approach was used in this study. Data was gathered from three classes of different year levels in Norwegian lower secondary schools. The participants answered a survey consisting three parts. The first part was about the participants’ background, the second part was to measure the extent and characteristics of their media habits and out-of-school activities, and the third part was an Oxford Proficiency Test, to measure their English language proficiency. Fours tests were conducted in this study: the Shaprio-Wilk test to examine normality, correlation coefficients Pearson’s r (PCC) and Spearman’s rho (SCC), and a t-test to compare two groups. Significant interactions were found for English out-of-school activities that requires the pupils to use their language, specifically for reading English books, playing video games. Another significant interaction found was found for both the extent and for characteristics concerning watching English movies and TV-series. Correlation tests suggest frequent use of this out-of-school activity to induce English proficiency. Inspecting this further, subtitle preferences was declared as a cause of importance.