Pia Köhlmyr

About Pia Köhlmyr

• Office hour: By appointment via e-mail

Background

I am a senior lecturer in English linguistics at Gothenburg University since 1993 specializing in English grammar and proficiency, and contrastive and pedagogical aspects of second/ foreign language learning focusing English. In 2001, I received my PhD after successfully defending my dissertation To Err Is Human - An investigation of grammatical errors in Swedish 16-year-old learners’ free written production in English.

My foundation is a teacher’s degree in English and French for upper secondary school. Prior to my position at the university, I worked many years as a teacher in compulsory and secondary school as well as in adult education and at university level. This is where my pedagogical interest stems from. Over the years, I have focused more and more on higher education and I am fortunate enough to have been part of the development of and teaching in the Teacher Education program launched in 2011. In 2016, I was the first teacher in the Department for Languages and Literatures to be awarded the title Excellent Teaching Practitioner.

Teaching

I teach courses at all levels, both program and independent courses, and I supervise degree papers from bachelor to master’s level. My teaching covers English grammar and written proficiency, as well as English teaching in today’s multi-contrastive classrooms, language learning and formative feedback, and the connections between language teaching, culture and society. I also visit and assess our student teachers during their practicum periods in schools.

Research

My research focuses on language skills and grammar, proficiency and pedagogical aspects of second language learning and teaching. Second language acquisition is a fascinating and wide area where questions like 'How do we learn language? How to best teach the language? What language learners really? What mistakes do they do and why? How can we explain the language errors? What can we do to repair such errors? constantly explored in search of answers. My doctoral dissertation was within this field. It is a broad survey of grammatical errors in the free writing based on essays from national tests in Year 9 in Swedish schools and it combines two directions within SLA, error analysis and contrastive analysis with a dash of pedagogical implications. Other research interests me is vocabulary learning, 'immersion' in language teaching, and translation change. Recent and ongoing research focuses on feedback and written language skills involving advanced learners of English.