Anja Synnøve Bakken is Associate Professor at Nord University, Levanger. She teaches in the 5-year Master programme in Primary and Secondary Education at the 5-10 level and in the English One Year Programme.

Anja Bakken holds a PhD in English didactics and a master’s degree in American immigration history. She has more than 30 years of experience as teacher, teacher educator in secondary schools and teacher education. She has taught courses at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, have acted as supervisor for bachelor and master candidates and led courses for in-service teachers. She teaches classes on several cultural topics related to the English-speaking world using literature, film and a range of popular culture texts, with a focus on narrative representations of minorities and marginalized groups in society and on inclusive teaching practices in diverse English language classrooms. 

• 5-year master in Primary and Secondary Education (5-10 level)
• English One Year Programme, Levanger campus
• Courses for in-service teachers (5-10 level) (KFK)

Selected Publications:

Bakken, A. (2019). Questions of autonomy in Norwegian English teachers’ discursive practices. Educational Research, 61(1), 105–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2018.1561202

Bakken, A. (2017). Notions of EFL reading in Norwegian curricula, 1939–2013, Acta Didactica, 11(2),1.

Bakken, A. & Lund, R. E. (2018). Why should learners of English read? Norwegian English teachers’ notions of EFL reading. Teaching and Teacher Education, 70, 78-87.

Bakken, A. (2016). When teachers talk about films: An investigation into some aspects of English teachers’ discursive practices, Acta Didactica, 10(1), 5.

Research Groups:

Member, Research Group for Children’s Literature in ELT (CLELT), Nord University

Member, Research Group for Social Justice and Diversity in Education, Nord University

• • Through this  network, she is involved in a cross-disciplinary research project entitled “En casusstudie av språkutvikling og deltakelse i et flerspråklig oppvekstmiljø” (A case study of children’s language development and participation in a multilingual environment). One branch of this project addresses language development in multilingual classrooms in a primary school context where one minority language dominates.

Member, Research Group for Text-based Language Learning (TELL), University of Bergen

• • Members are currently working towards an anthology about the use of multimodal texts in the teaching and learning of English. Scholars from four continents will be contributing chapters to the anthology. 

Member, Research Group for Indigenous Topics in Education, NTNU