This study aims to explore teacher beliefs on accents in the classroom and how they affect classroom practices as well as the teachers views on the LFC approach. Furthermore, the study investigates whether there exists a possible disconnect between teachers and the Swedish National Agency for Education when it comes to deciding what approach to take when teaching English pronunciation. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with five Secondary school and Upper Secondary School English teachers in Sweden, whose work experience ranged from six months to 22 years. The study found that the teachers with more experience were more likely to prefer the inner circle English accents and use them as a benchmark for correctness. Phenomena like the native-speaker ideal, which means to idealize native speakers and view them as better speakers of English, can be linked to the teachers age and experience. Moreover, some teachers expressed feeling pressure from students to sound native-like and felt disfavored as some schools showed a preference for hiring native speakers as English teachers. Thus, a haloeffect for teachers speaking with an inner-circle English accent was identified, which affects students’ and employers’ perception of non-native EFL-teachers. The study also found that while some of the teachers were familiar with the Lingua Franca Core model, none of them had taught it. The study concludes that there is a disconnect between the teachers and Skolverket’s steering documents, as most of the teachers felt that Skolverket does not explicitly call for pronunciation teaching and were unsure of the demands. Furthermore, this calls for clearer demands from Skolverket as well as re-formation programs for experienced teacher to change their beliefs on non-native accents.

This paper aims at investigating how upper secondary school teachers of English in Malmö, Sweden abide by the curriculum criteria of having their learners develop correctness in speech, as well as what support English teachers receive with regard to pronunciation teaching from official steering documents. Furthermore, this paper attempts to critically evaluate and discuss potential options for pronunciation models or standards in education which hold sway in contemporary research. Through qualitative interviews with four upper secondary school teachers of English, the findings of this study indicate a discrepancy between the participants’ views on how ‘correctness’ should be interpreted as well as their methods for teaching and assessing pronunciation. In addition, none of the participants explicitly expressed a subscription to any particular pronunciation model or standard, but rather that they focused on intelligibility over native speaker accent accuracy. Through personal communications with the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) and a university professor of English at a teacher education programme, tendencies are observable of attempts at shifting responsibility for interpreting, understanding, and applying the syllabi, ultimately leaving individual teachers to uphold the demand of an equitable education through subjective interpretations of pronunciation teaching.  The implications of this study suggest that the field of pronunciation teaching in both Swedish and international context is still underdeveloped and in desperate need of further research. Whilst this study may have limited reach or impact on the field as such, it may serve as an indicator for the problem at large for teachers, researchers and educational agencies as well as promoting an awareness of issues in the equitability of pronunciation teaching. This paper may also serve as a basis for discussion in teacher teams or other educational opportunities for teachers on the development of coherent pronunciation constructs.