The aim of this essay is to investigate what English teachers’ attitudes are towards British English, American English and Mid-Atlantic English. What variety of English do teachers use in Swedish upper secondary schools today and what are their reasons for using that variety? Do upper secondary school teachers think it is important to expose students to several varieties of English and do they teach differences (e.g. vocabulary and spelling) between varieties? The material is based on a questionnaire, which 20 participating teachers from five different upper secondary schools in Gävleborg answered. The study showed that there is an even distribution between the varieties used and taught. British English was preferred by teachers working the longest time while both AmE and MAE seemed to be growing in popularity among the younger teachers. Of the 20 teachers, 18 considered teaching differences to students since it gives them a chance to communicate effectively with people from other English speaking countries.

This study investigates which English variety teachers in Sweden learned, which they use now and whether this has changed over time. The study included the two major varieties of English, namely British English and American English.  The hypothesis for this paper is that British English will have played an important part in the teachers’ schooling but American English will have had a strong influence in their day-to-day lives and will likely have hanged how they use English. Data was collected in the form of questionnaires filled in by 294 teachers who teach English at primary, secondary and upper secondary schools in Sweden.  The results support the thesis of the paper that teachers mainly learned British English at school while American English becomes more common for teachers under the age of 40. However, the majority of participants were found to use a variety which has features of both British and American English - it is referred to as Mid-Atlantic English in this paper.

English is today a vast world language, and the foremost important business and cross-border language in the world. The two predominant English varieties in the Swedish educational system are British English and American English. A third variety, Mid-Atlantic English, is however on the up-rise, and many researchers expect this to be the future educational standard variety due to escalating globalization. British English is the variety which traditionally has been taught in the Swedish school, but the last couple of decades American English have been gaining ground because of popular media. Today both varieties are referred to in the Swedish National Curriculum, and teachers as well as students face a multifaceted choice. The aim of this paper is to investigate attitudes among upper-secondary level teachers and students; on what grounds they have chosen their personal variety and to what extent they are aware of what English variety they use. What we have seen is that resolute attitudes can be perceived towards the two Englishes. Furthermore, our investigation shows that students mix British and American English, and even though British English still is held in academic esteem, American English characteristics predominate in the mix. British English is recurrently described as “snobbish” and in a more positive fashion as “high-class”, whereas American English is perceived either as “youthful and cool” or “dim and uneducated”. Even students who prefer and think they use British English, to a large extent use American orthography and spelling.

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The purpose of this project was to find out what varieties of English that Swedish upper secondary school students are exposed to in the classroom and to what extent they are exposed to different varieties. This was conducted by looking at preparation exercises for the listening part of the Swedish National Tests. These exercises are created by Göteborgs Universitet and are available online for everyone and show how the real national test will be done. By listening and analyzing every speaker’s variety they were sorted into British, American, Mid-Atlantic, Australian or New Zealand varieties. A total of 91 speakers were analyzed and the results showed that Students are exposed to mostly British English with half of the speakers using a British variety. One fourth of the speakers used American English while the rest were divided into Mid-Atlantic, Australian or New Zealand varieties.