Through qualitative interviews with three pupils in a secondary school it's examined how newly arrived pupils experience their progress in a regular class and which difficulties they face. The purpose of the thesis is to describe which difficulties newly arrived pupils face after the transition from a preparatory class in order to in the future facilitate better planning to solve and counteract these problems. Pupils in the study have significant problems with achieving a passing grade in several of their subjects in regular class and are in danger of not achieving high school competence. Analysis of the interviews shows that the pupils experience that their possibilities of progress are worse than other pupils and that this is mainly because of language difficulties, lack of prior schooling and the feeling of being marginalized. Furthermore questions regarding the pupil’s social contacts and the conception of the zone of proximal development are discussed.

Studien syftar till att undersöka hur medierande artefakter kan utgöra resurser men också hinder för språk- och kunskapsutvecklingen hos nyanlända elever i kemiundervisningen i ordinarie klasser på gymnasiet. Studien syftar även till att ge de nyanlända elevernas egna perspektiv på kemiundervisningen i ordinarie klasser. I studien, som är en intervention av den ordinarie undervisningen, möter eleverna olika medierande artefakter inom ämnesområdet redoxkemi. Dataunderlaget består av videoinspelningar av elevsamtal från elevernas möten med medierande artefakter under fyra lektioner samt en fokusgruppintervju där de nyanlända eleverna reflekterar över undervisningen. Dataunderlaget analyseras utifrån en praktisk epistemologisk analys. Resultatet visar att de medierande artefakterna ger de i helklass tysta nyanlända eleverna möjlighet till att föra informella naturvetenskapliga samtal som i förlängningen leder till meningsskapande i redoxkemi. Resultatet visar även att de medierande artefakterna kan bidra till en så väl språklig som kunskapsmässig utveckling och därmed har en viktig roll i utformandet av en språkinriktad kemiundervisning.

The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers in primary schools experience the situation of teaching newly arrived immigrant pupils in their regular classes and also how they plan their teaching for these pupils. The empirical study did intend to answer the following two questions; how do teachers experience the situation of teaching newly arrived immigrant pupils in their regular classes? How is teaching of newly arrived immigrant pupils in regular classes being formed? A qualitative method was used in the form of interviews with five primary school teachers from two different schools. The overall perspective I have assumed in this study is the sociocultural perspective, but I have also taken up a second language perspective and an intercultural perspective. All the teachers in the study have described their experiences of teaching newly arrived immigrant pupils in terms of difficult, tough and demanding at the beginning, but nowadays somewhat easier. They also expressed a sense of loneliness in handling this situation since they do not receive any support and help from the schools leadership. All the teachers in the study also experienced difficulties in keeping up with all the pupils in their class. Four of the teachers stated that they often felt inadequate and all of the teachers requested more resources. The teachers also described that they try to plan their teaching based on the newly arrived immigrant pupils’ abilities and needs but that these pupils sometimes had to follow the regular scheduled teaching. Every one of the teachers claimed that they work very concretely using body language and a lot of pictures in their teaching. Furthermore they expressed that the interaction between teacher and pupil, and pupil and pupil was an important component of the newly arrived pupils’ language development.