We are living in a multicultural society where people from other countries and other cultures are coming to Sweden, including children. Regardless of reasons why these students have come to Sweden, it is common that they are newly arrived and have to learn a second language, in this case Swedish. This will be a challenge, opportunities and difficulties for the student, students’ families and for the school and their staff. The purpose of this essay has been to illumine the teaching methods, models and what materials are used by teachers today to contribute to the best possible second language learning for newly arrived students. In this essay the focus has been on one theory and several model-based approaches. I have used qualitative methods where I did both observations and interviews. The observations took place in six different teaching opportunities in two different schools and classes. The interviews were done by two teachers in two different schools. The result showed that teachers were more inventive compared to the theory. The teachers chose to produce their own material often instead of using ready material, which meant that they could adapt the material to match the students’ level in the class. The result also showed that the Southern school was working with an intercultural approach and was active with the students’ teachers for the mother language compared with the Northern school. In both schools the teachers was working with the perspective of newly arrived pupils with Swedish as second language and that its newly arrived students often have different cultures and experiences which are essential. During my essay I found a disadvantage within these two schools, that preparatory classes were not integrated with the rest of the school. I believe the schools should have a second thought about integrating preparatory classes in classrooms with the rest of the school.

I have chosen to write this essay on language development in a preparatory class due to the fact that I live in a city where diversity is big and newly arrived students from different countries are constantly increasing in schools. My study has been made in a preparatory class in Södertälje. The National Agency for Education highlights the deficiencies in preparatory classes and believes that education is not adapted to each student's knowledge and maturity and it is therefore difficult for students to reach the goals in school. According to studies by the National Agency for Education, it appears that many newly arrived students do not recieve study guide in their native language, a resource that they are entitled to. Teachers and principals do not take charge of  students knowledge from previous school attendance in their home countries such as mathematics, history and other subjects. The purpose of this essay is to find out how to work with language development in a preparatory class. The focus of interest is to investigate how much the Swedish and the native language are used in class. My theoretical starting points will consist of theories of second language learning, language development, language switching and native language. In my studies I have used the qualitative method in which I have observed in a preparatory class for three school days and have interviewed three teachers and four students. The conclusion which I have found from my empirical material is that the teachers in the preparatory class work with language development by first and foremost providing security to their students in the classroom. When this security is created, their main tool for language development is constantly support in the native language in all subjects.

I denna uppsats undersöks hur lärare arbetar med skönlitteratur i skolan, dels i språkförberedande undervisning på IVIK programmet såväl som i svenska som andraspråksundervisningen och i svenskan med andraspråkselever. Syftet med uppsatsen är att studera vilka arbetsmetoder lärarna använder sig av med andraspråkselever, hur lärarna arbetar med ämnets syften och språkutvecklingen. En undersökning har gjorts genom intervjuer med fem lärare på en gymnasieskola. Utgångspunkten för uppsatsen är följande frågeställningar: Hur arbetar lärare med skönlitteratur i skolan, dels i språkförberedande undervisning på IVIK programmet såväl som i svenska som andraspråksundervisningen och i svenskan med andraspråkselever? Hur arbetar lärarna språkutvecklande i de skönlitterära momenten och hur ser man att det har uppnåtts? Hur arbetar lärarna med de skönlitterära syftena i ämnet och hur ser man att eleverna har tagit till sig innehållet i syftet?   Resultatet av undersökningen visar att arbetet i grupper med enbart andraspråkselever har ett tydligt andraspråksperspektiv. Lärarna i svenskgrupperna ger alla elever samma undervisning men andraspråkseleverna ges mer stöd när det behövs. Alla de intervjuade lärarna använder frågor och samtal om texten som arbetsmetod i den skönlitterära undervisningen i arbetet med syfte och språkutveckling men det är svårt att utvärdera om eleverna har tagit till sig innehållet i syftet och om språkutveckling verkligen har skett genom de skönlitterära momenten och om insikterna i syftet påverkat eleverna på djupet. / This essay review the way teachers work with literature in school, partly in language preparation classes as well as in Swedish as a second language and in Swedish with second language learners. The purpose of the essay is to study which methods teachers use in education with second language learners, how the teachers work with the aims of the course and development of language. A survey has been made by way of interviews with five teachers at an upper secondary school. The premises of the essay are following question formulation: How do teachers work with literature in school, partly in language preparation classes as well as in Swedish as a second language and in Swedish with second language learners? How do teachers work with development of language in teaching literature and how can one see it is successful? How do teachers work with the literary aims of the course and how can one see that the students have embraced the aims?  The results of the survey show that the work in groups with alone second language learners has got a clear second language perspective. The teachers of the Swedish classes give all students the same instructions but second language learners acquire more support if needed. All the teachers in the survey use questions and dialogue about the text as a method in education in literature in the work with the aims and the development of language, but it is hard to evaluate if the students have embraced the aims and if progress in language has been made by way of the parts of literature and if the knowledge in the aims have influenced the students in depth.

<p>When speaking a language, whether it is our first or second language, grammatical mistakes will be made. The aim of this essay is to look into what kinds of mistakes some Swedish learners of English make when speaking English and to analyze why these mistakes are made. The essay also aims at looking into what grammar teaching can look like in Sweden and how some teachers look upon their students’ oral proficiency.</p><p>The method used for this study was a qualitative one, namely interviews. Twelve students, eight in grade seven and four in grade nine, and two teachers were interviewed. During the interviews with the students a dictaphone was used. When interviewing the teachers notes were taken, and these have been the foundation of the analysis.</p><p>The results showed that many of the mistakes made by the students seemed to originate in transfer from their first language. Preposition mistakes, for instance, were made in 20% of the cases and they mainly originated in interference with their first language.</p><p>Verbs turned out to be the area where most mistakes were made, followed by prepositions and pronouns. 50% of the mistakes made by students in grade nine were verb mistakes, whereas the students in grade seven made verb mistakes in 33% of the cases.</p><p>This study further shows that the teachers had a good grasp of what their students know, and do not know, but there were some mistakes the learners made which the teachers did not mention. Finally, the study showed that spoken language is in focus within the classroom. Students are allowed to make mistakes, even though the interviewed teachers find grammar important.</p>

<p>This paper is a study within the general area of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), focusing on second language learning in formal (class room) settings. The main questions discussed in this essay are firstly, whether social factors matter while learning a second language, secondly, to what extent attitudes towards the second language matter and thirdly, what attitudes students actually have towards studying a second language.</p><p>The paper compares both students and teachers in the UK and Sweden. To be able to make this comparison I travelled to the UK and followed a class at the University of Wolverhampton that study Swedish.</p><p>This paper has benefited from both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative part consists of a questionnaire that was handed out to the students in both England and Sweden. For the qualitative part of my research I made use of the structured interview form, which is a method that has a compact nest of questions and where the sequence of questions is decided before the interview. I interviewed two students and one teacher in each of the countries that this paper covers.</p><p>The social factors that this paper recognises are age, gender, social class and ethnic identity. Furthermore, the essay examines the impact of students’ motivation and attitudes while studying and learning a new language. It has been demonstrated that motivation has a major role to play while learning a second language. It can be argued that the more motivated students are the more and better they will learn. According the students in question their opinions are that you have to have a good teacher while learning languages, i.e. a teacher that can encourage you and make you develop. On the other hand the teachers in question said that the students must be interested in learning second languages otherwise it is pointless since they will not develop.</p><p>The findings of the present paper are analysed in the light of previous research published in this field.</p>

Code-switching is a phenomenon that exists in bilingual societies where people have the opportunity to use two or more languages to communicate. Being able to speak more than one language, bilinguals can code-switch and use their languages as resources to find better ways to convey meaning. Code-switching occurs in English classrooms in upper secondary school every day. Therefore, the aim for this paper was to investigate when and why teachers in upper secondary school code-switch when teaching L2 English. It has also looked into what language the students preferred in different classroom situations. Five teachers were interviewed and 96 students taking English 5 and 6 responded to a questionnaire. The results showed that the teachers generally tried to code-switch as little as possible but that they did code-switch in some of those situations where the students preferred either a combination of Swedish and English or only Swedish. Two of these situations were grammar instructions, where a majority of the students preferred a combination of English and Swedish, and one-to-one situations, where a majority of the students preferred Swedish. A clear majority of the students (87%) wanted their teacher to make them speak more English.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether listening to music as an out-of-school activity, and English songs in particular, motivated a group of Swedish upper-secondary students to learn extramural English. One aspect that comes into focus is whether the students perceived that there were particular aspects of second language acquisition (SLA) that improved as a result of listening to music. The study focuses on the correlation between the needs of the listeners and the nature of their motivation for learning. This is a qualitative study based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews. The results show that all of the students perceived listening to music as an aid in their extramural English acquisition. A majority of the students had the intrinsic motivation for learning as they exhibited curiosity, emotions and internal needs as the primary factors that empowered them to expand their extramural English. The minority of the interviewees showed signs of extrinsic motivation to learn the vocabulary of the lyrics of the songs they listened to. The learning they experienced was linked to the expectancy in improving their academic performances. They may, however, have had a combination of the extrinsic and intrinsic forms of motivation where the former had a dominant position. In both cases the respondents showed awareness of the correlation between their extramural English acquisition and listening to vocal music. It is suggested that vocabulary acquisition was the primary aspect of language learning that benefited from listening to songs, followed by listening skills. The possibility to make their own choice to listen to music is linked to deep language learning, vocabulary learning in context and mastering listening skills.

We examined the relationship between orthographic processing and spelling in French immersion children. Study 1 included 148 first graders and they were assessed on orthographic processing and spelling in English and French. In Study 2, we followed 69 second graders for two years. Orthographic processing and spelling in English and French were administered in second and third grade. In Study 3, we analyzed the spelling errors made by the third graders in Study 2. In Study 1, we found a within-language relationship in English and French between orthographic processing and spelling. Cross-language transfer from French orthographic processing to English spelling was also observed. In Study 2, Grade 2 English spelling predicted gains in Grade 3 English and French orthographic processing. Study 3 showed that children made transfer errors when spelling in English and French. Overall, the current research highlights the importance of orthographic processing and spelling in French immersion children.

<p>This research used diary studies and interviews with five Japanese learners of English to investigate the different affective, cognitive and social factors that affected their learning of English in Cape Town between 2004 and 2005. The findings of this study corroborate arguments put forward by Gardner that factors such as learning goals, learning strategy, attitude, motivation, anxiety, self-confidence and cultural beliefs about communication affect the acquisition of a second language and correlate with one another.</p>

Compliments, speech acts used to establish and reinforce solidity in human interaction, are employed extensively in various social situations. The act of giving compliments as well as responding to compliments may differ for various social contexts and cultural norms. Particularly for second language learners, the target environment may influence the way they employ compliments in their second language. This study aimed to investigate the compliment responses of Chinese second language speakers of English in view of their length of stay in the US and topic of the compliment. Four participant groups included a US group, and three Chinese ESL groups with different length of stay in the US. Both quantitative and qualitative results indicated that the four groups shared a similar tendency to employ compliment responses. These results suggest that there may be a new concept of culture developing, which is not bound to geographic location and first language.