"Språket är ett medel, inte ett mål..." : Några lärares syn på språkutveckling i grundskolans senare år och på gymnasiet i den språksatsande kommunen Huddinge

The purpose of this essay is to examine how four of the teachers employed in Huddinge municipality look at the language developing aspects of their teaching, and how their views relate to the curriculum and the national and local syllabi of the subject Swedish within upper level of compulsory school and upper secondary school. The municipality's ambitions and aims with language development as a prioritized area functions as a background throughout the essay. The main issues concern the teacher's views on language development, their opinions about the course syllabi, the teachers' roles in relation to language development, and their attitude towards the Huddinge municipality's ambition to prioritize language development. Information has been gathered through semi-structured interviews with working teachers, and through analysis of the syllabus documents using a modified level-analysis model. The empirical material is related to several theoretical perspectives, such as socio-cultural perspectives on learning, and curriculum theory. The main results state that teachers very much emphasize the social and communicative functions of language, and also that reading is stressed as important for good language development. The curricula and syllabi are regarded as supportive tools; however they are not used very frequently in the everyday work. The municipality's ambitions regarding language development are known to the teachers, but they would like to see coordination on a municipal level when it comes to the various language development related projects within the municipality. The teachers also request more occasions for exchanging experiences and dialogue with others