“I’ll take it first in English and then in Swedish” - A Study Regarding Teachers’ Language Use in English Class

This study sets out to examine the teacher perspective of the use of Swedish and English during English teaching in year 4. Whether the first language, in this case Swedish, should be included is a much debated questions, and, there is no unanimous answer. On the one hand, scholars promote the sole use of the target language in the classroom and argue that such an approach would result in the students communicating more in English. On the other hand, the first language, in this context Swedish, is seen as a resource which can aid language learning. In addition, there appear to be a gap between this discussion and practice on ground. Therefore, this study aims to examine a few teachers’ beliefs and motivation for their language use. The study is conducted through lesson observations and qualitative interviews with four Swedish primary school teachers who teach English. Results show that two of the four teachers believe that the ‘English Only’ approach is most advantageous. Whereas the other two believe that the learners need translations to support their understanding. Swedish is used in every classroom to a varying degree; however, all the teachers motivate its use with the same reasoning: the students’ low proficiency in English makes it too difficult to use the target language only. Furthermore, the teachers find the need to include the first language in order to reach and support all learners. However, one can question this approach as it does not include the learners whom have other first languages than Swedish, and who are forced to learn English via Swedish. The results imply that teachers may need further education on how to work with Swedish and multilingualism in a conscious and pedagogical way