Teaching English to newcomers : Challenges for teachers of English in their work with newly arrived pupils

This thesis aims at examining the difficulties and challenges that a teacher in English is bound to face when working with newly arrived pupils, as well as at finding out how teacher training programs in Sweden prepare future English teachers for the inevitable encounter with newcomers. The study is conducted through qualitative semi-structured interviews with two teachers of English as well as two teacher students. What emerges from the collected material is that newly arrived pupils find themselves in a very complicated situation. The fact that they are forced to learn English at the same time as they are trying to acquire the Swedish language, alongside the fact that they are to work with classmates that are significantly more experienced than they are in the acquisition of English, entails increased demands on teachers. The lack of resources allocated to this area by Swedish schools makes the teachers` task all the more complicated. Thus, English teachers are confronted with a particularly difficult task in regards to their encounter with newcomers. The study also shows that English teachers do not possess the skills that are deemed necessary to properly deal with the situation. In order to meet the newcomers` particular requirements, English teachers need to acquire a type of knowledge that today they lack, namely knowledge on multilingualism and third language acquisition, and thus develop a new set of skills. This means that teacher training programs need to be adjusted in order to provide future English teachers with a type of knowledge that teacher training programs currently do not offer their students