Lärarlyftet i engelska för tidigare åldrar : Från engelskundervisare till engelsklärare

Since the beginning of the 21st century the Swedish Government has orchestrated a massive drive for in-service training of teachers working at all stages in primary and secondary school. To focus on teachers’ professional development is high priority as there is empirical evidence that well-trained teachers result in well-educated pupils. Lärarlyftet is the umbrella-term for one of these major initiatives, and the aim of the continuing drive, Lärarlyftet II, which will continue until year 2019, is that teachers should earn qualifications for all types of schools, and all subjects and grades where they teach. The Teacher Certification introduced in 2012, also requires competence for grading. Evaluations of Lärarlyftet has only been made of the first part, and there is nothing published regarding the English subject specifically. This study has its focus on primary school teachers taking an in-service course in English at university level. Based on both quantitative and qualitative methods, data for this study was collected over four years and from three sources: course evaluations, surveys and interviews. This study aims at finding answers to what experiences these teachers were left with after the completion of the in-service training regarding the gains from the course, how they feel they have been able to implement their newly acquired knowledge, and how they feel about the effect on their teacher identity, more specifically their language teacher identity. The results from all data sets is unanimous and reveals that the participating teachers experience great gains for their classroom practices, which in many cases have been heavily modified or completely overturned as a result of the course. These narratives can be linked to the theoretical concepts of teacher-efficacy, agency and teacher identity, as they give witness to gained self confidence in teaching situations (teacher-efficacy), a feeling of higher levels of independence regarding choices of both teaching materials and teaching methods (agency), as well as a more defined language teacher identity. These results also seem to hold over time. The current project also confirms previous evaluations of Lärarlyftet I regarding the spill-over effects of the teachers’ newly acquired knowledge. These are neither asked for nor taken advantage of on an organisation level, why this knowledge stays with the teacher on a classroom level