Teachers’ and students’ attitudes and perceptions toward varieties of English in Swedish upper secondary school

This study investigates teachers’ and students’ attitudes and perceptions toward the teaching and learning of varieties of English in a Swedish upper secondary school context. Data from 129 student questionnaires and nine semi-structured teacher interviews are analyzed. The results show that British English (BrE) appears to retain a prominent role amongst upper secondary students in Sweden as their ideologized values reveal that they feel that BrE sounds more pleasant and intelligent than AmE. However, American English (AmE) is the preferred variety of English amongst the participating students. The results also show that teachers predominantly teach British Standard English (BrSE) and American Standard English (AmSE), which they consider to be the ‘correct’ varieties of English. Teachers agree it is important to teach a wide range of Englishes, but do so by contrasting them with BrSE and AmSE. This study further suggests that other varieties of English are treated as a “funny thing” by the participating teachers, and argues that teachers must be made aware of their own language attitudes