The use of sociopragmatics in the teaching of Spanish as a mother tongue in Sweden

Studies on the incidence of socio-pragmatic competence in the teaching of mother tongues are very scarce. The aims of this qualitative study are two folded: First, we want to describe the teachers’ use of socio-pragmatics in the subject of Spanish as a mother tongue. In addition, we want to determine the degree of use of socio-pragmatics u in this specific subject. a mixed method was applied. The results were obtained by means of aclassroom’sssemi structuredsIt was assumed that there would be a sociopragmatic approach in the teaching of mother languages but it was found to be different in each class and it depended on the teachers’ academic training and on the teaching materials, which do not always met the requirements of the subject’s curriculum. The present study assumes that there is a big difference between what appears in the curricular plan and what happens inside the classroom. Sociopragmatic aspects are not sufficiently reflected in the pedagogical practice due to two main reasons: on the one hand, internal and external factors that affect teaching negatively; and, on the other, the fact that teachers are not sufficiently acquainted with socio-pragmatic views. The results show that in all classes the teaching of socio-pragmatic aspects works although mostly intuitively. The degree of employment of socio-pragmatics is different depending on the knowledge that the teacher has about socio-pragmatic competence. Finally, yet importantly, it was found that various internal and external factors affect mother tongue teachers. These factors have a big impact on the properly development of the subject and, specifically, on the teaching of socio-pragmatic competence