The library and Swedish for Immigrants : the function of the public library in second language learning

The purpose of this master's thesis is to find out what support students of Swedish for Immigrants (sfi) think they get from the public library during their study of the Swedish language. One important aspect in this essay is to examine whether the library can meet the need of Swedish-speaking meeting places where the sfi-students can practise their new language. The method used in this study is qualitative interviews. Nine sfi-students, one sfiteacher and one librarian have been interviewed. A sociocultural perspective on learning has served as a theoretical starting point. The results of the study shows that most of the sfi-students interviewed frequently use the library. The students don’t seem to think that they have significant use of the library when learning Swedish and they don’t recognise the library as a meeting place. However, the study shows that what the students actually do at the library lead to communication in Swedish and we make the conclusion that the library to some extent meets their needs of a meeting place. Furthermore the respondents express a need of practising their new language with Swedish people and several of them think that the library can have the function of a meeting place for many immigrants with greater needs. The respondents also suggested future developments the library could do to further support sfi-students. We conclude that the library seems to have a potential in being a meeting place where immigrants can practise their Swedish