Den språkutvecklande undervisningen i SO : En kvalitativ studie om hur fyra verksamma SO-lärare i grundskolans mellanår arbetar med språkutveckling i de samhällsorienterande ämnena

The purpose of this study is to investigate how four different teachers in the social sciences subjects in elementary school work with language development. The research questions for this study are: In what way do teachers work on language development in their teaching within the socialsciences subjects? How do the teachers take regard to students’ language development? What are the teachers’ difficulties in working with language development in the social sciences subjects? What support do the teachers feel they need to be able to conduct language development teaching? Two methods have been used to answer the research questions. Four teachers were interviewed and observed. Lev Vygotskij’s sociocultural perspective was used for the theoretical point of the study. The result of this study shows that the language development education is contextual and also full of opportunities for interaction. It also shows that the teachers have an important role that benefits their pupils’ knowledge. The four teachers used similar methods in their work with language development of their pupils’. They usually try to work with focusing on the subject specific words and concepts that occur in the lesson. The difficulties that the teachers usually experience in language development teaching are that they find it difficult to come up with various activities that could be considered language development. They also mean that they have not learned to do language development activities in their teacher training. Something else that the teachers have recognized is about the pupils’ school language and the difficulty of developing that. The teachers mean that language teaching is the best basis for the pupils’ language development