La lengua meta en la clase de español en Suecia: Una revisión literaria

Abstract

The role and use of the target language in foreign language teaching has been a subject of discussion for the past few decades of research in language didactics. In this literature review the difficulties and possibilities that the extensive use of target language in foreign language classrooms offers and the pedagogical implications in the context of Spanish as a modern language in Swedish upper secondary schools are investigated. To achieve this, studies set in different countries and with different target languages are reviewed, and it is found that the reasons behind a lower use of the target language and consequently a higher use of the students’ mother tongue are essentially the same in the studies reviewed. Even though researchers find similar reasons for codeswitches, their conclusions differ regarding whether the extensive use of the target language is desirable or if the use of the mother tongue should be viewed as a resource. The importance of the input of the target language is explored and it is found that it certainly is important: the amount as well as the type of input.