Svenskundervisning i klassrum där det också finns nyanlända elever. En intervjustudie med lärare som undervisar i årskurserna 4-6

Abstract

Newly arrived pupils in the Swedish schools are more common today than fifty years ago. As a teacher it is therefore important to know how to organize and teach newly arrived pupils the subject Swedish. The teacher in grade 4-6 has an important role when it comes to supporting newly arrived pupils who only have been in the country for four years or less. Some of the pupils starts in a preparatory class, and others start in an ordinary class. The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers organize and educate newly arrived pupils in the Swedish subject in a classroom with other pupils from various backgrounds. How do they plan and implement their teaching? What resources for teaching do the teachers use? What challenges do the teachers experience when teaching Swedish to newly arrived students? To investigate these questions semi structured interviews were performed with five teachers. Four of the teachers were Swedish subject teachers, one teacher taught Swedish in a preparatory class. The data was analyzed in themes. The findings show that the teachers had a similar way of thinking and working when it came to teaching the Swedish subject in mixed classes with newly arrived pupils. For the latter they used additional aids such as pictures and films to explain concepts that the pupils did not understand. The teachers had to arrange the teaching in various ways to overcome several challenges such as newly arrived pupils’ inadequate language skills, time limits and the pupils’ interest in the subject specific assignments.