Perceptions of Oral Communication in English: Newly Arrived Students at the Language Introduction Program in Sweden

Abstract

In recent years, the reception of refugees in Sweden has contributed to multicultural classrooms in Sweden. Newly arrived students have different experiences of teaching since they originate from different countries and have different backgrounds. These aspects contribute to different challenges for both pupils and teachers. This qualitative study will focus on EFL in Sweden and it aims to investigate how newly arrived students perceive the oral communication goals in the EFL-curriculum. The students’ previous experiences of EFL-teaching will also be taken into consideration. The primary data analyzed in this paper are interviews with nine students and two teachers. The data collection was done through semi-structured interviews, which were later transcribed and interpreted. In accordance with previous research, findings from this study show that the students’ previous education mainly focused on formal teaching that involved teacher-led lectures and passive absorption of knowledge (e.g. receptive skills). However, some results showed that oral communicative activities had been carried out in some of the students’ previous education. Nevertheless, it was evident that these activities were highly structured by the teachers and did not give rise to spontaneous interaction in the classroom. Moreover, findings also show that the newly arrived students interacted more or less depending on the design of the oral activity. Overall, emotional aspects of the classroom environment seemed to have a significant impact on the extent of interaction on the lessons.