“Lo mejor que hay en la vida es la variación”: Un estudio cualitativo sobre la presencia de las variedades del español en la enseñanza de E/LE en Suecia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers in Spanish as a foreign language (E/LE) in Sweden view the representation and acceptance of Spanish varieties, both in and out of the classroom. I have recorded 8 interviews with E/LE teachers, both native speakers and non-native speakers. The main theories which were used to analyse the interviews were used the postcolonial theory and the sociolinguistic perspective. This study points to there being a communicative focus, rather than there being a focus on the correctness of the language, which points to there being an acceptance towards different varieties in the classroom. Furthermore, some teachers seem to think there are more prestigious varieties of Spanish. Additionally, there seems to be a link between seeing it as unimportant to explicitly teach about the dialects.