In autumn 2016, Malmö University started two “fast track” trajectories for teachers with refugee backgrounds. The participants were offered an education of 26 weeks as an introduction to the Swedish school system, consisting of content courses, professional Swedish and workplace learning. The aim of this small explorative study was to get an impression of the participants’ views and understanding of the role of becoming a teacher in Swedish schools, realising the characteristics of pedagogy aimed for in the curriculum, specifically the interaction patterns and student participation in learning processes. Main research questions addressed participants’ expectations of differences and challenges in the Swedish school context as compared to their experiences in Syrian contexts. A combination was chosen of focus groups interviews with a small number of teachers and students on their views and experiences with pupils’ involvement in classroom communication as well as quantitative data gathering. The quantitative survey measured teachers’ acquisition and participation-oriented views on learning. Open-ended reflection on learning questions was also given to the students. Results showed significant development towards more participation-oriented beliefs on learning. Interview data and written statements reveal varied differences between the Swedish context and the participants’ experiences from schools in Syria.

Previous research has pointed to the benefits for students’ learning when language and literacy perspectives are included in science teaching. This extends the level of specific scientific vocabulary, but can be understood in a broader sense as increasing students’ competence of dynamically using registers in different functional contexts. In this paper, we explore teachers’ understanding of the role of language in science instruction and investigate which aspects of this role teachers emphasize when discussing students’ learning. The data consists of observations and documentation of teachers’ discussions during an in-service training course about language and literacy perspectives in science teaching. The analysis reveals the existence of different approaches or categories when it comes to including language perspectives in teaching science. The results suggest that teachers tend to interpret the inclusion of language and literacy perspectives as an increased focus on scientific concepts. Another common approach was to prompt students to replace everyday expressions with scientific ones. However, language and literacy perspectives comprise a wide range of aspects such as creating a relationship between everyday expressions and scientific language, understanding the use of hybrid languages and highlighting a general vocabulary. We conclude that there is a need to continue discussing how different aspects of language and literacy may help strengthen students’ engagement and learning in science.

Using language adequately within specific content areas can be challenging for students. In this study a curricular design was developed through a series of trials, with the aim to arrive at general principles for a pedagogy that helps students to write about an engineering (electronics) design. The curricular design was theoretically anchored in ‘genre pedagogy’ and in the pedagogy of engineering and technology. The interventions were carried out by one experienced teacher in one course, during three consecutive cycles of trialing and improving the curricular design. Qualitative data were analyzed using theory-based codes as well as codes that emerged from the data. The resulting design principles for teaching to write about (engineering) design are categorized as: setting a functional writing task, scaffolding the writing process, and a relevant, complete and feasible focus on language. For each of these, specifications are described.

Within the Netherlands, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in foreign language teaching can be considered a sibling of 'Language Oriented Content Teaching' (LOCT), a pedagogy in mainstream classes with second language learners of Dutch, where Dutch is used as language of instruction. This article characterizes two decades of research on LOCT through Dutch in multilingual schools and discusses its relevance for CLIL development. A distinctive feature is the discourse coalition between subject and language researchers, teacher educators, curriculum development staff and others. Their cooperation furthered the identification of disciplinary literacies and subject specific language pedagogies which can be seen as a renewed conceptualization of content obligatory language (Snow, Met, & Genesee, 1989). LOCT work in the Dutch context shows how content obligatory language that is relevant and feasible can be identified and included in content teachers' pedagogies, findings that might be useful for the further development of CLIL.

Introducerande artikel inom Läslyftsmodulen Från Vardagsspråk till Ämnesspråk

Introduction to language sensitive teaching a s part of a Skolverket professional development module in the program Reading Boost.

Around the world, programs have been developed for science teachers’ work on literacy in multilingual settings with the assumption that science teachers need an understanding and a repertoire to move between daily and scientific discourses. This poster presentation reports from a project which aims to gain a better understanding of the development of literacy in science teaching through the study of meaning construction in multilingual secondary classrooms in which teacher, students and texts interact. To that end, leading experts in the field of text analyses, science pedagogy, second language learning and educational linguistics, join their forces in a double case study. These different perspectives on scientific literacy are starting point for small-scale interventions that analyses the interaction of teacher, student and task characteristics. Data is generated through mixed-method approach and include video recording of teachers planning meetings and classroom practice (whole class and student group work) along with questionnaires. Furthermore is students’ written work collected and interviews with teachers and focus group interviews with students. The quantitative data comprises of multiple-choice tests where three types of words chosen from students’ textbooks are probed: science concepts, homonyms and general academic words. The preliminary results indicate that time spent in the Swedish school system is decisive; it is almost a linear correlation between results on word tests and the time the students have learned Swedish. Furthermore, it seems that the general academic words raise the greatest challenges. The analysis of the teachers’ professional development make use of the interconnected model for professional growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) and the results indicate that although the teachers had extensive experience in teaching multilingual students they broaden their competence with new insights an teaching strategies.

The Swedish Government aims to support newly arrived immigrants to quickly find a workplace. Fast track courses started in the autumn of 2016 at Malmö University, Faculty of Education, where newly arrived individuals with a pedagogy background are offered an education of 26 weeks. . This report describes outline, results and recommendations from a small explorative study on the participants’ reflections and understanding of the role of teachers in Swedish schools in realising the pedagogy aimed for in the Swedish national primary and secondary school curriculum, specifically the interaction patterns and student participation in learning processes. The purpose of the study - within a short intensive period of time - is to formulate feedback for teacher trainers, school supervisors and recommendations for further course development.Focus group interviews with teacher-students, non -participant observations during relevant group discussions, written statements as well as quantitative data using Knezic (2012) Questionaaire on Teacher Beliefs on Learning were gathered. Analysis shows that the role of students and teachers in learning and classroom participation patterns certainly are relevant for the Fast Track course. Not only from the beginning was it part of the course curriculum, but teachers see the struggle of participants in understanding values, relations and communication. Even participants themselves express the differences between Syrian and Swedish classrooms in this respect as important and are willing to take their role to promote active student involvement. Quantitative data confirm that participants change their beliefs on the importance of participation in learning processes. Interviews and written statements reveal that the development of understanding a new classroom climate is a complex process, that can not be simplified by conveying knowledge. It affects participants identity as a teacher. It also requires a professional language proficiency in Swedish as a medium of instruction. Connection between content courses and second language courses in the fast track should therefore be strengthened .

How can different disciplinary perspectives meet and lead to a deeper understanding of science literacy learning in an educational design approach? Especially in multilingual settings, science teachers need an understanding and a repertoire to move between daily and scientific discourses and to connect new concepts and wordings to students’ daily knowledge and language in the language of instruction (Jakobsson, Mäkitalo & Säljö 2009). Understanding this learning and teaching of science literacy requires a multidisciplinary approach. In this international Roundtable session we present and discuss short video clips from teacher discussions and classroom data from the Swedish Science and Literacy Teaching (SALT) project. In specific the Clarke & Hollingworth (2002) model of teacher growth is used while analyzing. The model distinguishes between teachers personal domain of knowledge and beliefs, practice domain of experimenting in the classroom, domain of consequence including salient student outcomes and the external domain of school based professional development. Having previewed the selected video clips, presenters from two other multilingual contexts give their comments on the analytical approach drawing on their own research in science teaching in multilingual settings. The audience is invited to actively discuss the contributions of different disciplines to the analyses of these concrete science classroom data. Clarke, D. & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education 18, 948-967. Jakobsson, A., Mäkitalo, Å., & Säljö, R. (2009). Conceptions of knowledge in research on students' understanding of the greenhouse effect: Methodological positions and their consequences for representations of knowing. Science Education, 93(6), 978-995.

Explicit language objectives are included in the Swedish national curriculum for mathematics. The curriculum states that students should be given opportunities to develop the ability to formulate problems, use and analyse mathematical concepts and relationships between concepts, show and follow mathematical reasoning, and use mathematical expressions in discussions. Teachers’ competence forms a crucial link to bring an intended curriculum to a curriculum in action. This article investigates a professional development program, ‘Language in Mathematics’, within a national program for mathematics teachers in Sweden that aims at implementing the national curriculum into practice. Two specific aspects are examined: the selection of theoretical notions on language and mathematics and the choice of activities to relate selected theory to practice. From this examination, research on teacher learning in connection to professional development is proposed, which can contribute to a better understanding of teachers’ interpretation of integrated approaches to language and mathematics across national contexts.

At all levels of technology education language plays an important role. This chapter combines insights from applied linguistics, the philosophy of technology and the pedagogy of technology to explore characteristics of the specific language requirements of technology and the way in which students can be guided in the intertwined development of subject and language. More than traditional grammar, Systemic Functional Linguistics offers tools to describe the language of technology as a multimodal resource for meaning making, including textual (oral and written) and graphical modes. Elaboration of writing tasks that are closely related to ‘designing’ and ‘systems thinking’ reveals that language demands can only be understood from a content perspective. These demands depend on choices for pedagogy and orientations to technology education: vocational skills training could ask for writing tasks describing procedures, while orientations towards technological literacy could result in texts that discuss the impact of technologies on societies. The chapter further outlines content and language integrated approaches and discusses their potential for teaching technology, taking into account the specific position of learning at the edge of school and work place. What these approaches have in common is that technology and engineering teachers need knowledge about language, that can be considered part of pedagogical content knowledge. The chapter concludes with a broad outline for further multidisciplinary research and development.