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Globalisation and migration have brought greater diversity to English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms. In their daily practice, language teachers gain first-hand experience and develop strategies for managing such diversity. The present study focuses on experienced EFL teachers, positioned as “knowledge generators” (Cummins, 2021, p. 313), aiming to map, document, and understand their language practices in multilingual classrooms from the perspectives of translanguaging pedagogy (García & Wei, 2014, p. 20) and teacher beliefs (Borg, 2006; Uljens, 1997). Drawing on classroom observation and semi-structured interview data from four secondary-school EFL teachers in Sweden, the study addressed three research questions concerning (1) the extent and purposes of the use of different named languages in the classroom, (2) teacher strategies for encouraging student use of English in class, and (3) the beliefs underpinning teachers’ observed language practices. Findings revealed that English was the default and desired classroom language for all four teachers. They also used Swedish to provide translation equivalents, translations of task instructions, to explain grammar, and to communicate with students individually. Regarding strategies to encourage students to speak English in class, teachers reported always speaking English in class themselves, carefully selecting engaging teaching materials, and sometimes topicalising student utterances in Swedish by encouraging the class to develop a translation into English jointly. Teachers’ beliefs underpinning these practices were (a) student comprehension is paramount, (b) the need to use any resource necessary for securing student comprehension, particularly students’ first languages (L1s), and (c) the importance of Swedish-English bilingualism in Swedish society. The article closes by suggesting implications for lower secondary school EFL language practices.

Swedish students’ oral proficiency in English as a foreign/second language (L2) is tested annually in a part of the English national test entitled Speaking (test construct: oral production and interaction), which students’ own teachers both administer and assess. Despite access to extensive assessment guidelines from the Swedish National Agency for Education, many teachers choose to construct their own scoring rubrics for assessment. In this study, we examine teachers’ professional knowledge about assessment of oral proficiency in L2 English, as it emerges from policy transformation in these teacher-generated rubrics. Data consists of 20 rubrics for assessment of Speaking in years 6 and 9. Rubrics were collected through professional networks and two English-teacher groups on Facebook. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze teachers’ conceptualizations of the test construct, as well as similarities and differences between conceptualizations. Results showed consensus of what to assess, but not necessarily how, which was particularly salient for interaction. Analysis of policy transformation indicated that when teacher-generated scoring rubrics were used for assessment of Speaking, each criterion was considered separately, making them beneficial for formative feedback. The professional knowledge that emerged is therefore formed by teachers’ dual roles – as examiner and teacher – in the test situation.

This chapter focuses on challenge and reciprocity in researcher-student collaborative labour (Zigo 2001) in a large multilingual secondary school in Sweden. The school was recruited for a larger longitudinal study of classroom language policy. For the purposes of the present chapter, we analysed ethnographic data to shed light on the well-known challenge of recruiting and retaining students to participate in longitudinal research, and on aspects of reciprocity, which was operationalized as benefits that both parties, i.e. students and researchers, needed or desired (Trainor and Bouchard 2013). Results show that of the 43 students who were present in the classrooms studied, 35 (81%) provided written, informed consent to fill in a language-background questionnaire and participate in an interview. Fewer students with low grades consented to participate, but those who did provided data no less rich than that provided by students with top grades. As to reciprocal benefits, the researchers secured the research data needed, but also new knowledge about students’ heritage languages and the multilingual territories they had left prior to settling in Sweden. Another benefit relates to empowerment. The researchers were empowered by learning culturally appropriate terminology to use when communicating about multilingual and multi-ethnic territories; and interview data suggest that students were empowered when positioned as experts on their multilingual repertoires and the language ecology in their prior home territories. Finally, the chapter reveals that researchers’ stance of reciprocity evolved organically over time through their ethnographic engagement in the classrooms.

This chapter focuses on challenge and reciprocity in researcher-student collaborative labour (Zigo 2001) in a large multilingual secondary school in Sweden. The school was recruited for a larger longitudinal study of classroom language policy. For the purposes of the present chapter, we analysed ethnographic data to shed light on the well-known challenge of recruiting and retaining students to participate in longitudinal research, and on aspects of reciprocity, which was opera-tionalized as benefits that both parties, i.e. students and researchers, needed or desired (Trainor and Bouchard 2013). Results show that of the 43 students who were present in the classrooms studied, 35 (81%) provided written, informed consent to fill in a language-background questionnaire and participate in an interview. Fewer students with low grades consented to participate, but those who did provided data no less rich than that provided by students with top grades. As to reciprocal benefits, the researchers secured the research data needed, but also new knowledge about students' heritage languages and the multilingual territories they had left prior to settling in Sweden. Another benefit relates to empowerment. The researchers were empowered by learning culturally appropriate terminology to use when communicating about multilingual and multi-ethnic territories; and interview data suggest that students were empowered when positioned as experts on their multilingual repertoires and the language ecology in their prior home territories. Finally, the chapter reveals that researchers' stance of reciprocity evolved organically over time through their ethnographic engagement in the classrooms.

In secondary-school English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms worldwide, English tends to be used alongside the society or community majority language (Brevik & Rindal 2020; Tsagari & Diakou 2015; Üstünel 2016), and research reveals greater participation and positive attitudes among students when translanguaging is permitted (Ebe 2016; Kleyn 2016; Saxena 2009; Ollerhead 2019; Seltzer & Collins 2016). In Sweden, research in EFL in school years 8-9 (age 14-16) suggests that a translanguaging approach to vocabulary teaching and learning is superior to a monolingual approach (Gyllstad et al. 2022; Källkvist et al. 2022). The present study focuses on year 7 (age 12-13), which normally marks the transition from primary to secondary school, where pupils are expected to communicate monolingually in standardized, national tests. We document classroom translanguaging practices and associated beliefs among four experienced EFL teachers, aiming to understand what ‘best practice’ (beprövad erfarenhet), which is a policy concept (Skolverket 2020), for year 7 may be. Drawing on ethnography of language policy (Hornberger & Johnson 2007), we conducted linguistic ethnography (classroom observation, linguistic landscape analysis, policy-document analysis and interviews), addressing three questions: To what extent and for what purposes did experienced EFL teachers translanguage?; By what means did the same teachers encourage students to use English?; What beliefs underpinned the same teachers’ practices? Inductive content analysis (Bryman 2016) revealed that all four teachers aimed for English to be the classroom language, but practices meant to encourage students to speak in English as well as some translanguaging practices differed. For example, teachers sometimes responded differently when students used Swedish (the language of schooling), and full translanguaging, i.e. using students’ entire linguistic repertoires, was encouraged in a small group only. We end b

Vocabulary experts recommend first language (L1) translation equivalents for establishing form–meaning mappings for new second language (L2) words, especially for lower proficiency learners. Empirical evidence to date speaks in favor of L1 translation equivalents over L2 meaning definitions, but most studies have investigated bi- rather than multilingual learners. In our study, we investigated instructed English vocabulary learning through an intervention study in six language-diverse secondary school English classrooms in Sweden (N = 74) involving three conditions for presentation of word meanings: (a) definitions in the L2 (English), (b) translation equivalents in the shared school and majority language (Swedish), and (c) translation equivalents in the shared school and majority language plus other prior languages among the learners (Swedish and other). Based on overall weighted mean effect sizes and mixed-effects modeling, the results showed that conditions that involved L1 translation equivalents yielded higher scores than did target language definitions in immediate posttests with a small effect size but no differences in delayed posttests., MultiLingual Spaces

This paper focuses on language practices in multilingual English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms in lower-secondary education. Based in the Ethnography of Language Policy, it presents a case study of a lead teacher of EFL and a year-8 class in a large urban multilingual school in Sweden. The study aims to map and understand language practices used in this classroom as being part of a larger sociocultural context, focusing on the perspectives of the teacher and four successively trilingual students who had had between four and eight years of schooling in Sweden. Field notes, lesson observations and interviews revealed that practices can be described as English Mainly + Swedish, referred to here as ‘English-Swedish translanguaging pedagogy’. While English was the base language in lessons, Swedish was used judiciously but consistently, serving different specific purposes. Discourse analysis of ethnographic data showed that the teacher’s practices can be traced to his lived experience and to discourses in policy documents. Student participants expressed positive attitudes to the language practices used, which can be explained by them having developed sufficient command of Swedish in the school domain and being loyal to an institutional policy document, their teacher and fellow students.

MultiLingual Spaces [Swedish Research Council, Reg. no. 2016-03469]

Classroom language ecologies are increasingly diverse as a result of mobility, migration, and information technology. In these spaces, interlocutors may draw upon shared linguistic and cultural resources but also bring in others. Prime examples are additional-language (AL) classrooms, where there is a shared target language, but where students may have different first languages from their classmates and teacher. In this chapter, we review empirical research on interaction in multilingual classrooms in approaches such as ethnography, translanguaging, and conversation analysis (CA), and discuss methods and findings in relation to the growing field of intercultural pragmatics (IP). Additionally, we offer an empirical illustration from video ethnography research in multilingual English AL classrooms in Sweden. With a CA approach, we demonstrate how a group of students participating in a vocabulary game manage an instance of diverging understandings of an English word. We show how, in resolving this interactional trouble, participants draw on the target language English and the societal/school language Swedish, and we discuss the observations in light of the IP concepts of salience and common ground. Finally, we argue that classroom studies detailing social actors’ language repertoires by using audiovisual data are essential in advancing our understanding of multilingual AL classrooms.

Classroom language ecologies are increasingly diverse as a result of mobility, migration, and information technology. In these spaces, interlocutors may draw upon shared linguistic and cultural resources but also bring in others. Prime examples are additional-language (AL) classrooms, where there is a shared target language, but where students may have different first languages from their classmates and teacher. In this chapter, we review empirical research on interaction in multilingual classrooms in approaches such as ethnography, translanguaging, and conversation analysis (CA), and discuss methods and findings in relation to the growing field of intercultural pragmatics (IP). Additionally, we offer an empirical illustration from video ethnography research in multilingual English AL classrooms in Sweden. With a CA approach, we demonstrate how a group of students participating in a vocabulary game manage an instance of diverging understandings of an English word. We show how, in resolving this interactional trouble, participants draw on the target language English and the societal/school language Swedish, and we discuss the observations in light of the IP concepts of salience and common ground. Finally, we argue that classroom studies detailing social actors’ language repertoires by using audiovisual data are essential in advancing our understanding of multilingual AL classrooms.

MultiLingual Spaces [Swedish Research Council, Reg. no. 2016-03469]

MultiLingual Spaces - Language practices in English classrooms

Pedagogical translanguaging research often shows positive effects on student engagement and learning (e.g., García & Kleyn, 2016; Paulsrud, Rosén, Straszer & Wedin, 2018; Paulsrud, Tian & Toth, 2021). Given that each classroom is a unique sociocultural context (Byrnes, 2020), often exhibiting complex multi-causality (Baker & Wright, 2021), most of this research is qualitative in nature. In this paper, we present mixed-method research (Baker & Wright, 2021) from a quasi-experimental, longitudinal intervention study in a multilingual school in Sweden. Quantitative data were used to trace student learning of English vocabulary in a year-9 class (16 students) over twelve weeks: a pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test. With the purpose of gaining an in-depth understanding of student learning, qualitative data (questionnaires, interviews and vocabulary learning materials used in class) were collected from three of the students. All three were successively trilingual users of a migrant L1 and Swedish and English as additional languages (L2s). Their first exposure to Swedish was on their arrival in Sweden at the age of 6, 7 and 8 respectively. Results on the pre-tests, post-tests and delayed post-tests show that students (N=16) in the class as a whole learnt significantly more new English vocabulary when they were provided with translation equivalents in Swedish than when provided with definitions or explanations in English. This presentation focuses on the mixed-method data from the three focal students, addressing the following questions: a) how many new English words did the three focal students learn when provided with English explanations/definitions, translation equivalents in Swedish, and translation equivalents in Swedish and their L1s (Turkish, Pashto, Danish and Arabic), b) to what extent did they use their different languages in class, and c) what were their attitudes, orientations and beliefs towards the use of these languages w

Following in the wake of increased migration, language teachers world-wide are experiencing a shift towards greater linguistic diversity in foreign/second language (L2) classrooms. At the same time, while there is extensive research on teacher beliefs about L2 teaching/learning in general (Borg, 2006; Kalaja & Ferreira Barcelos, 2003), there is little research on teacher beliefs specifically about the role of multilingualism in such teaching/learning contexts. Further, as teachers can be argued to be ‘educators as policymakers’ (Menken & García, 2010), and where the classroom is “a key site where policies become action” (Hult, 2014, p. 159), it is essential to gain insight into teacher beliefs about multilingualism. A suitable instrument for doing so is the questionnaire (Dörnyei & Taguchi, 2010). Consequently, the aim of this study was to develop an instrument designed to capture teacher beliefs and practices about multilingualism (MultiBAP), here in relation to teaching/learning L2 English, and to critically evaluate each step of the development process and to validate MultiBAP. By providing details of steps/procedures, including e.g. theory-driven content specification and piloting, the study makes a methodological contribution alongside important questionnaire studies (e.g., Lee & Oxelson, 2006; Loewen et al., 2009; Spada, Barkaoui, Peters, So, & Valeo, 2009; Winke, 2011). MultiBAP was created based on questionnaire data collected from L2 English teachers in Sweden in two rounds, PILOT and FINAL Questionnaire (stratified random sample; N=139). Statistical analyses/validation procedures included multi-item scale reliability, external audit, peer-expert feedback, and exploratory factor analysis. For mapping beliefs, MultiBAP adopts a 6-graded Likert scale in 33 closed items (+1 open) distributed over 6 multi-scale constructs (overall reliability: .77, range: .68–.88); for mapping practices, 31 closed (+1 open) in 2 multi-scale constructs (.71

MultiLingual Spaces

Assessment of foreign/second language (L2) oral proficiency is known to be complex and influenced by the local context. In Sweden, extensive assessment guidelines for the National English Speaking Test (NEST) are offered to teachers, who act as raters of their own students' performances on this high-stakes L2 English oral proficiency (OP) test. Despite guidelines, teachers commonly construct their own NEST scoring rubric. The present study aims to unveil teachers-as-raters' conceptualizations, as these emerge from the self-made scoring rubrics, and possible transformations of policy. Data consist of 20 teacher-generated scoring rubrics used for assessing NEST (years 6 and 9). Rubrics were collected via personal networks and online teacher membership groups. Employing content analysis, data were analysed qualitatively to examine (i) what OP sub-skills were in focus for assessment, (ii) how sub-skills were conceptualized, and (iii) scoring rubric design. Results showed that the content and design of rubrics were heavily influenced by the official assessment guidelines, which led to broad consensus about what to assess-but not about how to assess. Lack of consensus was particularly salient for interactive skills. Analysis of policy transformations revealed that teachers' self-made templates, in fact, lead to an analytic rather than a holistic assessment practice.

This study was supported by funding from the Center for Language and Literature in Education, Karlstad University, and the research group ROSE (Research on Subject-specific Education).

The main objective of this study was to examine whether a Rater Identity Development (RID)program would increase interrater reliability and improve calibration of scores againstbenchmarks in the assessment of second/foreign language English oral proficiency. Elevenprimary school teachers-as-raters participated. A pretest–intervention/RID–posttest designwas employed and data included 220 assessments of student performances. Two types ofrater-reliability analyses were conducted: first, estimates of the intraclass correlationcoefficient two-way random effects model, in order to indicate the extent to which raterswere consistent in their rankings, and second, a many-facet Rasch measurement analysis,extended through FACETS®, to explore variation regarding systematic differences of raterseverity/leniency. Results showed improvement in terms of consistency, presumably as aresult of training; simultaneously, the differences in severity became greater. Results suggestthat future rater training may draw on central components of RID, such as core concepts inlanguage assessment, individual feedback, and social moderation work., Equity in Assessment (EquA) - Likvärdig bedömning

A pressing issue in multilingual education is whether to use students’ multilingual repertoires in L2 classrooms (Cummins 2017). Research on L2 learning supports multilingual/translanguaging classroom practices (e.g. Lee & Macaro 2013), but much of this research involves participants sharing the same L1 prior to having classroom exposure to English (their L2). The present study breaks new ground by focusing on multilingual participants with a range of different L1s: they are simultaneous bilinguals of Swedish (the majority language) and a heritage language (e.g. Somali), or L1 users of their heritage language, learning Swedish and English as L2s in secondary school in Sweden. Triangulated data were collected in 2018 in two intact classes (students aged 14-15): ethnographic observation (14 lessons) and questionnaires and interviews (19 students and their teacher). Using a bilingualism/multilingualism (Baker & Wright 2017) framework, we apply concepts such as ‘language dominance’, ‘age of onset’, ‘heritage language’, ‘majority language’ and ‘school language’ in qualitative analysis. Classroom observations revealed that the teacher used mainly English; Swedish was used only judiciously, serving specific functions. Interviews revealed that the majority of students stated that they benefit from their teacher’s use of both English and Swedish. Students with lower English proficiency expressed a greater need for Swedish. Students with an age of onset for Swedish of 10-11 expressed a need to use heritage-language translations, e.g. English-Arabic. Results are discussed with reference to the ethnography-of-language policy framework (Johnson 2014), and have implications for education in Sweden where students need literacy in both Swedish and English.