Svenska är ett sjungande språk : utveckling av svenska som andraspråk genom sång och musik

Sammanfattning: There are different ways of developing a second language. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate whether and possibly how music, focused on singing, can improve the development of Swedish as a second language. Through interviews with three vocal teachers, from three different schools in Sweden, and observations of one of the vocal teachers, information about how they work and think about the subject has been collected. The vocal teachers teach groups of second language learners by singing songs made especially for second language learning. The vocal teachers consider singing beneficial in the development of the pronunciation and improvement of the prosody, which affects the students’ capacity to sound like a native Swedish speaker. They also mention factors which contradict the positive improvement of the language learning, for example when the prosody in singing does not coincide with the prosody in speech, which inhibits learning. The teachers are however in agreement about singing being beneficial and the categories of prosody, joy and pleasure are emphasized.