”Det är ju hur man lär sig språk – att jämföra med det man redan kan” : En intervjustudie med modersmålslärare i arabiska, engelska och somaliska om språkjämförelsers betydelse för spanskundervisning

Sammanfattning: This essay investigates how mother tongue teachers in Sweden view cross-linguistic influence in the Spanish classroom. It focuses on three areas: the student groups’ linguistic profiles; the evaluation of described/presumed strengths and challenges within Spanish phonology, lexicon and morphosyntax; and perspectives on effective contrastive classroom practices. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers of Arabic, English, and Somali, which were analyzed phenomenographically. The results showed that the students are generally multilingual in their mother tongue, Swedish, and English, with proficiency varying according to birthplace. Whereas English was considered the main support for English-speaking students, Somali and Arabic students were deemed particularly facilitated by their mother tongue in morphosyntax and Swedish/English in lexicon, while phonology was mixed. Finally, there was consensus that Spanish classroom practices should include comparisons to mother tongues, Swedish, and English, by teachers and/or students. Having some mother tongue knowledge was thus deemed beneficial, albeit not essential, for Spanish teaching.