Det talade språket i klassrummet - engelskans och svenskans roller i engelskundervisning

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to investigate when Swedish and English are used in English teaching and how the pupils view the importance of the classroom language for their language development. My research questions are “In what situations is Swedish and English respectively spoken during the English lessons?” and “What are the pupils' opinions concerning the significance of English and Swedish in the classroom for their language development?”. To answer my questions, I have used relevant theoretical research and conducted two observations and two group interviews in a secondary school. The observations have given me an example of how it can function in the classroom and the interviews have given me the opportunity to hear the pupils' different perspectives on how it is done in the classroom and their different opinions concerning this matter.According to the research, it is of great importance that the pupils are offered the opportunity to use the English language as much as possible in the classroom. Some researchers claim that the teacher should create a classroom environment where everybody speaks English only (Stoltz 2009, p. 145), while others argue that there is a point in speaking Swedish in some selected situations (Harmer, 2007, p. 132). According to my study, the pupils agree on that it is important that they speak as much English as possible. However, there are times when they consider the use of Swedish accepted, and that is mainly to help the understanding of English phenomena, such as grammar. In conclusion, there is a point in speaking English to a high extent in the classroom, but there may be situations where Swedish may be a valuable tool in the understanding of the English language.