Teaching Mathematics in English to Swedish Speaking Students : The Use of Second Language Teaching Practices in the Teaching of Mathematics in English to Swedish Speaking Students in Lower Secondary School

Over 20,000 Swedish lower high school students are currently learning mathematics in English but little research has been conducted in this area. This study looks into the question of how much second language learner training teachers teaching mathematics in English to Swedish speaking students have acquired and how many of those teachers are using effective teaching practices for second language learners. The study confirms earlier findings that report few teachers receive training in second language learning but indicates that some of the teaching practices shown to be effective with second language learners are being used in some Swedish schools

Upper secondary school students' gendered conceptions about mathematics

This study explores Swedish Natural Science students' conceptions about gender and mathematics. I conducted and compared the results from two questionnaires. The first questionnaire revealed a view of rather traditional feminities and masulinities, a result that did not repeat itself in the second questionnaire. There was a discrepancy between the traits the students ascribed as gender different and the traits they ascribed to themselves.

How initial vocational education and training (IVET) teachers in Sweden perceive their prospects of being able to prepare upper secondary school pupils for a future occupation

Vocational teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools are a heterogeneous category of teachers, connected to different types of trade. These teachers represent a broad set of trade skills varying in content and character. In their teacher role, they continue to wear the clothes, speak the language, share the culture and remain mentally in their former professions. Still, it is central that they keep up this contact to be able to school the pupils into the environment of the trade in question, but also to help them to understand what skills a profession demands. However, the individual teacher also has to distance himself from the negative elements in the culture of the profession: patterns and habits that, for various reasons, have to be broken or changed. This paper draws attention to the ways in which a group of vocational teachers, who were participants in a project that aimed to train unauthorized vocational teachers, expressed their ambitions to prepare the pupils for a future professional career. When collecting information, we used the degree dissertations they produced and discussed in seminars, and informal dialogues. The result shows that it is important that the instruction location resembles a real working site as far as possible. These places are more or less realistic copies of a garage, a restaurant kitchen, a hairdressing salon, and so on, in order to give the pupils a realistic setting for instruction. However, the fact that these simulated workplaces lack the necessary support functions that exist in a company creates problems, problems which make a lot of extra work for the teachers. Vocational teachers also have to instruct the pupil in the experienced practitioner’s professional skills and working situation, but the pupil herself/himself must learn the job by doing it in practice. Some vocational upper secondary programs lack relevant course literature and the businesses give little support. This also makes extra work for the teachers. Moreover, the distance between the vocational programs and the trainee jobs was experienced as being difficult to overcome. One reason seems to be differences between businesses and differing preconditions between small and big companies’ abilities to take care of these pupils. The upper secondary school vocational programs also play a role in cementing existing gender roles, as well as perpetuating class-related patterns on the labour market.

Must teachers be social workers, as well …? : Reflections on the current teacher role in the Swedish upper secondary school and how it affects teacher training

The Swedish upper secondary school has made a transition from a school for the elite to be a school for everybody. When almost every youth nowadays chooses to continue studying, for some of them this is not what they want to do most of all. However, as there in practice is no choice, there come up problems and many upper secondary school teachers experience a growing frustration. We will here discuss some aspects of the following questions: -  How do upper secondary schoolteachers handle their working-conditions in a new situation? - What possible consequences do this have on teacher education?

How initial vocational education and training (IVET) teachers in Sweden perceive their prospects of being able to prepare upper secondary school pupils for a future occupation

Vocational teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools are a heterogeneous category of teachers, connected to different types of trade. These teachers represent a broad set of trade skills varying in content and character. In their teacher role, they continue to wear the clothes, speak the language, share the culture and remain mentally in their former professions. Still, it is central that they keep up this contact to be able to school the pupils into the environment of the trade in question, but also to help them to understand what skills a profession demands. However, the individual teacher also has to distance himself from the negative elements in the culture of the profession: patterns and habits that, for various reasons, have to be broken or changed. This paper draws attention to the ways in which a group of vocational teachers, who were participants in a project that aimed to train unauthorized vocational teachers, expressed their ambitions to prepare the pupils for a future professional career. When collecting information, we used the degree dissertations they produced and discussed in seminars, and informal dialogues. The result shows that it is important that the instruction location resembles a real working site as far as possible. These places are more or less realistic copies of a garage, a restaurant kitchen, a hairdressing salon, and so on, in order to give the pupils a realistic setting for instruction. However, the fact that these simulated workplaces lack the necessary support functions that exist in a company creates problems, problems which make a lot of extra work for the teachers. Vocational teachers also have to instruct the pupil in the experienced practitioner’s professional skills and working situation, but the pupil herself/himself must learn the job by doing it in practice. Some vocational upper secondary programs lack relevant course literature and the businesses give little support. This also makes extra work for the teachers. Moreover, the distance between the vocational programs and the trainee jobs was experienced as being difficult to overcome. One reason seems to be differences between businesses and differing preconditions between small and big companies’ abilities to take care of these pupils. The upper secondary school vocational programs also play a role in cementing existing gender roles, as well as perpetuating class-related patterns on the labour market.

Knowledge and writing in school mathematics : a communicational approach

This thesis is about young students’ writing in school mathematics and the ways in which this writing is designed, interpreted and understood. Students’ communication can act as a source from which teachers can make inferences regarding students’ mathematical knowledge and understanding. In mathematics education previous research indicates that teachers assume that the process of interpreting and judging students’ writing is unproblematic. The relationship between what students’ write, and what they know or understand, is theoretical as well as empirical. In an era of increased focus on assessment and measurement in education it is necessary for teachers to know more about the relationship between communication and achievement. To add to this knowledge, the thesis has adopted a broad approach, and the thesis consists of four studies. The aim of these studies is to reach a deep understanding of writing in school mathematics. Such an understanding is dependent on examining different aspects of writing. The four studies together examine how the concept of communication is described in authoritative texts, how students’ writing is viewed by teachers and how students make use of different communicational resources in their writing. The results of the four studies indicate that students’ writing is more complex than is acknowledged by teachers and authoritative texts in mathematics education. Results point to a sophistication in students’ approach to the merging of the two functions of writing, writing for oneself and writing for others. Results also suggest that students attend, to various extents, to questions regarding how, what and for whom they are writing in school mathematics. The relationship between writing and achievement is dependent on students’ ability to have their writing reflect their knowledge and on teachers’ thorough knowledge of the different features of writing and their awareness of its complexity. From a communicational perspective the ability to communicate [in writing] in mathematics can and should be distinguished from other mathematical abilities. By acknowledging that mathematical communication integrates mathematical language and natural language, teachers have an opportunity to turn writing in mathematics into an object of learning. This offers teachers the potential to add to their assessment literacy and offers students the potential to develop their communicational ability in order to write in a way that better reflects their mathematical knowledge.

Upper Secondary Students’ Beliefs About Learning English as a Foreign Language : A contrast between the students’ beliefs and the Swedish curriculum

Learning English as a foreign language (EFL) entails different factors. Language learners use different strategies in order to make their language acquisition successful. Motivation and self-regulated learning are other factors that influence how successful the EFL learner is. This paper aims to analyze the beliefs of upper secondary students in a Swedish school about learning EFL, as well as how their beliefs relate to what is specified in the Swedish curriculum. An analysis of the differences between students’ beliefs and what is stated in the curriculum was done. A survey was conducted on a total of 54 students who were enrolled in the social sciences program. The results showed that students believed that motivation and self-regulated learning were important factors for a successful learning. For them, the language skill of reception is more important than production, which does not correspond with what it is stated in the national curriculum. First and second year students’ beliefs were similar in most of the cases, but not all of them.

Travel Report from the first field trip within the SIDA supported project "Mini-grids supplied by renewable energy - improving technical and social feasibility : Including visits to Ihushi Development Center, Tweyambe Secondary School and Mavuno Project in Tanzania. Conducted in April 2011

This report describes the outcome of the first visit to Tanzania, within the project "Mini-grids supplied by renewable energy - improving technical and social feasibility". The trip included visits to three different organizations; Ihushi Development Center (IDC) near Mwanza, TIDESO near Bukoba, and Mavuno Project in Karagwe. At IDC, a brief evaluation of the current power system was done and measuring equipment for long term measurements were installed. At all three locations investigations regarding the current and future electricity demand were conducted and connections to people relevant to the study were established. The report is including as well some technical specifications as some observations regarding organization and management of the technical systems. The trip was including only short visits and therefore only brief introductions to the different organizations, based on observations done by the author. The report is hence describing the author’s understanding of the technical system and social structures after only short visits to each of the organizations, and may differ from observations done at another point in time, over a different time period, or by some other person.This report describes the outcome of the first visit to Tanzania, within the project "Mini-grids supplied by renewable energy - improving technical and social feasibility". The trip included visits to three different organizations; Ihushi Development Center (IDC) near Mwanza, TIDESO near Bukoba, and Mavuno Project in Karagwe. At IDC, a brief evaluation of the current power system was done and measuring equipment for long term measurements were installed. At all three locations investigations regarding the current and future electricity demand were conducted and connections to people relevant to the study were established. The report is including as well some technical specifications as some observations regarding organization and management of the technical systems. The trip was including only short visits and therefore only brief introductions to the different organizations, based on observations done by the author. The report is hence describing the author’s understanding of the technical system and social structures after only short visits to each of the organizations, and may differ from observations done at another point in time, over a different time period, or by some other person.

Representation and interpretation : textbooks, teachers, and historical culture

This article presents a study of how contemporary Swedish lower secondary school textbooks present the emergence of the Cold War and how 10 active lower secondary school history teachers interpreted a quotation that was ambiguous in relation to the general narrative in the studied Swedish textbooks, seeking to analyse textbooks both from the perspectives of content and reception. Applying a theoretical framework of uses of history, the study finds that the narratives presented in the studied textbooks are what could be called traditional in the sense that they do not acknowledge perspective and representation in history. While the interviewed teachers generally acknowledged that textbook narratives are representations of history and contingent on perspective, few teachers extended this to include how their own views affect their interpretations, suggesting an intermediary appreciation of the contextual contingency of historical narratives.

LEARNING STUDY: ROZVOJ ŠKOLY SKRZE KOLEGIÁLNÍ UČENÍ UČITELŮ : Learning study: school development through collegial learning of teachers

The aim of this article is to describe how the Learning Study method (LS) was implemented in a Swedish upper secondary school, as well as how the principals and the teachers involved perceived this to affect teaching at, and the development of, the school. It is an empirical study that was conducted as an action research project over a period of three years. The project to implement the LS method was based on the assumption that proper training is the result of collegial activity that occurs when teachers learn from each other. The teachers in this study were, in general, positive about using the LS method. It created opportunities to meet and talk about teaching skills, developed better professional relationships between colleagues, and offered a systematic method for planning, implementing and monitoring teaching. However, working together requires that time be set aside to allow for implementation of the LS method. This is crucial, as the LS method is a rather expensive way to make school development work. This places heavy demands on principals to create the necessary conditions for the implementation of the LS method.

L1 Use in the EFL-classroom : A Literature Review on Teachers’ Use of the L1 in the EFL-classroom on Upper Secondary Level

Even though English should mainly be used in the EFL-classroom according to the Swedish national curriculum, some recent scholars have argued that a judicious use of the students’ L1 by the teachers in some particular situations may benefit the learning environment there. From this context, this thesis examines what research says about in what particular situations the L1 is used by teachers in upper secondary EFL-classrooms as well as the teachers’ and the students’ attitudes towards this practice. The method used was a systematic literature review, where seven articles from all across the globe were analyzed, compared and synthesized. The results show that the L1 was mainly used by the teachers when managing discipline, when explaining grammar and when teaching vocabulary. However, the articles did not conclude how the L1 could be used strategically by the teachers. Concerning the teachers’ and students’ attitudes, the majority of these were positive towards L1 use by the teacher in the above mentioned situations. However, the teachers were not aware of how the L1 could be used by them in a judicious and a strategic way. Lastly, it can be concluded that more research is needed on how the L1 can be used more strategically by the teachers as well as on the students’ perspective on this.

Learning Grammar : A study of upper secondary level students’ attitudes and beliefs concerning the learning of grammar

The communicative approach to language learning is widely taught in Western education, and yet its predecessor, the grammar-translation method, is still commonly employed in other parts of the world. In Sweden, the increasing popularity of the communicative approach is often justified by the high level of students’ communicative skills (Öhman, 2013). At the same time, students’ written texts and speech contain many grammatical errors (Öhman, 2013). Consequently, being aware of their tendency to produce grammatical errors, some students express beliefs regarding both the explicit and implicit learning of grammar (Sawir, 2005; Boroujeni, 2012). The objective of this thesis is to gain more knowledge regarding students’ beliefs concerning the learning of English grammar at the upper secondary level, in Sweden. With this purpose a survey was conducted in two schools in Sweden, where 49 upper-secondary English students participated. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to process the collected data. Despite some difference in the participants’ ages, there were many similarities in their attitudes towards the teaching and learning of grammar. The results show that the participants in both schools believe that only by applying both, explicit and implicit methods, can they obtain a high level of language proficiency. The results of this study can help teachers in planning different activities that enhance the students’ knowledge of grammar.

Elevers möjlighet till reflektion i matematikundervisningen : En studie i grunskolans årskurs 9

Studiens huvudsakliga syfte är att få kunskap kring om och hur elever i skolår 9 stimuleras till reflektion i matematikundervisningen. Den tidigare forskning som presenteras i litteraturgenomgången visar på reflektionens betydelse i lärprocessen och ger riktlinjer för vilka aktiviteter som uppmanar till respektive hämmar elevers reflektion. Genom en kvalitativ fallstudie, med i huvudsak lektionsobservationer som utgångspunkt och med efterföljande lärarintervjuer som stöd, har syftet uppnåtts genom att kartlägga den aktivitet som förekommer i praktiken. Undervisningsaktiviteter som kan uppvisa en positiv respektive negativ effekt på elevers möjlighet till reflektion har vid bearbetning och analys av materialet kunnat urskiljas. Resultatet visar att trots att lärare är positivt inställda till metakognition och ett reflekterande arbetssätt förekommer endast i vissa fall tillfällen då eleven stimuleras till reflektion och denna får ske. Vanligt förekommande i lärares undervisning är situationer som skulle kunna fungera som reflektionsstimulerande om de ges utrymme och reflektionen följs upp. Studiens resultat kan bidra till att påminna och göra lärare medvetna om vilka aktiviteter som stödjer reflektion samt förmedla vikten av att eleverna redan i grundskolans tidigare år undervisas om och utsättas för en undervisningspraktik som kontinuerligt kräver förekomsten av reflektion.