English Hemspråk : Language in Interaction in English Mother Tongue Instruction in Sweden

Sammanfattning: The thesis investigates teacher-student interaction in English mother tongue instruction (MTI), offered within mainstream education to English heritage language students in Sweden. In particular, it examines the type of language work that was in focus during the lessons and the ways teacher and students engaged in the language work in situ. The study is based on approximately thirty hours of video-recordings of three groups of students who attended the lessons with the same teacher, at two Swedish schools. The students in the groups ranged from age six to fifteen. Using an ethnomethodological conversation analytic framework, the thesis analyzes the situated ways that teacher and students co-constructed what aspects of language were topicalized and how this was accomplished.The empirical studies shed new light on the dynamic connections between pedagogy and the emergent practices through which MTI is achieved. From the analysis, vocabulary emerged as a prominent feature of the lessons, where the teaching of form, meaning and use of lexical items variously grew out of both planned and unplanned activities. Hence, the empirical studies explore different aspects of vocabulary work. The studies also discuss the role of the local availability of both English and Swedish in shaping the types of practices that took place at the MT lessons.