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Article published In:
Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education
Vol. 5:2 (2017) ► pp.214–237

English first

Policy and practice in a Swedish EMI primary class

| Stockholm University

This case study explores the questions of how national and local education policies address languages of instruction for a Swedish compulsory school offering English-medium instruction (hereafter EMI) as well as how these policies are interpreted and implemented in practice. Critical discourse analysis provides a framework for examining the relationship between stated and enacted policies at the various institutional levels. Methods from linguistic ethnography yielded rich data including classroom observations, interviews, and artifact collection over a period of three school years in grades four through six. Findings from the study reveal discourses of language hierarchies, a native speaker ideal privileging English and practices that reflect varying degrees of language separation. While Swedish is occasionally used to support English-medium content learning, there is little space for students’ mother tongues in the mainstream classroom. The findings from this study have implications for how stakeholders may put language-in-education policies into practice in EMI programs.

Keywords: English-medium instruction, content and language integrated learning, bilingual education, English in Sweden, primary school, practiced language policies, language hierarchies, native speaker ideal, language separation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Languages in Sweden: Status and language hierarchies
    • 2.2Languages of instruction in Swedish schools
  • 3.Theoretical framework
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Critical discourse analysis (CDA)
    • 4.2Linguistic ethnography
    • 4.3Contexts and participants
    • 4.4Data collection
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Policies
      • 5.1.1National policies
      • 5.1.2Local policies
    • 5.2Practices
      • 5.2.1Swedish as primary LOI
      • 5.2.2English as primary LOI
      • 5.2.3Other languages in the classroom
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Language hierarchies in national and local language-in-education policies
    • 6.2Language policies in classroom practices
  • 7.Implications for policy and practice in EMI
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 6 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jicb.5.2.03tot
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