Pre-service teachers face both challenges and opportunities as they prepare to teach English in the increasingly diverse Swedish compulsory school (Years 0–9). Differentiation, understood here as the deliberate adaptation of teaching content, process, product, and learning environment to address learners’ varying needs and readiness levels, is a critical strategy that teachers must develop to address the wide variations in English language proficiency among pupils in Swedish schools, driven by factors like differing levels of exposure to English outside school, unequal quality of English instruction, and linguistic diversity. This study is informed by Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, emphasizing learning through social interaction in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and Tomlinson’s differentiation model, focusing on adjusting content, process, product, and environment. It explores how pre-service English teachers may understand and apply differentiation for Years 4–6 in their lesson planning assignment within the teacher education course English Language Learning and Teaching (ELLT). Focusing on five cohorts of pre-service teachers who completed the ELLT course, the study employs content analysis of their lesson plans, specifically examining their strategies for differentiation. The results indicate that pre-service teachers demonstrate varied differentiation strategies in lesson plans, such as group work, peer collaboration, and task variation. Process modification was by far the most common strategy, but content and product modifications were less salient. Most lesson plans targeted low proficiency pupils, while limited attention was given to high proficiency learners. While theoretically sound, practical applications are less evident in their planning, highlighting the need for more hands-on experience.

This study explores the linguistic aspirations and imagined outcomes behind the parental choice of English-medium instruction (EMI) in Swedish schools. Five parents were interviewed about factors influencing their EMI choice, e.g.,impressions of the school and beliefs about language use in the school context. The analysis was framed in Darvin and Norton’s model of investment (capital, ideology,and identity) and informed by theories of language ideologies, linguistic hierarchies,and parental aspiration. The findings reveal that the perceived benefits of fluency in English, high academic achievement, and calm environments interconnect with first, linguistic aspirations, as seen in the parents’ investment in the assumed capitalafforded by the English language; second, an ideology of the English language asconnected to a better academic situation than the Swedish language; and third , an identity ascribed to their children as able to accept the challenges of instruction through another language. Tensions in the three areas of investment are evident, as parents struggle with the effects that EMI may have on their children’s use and development of English and Swedish. Understanding parental motives is of interest to educators and policymakers in all contexts where EMI is offered to young learners.

Pre-service teachers today face challenges and opportunities in increasingly linguistically diverse Swedish schools. The present study aims to understand how pre-service English teachers of Years 4–6 (ages 10–12) plan lessons while considering this linguistic diversity. The focus is on pre-service teachers studying a course, English Language Learning and Teaching, with an analysis of their lesson unit assignments, spotlighting multilingual perspectives in their planning. Language orientations (language-as-right, language-as-problem, and language-as-resource) form the theoretical foundation of this study. An ecological perspective is also utilized, focusing on how potential affordances for lesson planning found in contextual layers (e.g., the national curriculum or course materials) may affect their planning. The findings indicate that pre-service teachers generally employ a multilingual stance in their lesson unit planning, revealing a clear language-as-resource orientation across the cohorts studied. Furthermore, micro-level factors, such as course literature, have a more immediate impact than macro-level influences, such as the Swedish Language Act. New knowledge of how and why pre-service teachers understand multilingualism, as well as how they then plan lessons for English as a foreign language in the linguistically diverse classrooms of today, can be of value to all teacher educators.

Begreppet transspråkande är användbart för att analysera språkande där en mångfald av språkliga resurser ingår. Transspråkande som pedagogik utmanar traditionella förhållningssätt och arbetssätt till förmån för sådana där elevernas språkliga repertoarer erkänns och används i lärprocesser. Transspråkande som praktik innebär därmed att man i den pedagogiska verksamheten utgår från flerspråkighet som norm för människors sätt att vara i och använda språk.

Författarna i denna antologi utforskar transspråkande i svensk utbildningskontext från förskola till högre utbildning och i relation till svenska styrdokument och rådande pedagogiska villkor. Syftet är att studera och synliggöra språkideologiska, teoretiska och pedagogiska perspektiv på transspråkande, bland annat som resurs för elevers utveckling och lärande, i förhållande till digitala medier, som meningsskapande praktik, som norm och ideologi samt som rum för transspråkande.

Boken aktualiserar på så sätt frågor som många lärare brukar ställa om hur en transspråkande undervisning kan se ut och vad teoretiska och ideologiska reflektioner kring den kan innebära för den dagliga praktiken. 

Transspråkande i svenska utbildningssammanhang vänder sig främst till lärarstuderande, verksamma lärare och andra med intresse för flerspråkighet och lärande.