In both second language acquisition research and teaching, there is a need for practical, reliable and valid proficiency tests to be used with learners of various target languages and at different proficiency levels. In the present study, a written proficiency test based on the C-test methodology was developed and tested on 144 Swedish 15-year-olds studying French, German, and Spanish in lower secondary school. The test was tailored to the low proficiency level of the learners and used across target languages. It was followed by a test-taker feedback questionnaire evaluating participants’ perception of the test’s comprehensibility, administration and results. Two different scoring methods were used to evaluate differences in test results within and across language groups; one based on a traditional correct/incorrect scoring, the other involving a nuanced error-type scoring. Our findings indicate that the test format suited the participants’ low proficiency level and was sensitive to the wide variation of beginner language proficiency. In addition, both differences and similarities in test results across language groups were observed in the data, depending on scoring method. Results demonstrate that scoring methods crucially shape how proficiency is interpreted, especially when comparing languages with different linguistic features.

This study problematizes the second language (L2) / third language (L3) initial state, questioning who the real initial state-learners are and whether it is the initial state that has been explored in some previous L3 studies that claim to do so. We will discuss the notion of initial stages in relation to the initial state. We argue that, depending on prior language knowledge, learners can – thanks to intercomprehension – advance rapidly from the initial state into the initial stages of interlanguage. We base these suggestions on data from a small-scale study in which 20 native speakers of Swedish assessed whether some Dutch, Finnish and Norwegian sentences were grammatical or not. The results from this study led us to a discussion of whether the leap from the initial state to the initial stages can be overcome more quickly, due to the clues from typological similarity on the lexical level that the learners are given.

‘Translanguaging’ is nowadays an umbrella term referring to either the framework of ‘spontaneous translanguaging’ from the United States or that of ‘pedagogical translanguaging’ from the Basque Country. Both these frameworks propose ways of integrating languages in school, but they adopt very different perspectives on multilingualism, language education and minority languages. This article starts out with a discussion of spontaneous and pedagogical translanguaging as related to their sociolinguistic and educational contexts and a discussion of multilingualism in Sweden. This is followed by a critical review of academic publications on translanguaging published by researchers affiliated to Swedish universities between 2017 – the year in which the distinction between spontaneous and pedagogical translanguaging is featured in the literature – and 2023. The analysis shows that whereas spontaneous translanguaging is highly influential, pedagogical translanguaging generally plays a very understated role. Linked to the current discourse about multilingualism in Sweden, most researchers discuss translanguaging in relation to the social inclusion of students with a foreign background, who are referred to as ‘the multilingual students’, rather than to teaching languages to the whole student population. A central goal of the Swedish educational system, however, is to promote all students' multilingualism by teaching multiple languages, including foreign languages as well as any official or immigrant minority language a student uses at home. We call, therefore, for more attention to pedagogical translanguaging and we claim the importance of adapting translanguaging to the challenges of each society.

The study examines how three undergraduate beginner students of Italian as L3 make sense of Italian tense-aspect morphology based on other languages. All students had knowledge of Swedish, English and French, in each case acquired in a particular chronological order. The participants completed two C-tests, and three interpretation tests of aspectual contrasts in English, French and Italian. The latter was complemented by written comments. The results of the Italian interpretation test varied depending on tense-aspect configurations. A qualitative analysis of the comments revealed four categories: (i) explicit rules, (ii) intuition, (iii) other languages, and (iv) uncertainty/unknown, differently distributed among the students. The results suggest that the students relied on their L1(s) as well as their L2(s) depending on type of transfer, whether linguistic or conceptual, which is discussed in light of some recent L3 models.

Cette étude examine comment trois étudiantes universitaires d’Italienne comme L3, au niveau débutant, donnent un sens à la morphologie tempo-aspectuelle italienne sur la base d’autres langues. Les étudiantes ont toutes les trois connaissance du suédois, de l’anglais et du français, mais chacune dans un ordre d'acquisition particulier. Les étudiantes ont passé deux c-tests, ainsi que trois tests d'interprétation des contrastes aspectuelles en anglais, français et italien. Le dernier test a été complété par des commentaires écrits. Les résultats du test d'interprétation italienne ont varié en fonction des configurations tempo-aspectuelles. Dans une analyse qualitative des commentaires, nous avons trouvé quatre catégories qui ont été nommées: (i) règles explicites, (ii) intuition, (iii) autres langues et (iv) incertitude, celles-ci étaient différemment réparties parmi les données des étudiantes. Les résultats suggèrent que les étudiantes ont recours à leurs L1 ainsi qu’à leurs L2, selon le type de transfert, linguistique ou conceptuel, ce qui est discuté en fonction de certains modèles théoriques récents de transfert de L3.

Language education at all levels benefits from research in a multitude of ways. Conversely, educational practices and experiences offer fertile ground for research into language learning, teaching and assessment. This book views research in language education as a reciprocal venture that should benefit all participants equally. Practice is shaped by theory, which in turn is illuminated and refined by practice. The book brings together studies from different fields of language education in nine countries on four continents: Cameroon, Canada, Finland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan and Sweden. The authors report on research that depends on the active involvement of teachers, teacher educators and learners of different ages and various backgrounds. The book focuses on projects designed to address challenges in the classroom and on the role of learners as collaborative agents in the research process as well as collaborative research in professional development and the role of collaborative research in the development of national policy.

The study examines the role played by English and Romance languages (L2s) when learning grammatical aspect in Italian as additional language (Ln). Swedish university students of Italian (n = 34), divided according to knowledge of a Romance L2 and English aspectual knowledge, completed an interpretation task of aspectual contrast in Italian. Eight native speakers served as a control group. The findings showed that knowledge of a Romance language as L2 and high English aspectual knowledge exerted a differential influence on learning aspect in Italian. This outcome is discussed in the light of a consistent form-meaning relationship between the L2s and Italian. Yet, with a mismatch between grammatical and lexical aspect, the learners' judgments differed from the native speakers' judgments. Thus, our findings also support the idea of the existence of differential learning paths sustained by the L2s when learning complex aspectual configurations.

This review provides an account of salient research topics in current Swedish research in the field of foreign language (FL) education, with the aim of making locally published work available outside Sweden. A corpus of work on English and other FLs published between 2012 and 2021 has been scrutinized. Focus has been placed on research conducted and disseminated in Sweden, in some cases adding international publications, in order to portray the work in a wider context. Research on FL learning, teaching, and assessment is reviewed in light of recent policy changes as well as a changing linguistic situation characterized by a plethora of languages spoken in society, among which Swedish as majority language and English as lingua franca share indisputable sovereignty, but where a newly-born interest in the role of other background languages than Swedish can be discerned. The study ends with a discussion of trends observed in the reviewed material and considerations in view of future research.

This study investigates levels of oral proficiency in French, German and Spanish attained by Swedish speaking students in lower secondary school. A total of 122 students performed two tasks: one production task and one interaction task. The oral performances were rated using scales from the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The rating was done in successive steps by researchers in the project and external raters. The results show that slightly less than half of the students’ performances were rated at or above the expected proficiency level at the end of lower secondary school (A2.1). While there was no difference in rated levels between the two tasks, the performances by the students of German were significantly more often rated at or above the A2.1 level than the performances by students of French and Spanish. In the article, we discuss the results in relation to the few previous studies available on the topic, as well as some aspects of the learning conditions that might contribute to the interpretation of the results. In addition, certain structural phenomena regarding language education in Sweden are briefly considered in relation to equity at a general level.