Teachers’ Perspectives on Recently Arrived Pupils and English Teaching

Abstract: Nowadays, many schools around the world are a mixture of children who come from different places and for different reasons. The Swedish school has not been an exception of these mixtures of children who have different identities, cultures, and languages. In 2015, Sweden experienced a high immigration peak compare to the previous years and for this reason, the Swedish school system needed to adapt to the newly arrived children that came into the classroom. The purpose of this research project is to investigate teachers’ experiences and perceptions of meeting the varying needs of recently arrived learners in English teaching in years 4-6. The aim of the thesis is to explore what are the main challenges in teaching English and how the teachers adapt their English lessons and develop methods and strategies for teaching recently arrived pupils.This study was conducted with semi-structured interviews as a qualitative method, with five English teachers who have a complete degree in teaching education, and all of whom have newly arrived children in their classes. Based on analysis of the data, three main conclusions have been drawn in this study. Firstly, all the teachers participating did not know the difference between concepts such as immigrants and newcomers; secondly the teachers do not use a special method or strategies when they teach newly arrived children, and finally, this study shows that the teachers do not know how to face the newly arrived children’s needs, and they do not feel that they have the competence that they need in this field.