Teachers’ perceptions on the effects that a multilingual classroom has on TL acquisition

Abstract: This degree project’s purpose is to gain some insight into what advantages and disadvantages on teaching and learning a TL exist in multilingual classrooms, as well as what impact these outcomes might have on teachers’ pedagogical choices. The paper provides an overview of theories relating to language learning and third language learning, as well as the research. Researchers contend that teachers should maximize the TL use in the classroom, however there currently exists a dispute about whether the L1 should be used as a resource in the TL classroom or not. The study is conducted through interviews with four active English teachers, in the south of Sweden. The major conclusions of this paper are that L3 learners can have an advantage when learning a TL, and that the presence of L3 learners can have a positive effect on the motivation of the L2 learner classmates with regard to learning the TL. A discrepancy exists between how research and the national curriculum encourage teachers to teach and how they actually do in their pedagogical practice. The paper identifies a possible explanation for this discrepancy, as well as possible implications of it.