Content and Language Integrated Learning and Teaching in ...

SPRINT: (språk- och innehållsintegrerad inlärning och undervisning)

Content and Language Integrated Learning and Teaching in Sweden

A Report for The National Agency for Education

(Skolverket)

John Nixon

SPRINT: Content and Language Integrated Learning and Teaching in Sweden 2 (59)

Author’s acknowledgements To complete this Report, I have received considerable assistance from many quarters, not least from the very many teachers and school managers who have taken the time to discuss with me, over the phone or by e-mail, the forms which SPRINT takes at their various schools. I take this opportunity to thank them for their help. I also wish to thank several individuals and institutions who have assisted with advice, information and encouragement. In particular, my thanks go to Ingela Nyman, Eva Oscarsson and Sara Petersson at Skolverket in Stockholm, without whom this report would neither have been commissioned nor carried through successfully. My thanks are also due to various other individuals at Skolverket in Stockholm who have given advice or pointed me in the right direction for information; to Skolverket in Göteborg; to the office of the International Baccalaureate Organisation in Stockholm and to the office of Svenska Språknämnden. Particular thanks are due to the Board of the Swedish Association of Bilingual and Immersion Teachers for sharing their list of members (see SAINT); to Christina Häggström for the maps (produced as part of a 5 point project for the Institution of Cultural Geography at the University of Göteborg - Häggström); and to Rolf Ferm for all his editorial work. Special thanks are due to David Marsh of the Univeristy of Jyväskylä; to Jan Nordin of Mitthögskolan and Sundsvalls gymnasieskola; to Monica Haglund-Dragic, Sigrid Dentler and Karl-Heinz Schnider of the Institute of German and Dutch at the University of Göteborg and to my wife, Agneta Gustafsson, all of whom have acted as sounding boards for different parts of this Report. Such errors of fact as remain, are, of course, my own sole responsibility. The opinions expressed in this report are also my own, and should not be assigned to Skolverket.

John Nixon Consultant on Content and Language Integration in Education

[email protected]

NOTES to the English language version Certain terms for different levels and forms of education in Sweden are used in this Report. All such terms are translated and the original Swedish given in parentheses immediately after. Some terms are very frequent, and are also presented here for ease of reference. Grundskola, translated as ‘compulsory school’ and referred to in some diagrams and tables as GR. All Swedish children between the ages of 7 and 16 are obliged to attend compulsory schooling. In recent years, children and parents have had the option to begin compulsory schooling one year earlier (‘Year 0’ in this Report). Gymnasieskola. I have followed British practice and translated this as ‘upper secondary school’ (for Americans it would be ‘senior high school’). In some diagrams and tables it is referred to as GY. Upper secondary education is intended for 16 to 19 year-olds and, although it is voluntary, very few young Swedes fail to attend classes at this level. It is possible to refer to the three years of Swedish upper secondary education as Years 10, 11 & 12, or as gymnasieskola Years 1, 2 & 3. In this Report I favour the latter. Komvux is translated as ‘municipal centres for adult education’ and is referred to in some diagrams and tables as KOM. Kommun & kommunal, translated as ‘municipality’ and ‘municipal’. One of the greatest changes in the Swedish education system in recent years has been the transfer of responsibility for most education from the national to the municipal authorities. Throughout the Report, text in italic script enclosed by double quotation marks, indicates a direct quote translated by the author from the original Swedish. Quotes which are otherwise unreferenced are taken from the responses received to the two SPRINT questionnaires.


Summary This Report was commissioned by The National Agency for Education (Skolverket) to map the incidence of language and subject integration (SPRINT) in Sweden in Spring 1999. The further objective was to obtain some idea of the quality of the education on offer, and develop a strategy for further qualitative assessment.

The information presented is based on the response to two questionnaires. The first distributed to 6320 schools, and the second to the resulting shortlist of roughly 400 schools claiming to offer, or to be planning, some form of language and subject integration. Response to the questionnaires was supplemented by telephone interviews with a number of the schools in April/May, June and August/September 1999.

From an experiment in just a few schools in the 1980’s, SPRINT has spread and is now present in some form or other in around 4% of all compulsory schools (grundskolor) and more than 20% of all upper secondary schools (gymnasieskolor). The significant years for the spread of SPRINT at upper secondary level are 1993 to 1995, immediately following the reform of the upper secondary system. At compulsory school level, the significant years are 1995 and 1996. Growth in both areas seems to be continuing. There is as yet very little SPRINT on offer at the level of adult education.

Geographically, schools with SPRINT are distributed across the country, from Pajala in the north to Ystad in the south.

Overall, the target languages associated with SPRINT are English (75.5%), German (8%), French (6%), Spanish (4%), Finnish (2%), Other (4.5%). In some schools, success with SPRINT in English has carried over into experiments with other languages. There are several schools where two or more languages are integrated with subject teaching.

The principal subjects integrated with these languages are social science, history, music and mathematics, but at least 18 other subjects from the national curriculums at compulsory and upper secondary school levels are also involved.

At upper secondary level, the two national programmes most affected are the Social Science Programme (SP) and the Natural Science Programme (NV), but there are schools offering the Health Care Programme (OP), the Natural Resources Programme (NP) and at least six other national programmes where some form of SPRINT is taking place.

By far the majority of pupils studying on SPRINT courses are monolingual speakers of Swedish. A much smaller group are bilingual with Swedish as one of their languages, a smaller group still regard Swedish as a foreign language. Very few students studying on SPRINT programmes look on the target language as their mother tongue. There are, however, some schools which directly contradict this picture.

At compulsory school level, approximately 75% of the teachers working with SPRINT are qualified to teach the target language. Approximately half of all the teachers involved in SPRINT at this level also hold dual qualifications to teach the language in question and one or more school subjects.

At upper secondary level, around 42% of the teachers working with SPRINT are qualified to teach the target language. Approximately 22% of all the teachers involved in SPRINT at this level also hold dual qualifications to teach the language in question and one or more school subjects. Nearly 40% of upper secondary school teachers working with SPRINT are qualified subject teachers who have received some sort of in-service training to qualify them to teach the affected subject through the medium of the target language.


SPRINT takes very many different forms around the country. It is used with different ages from young children to adults, and with all sorts of different ability groups. It can extend over three days of a thematic project in compulsory school Year 6, and over three years of extensive study at upper secondary level. There were more than 60 different reasons for offering SPRINT given in the responses to the survey questionnaire.

Some schools appear unsure how they should go about assessing their SPRINT programmes. The Report presents some of the principal methods used in different schools and suggests others. A minimum level of documentation for quality assessment and assurance is recommended together with suggestions for more extensive assessment.

Finally, further action by The National Agency for Education, to learn more about the different forms of SPRINT and to promote better quality assurance, is suggested.


SPRINT: CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING AND TEACHING IN SWEDEN CONTENTS

Author’s acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 2 NOTES to the English language version ......................................................................................................... 2

Summary............................................................................................................................................. 3

1. Introduction and Background ..................................................................................................... 7 1.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 7 1.2 SPRINT .................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.3 Further background .................................................................................................................................. 8

2. Method, scope and limitations ..................................................................................................... 9 2.1 Definition.................................................................................................................................................. 9 2.2 The first questionnaire .............................................................................................................................. 9 2.3 Percentage SPRINT at compulsory and upper secondary levels .............................................................. 9 2.4 Municipal centres for adult education .................................................................................................... 10 2.5 Excluded categories................................................................................................................................ 10 2.6 The second questionnaire ....................................................................................................................... 10

3. Schools, pupils and teachers....................................................................................................... 12 3.1 Geographical distribution ....................................................................................................................... 12 3.2 Responsible authority for the schools..................................................................................................... 12 3.3 Student numbers, ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ student profiles ..................................................................... 17

3.3.1 Student numbers ....................................................................................................................................... 17 3.3.2 Pupil profiles............................................................................................................................................. 18 3.3.3 Schools with atypical pupil profiles.......................................................................................................... 19 3.3.4 Other differences between typical and atypical schools ........................................................................... 19 3.3.5 Summary typical contra atypical .............................................................................................................. 20

3.4 Target languages..................................................................................................................................... 20 3.5 Curriculums ............................................................................................................................................ 24 3.6 Subjects, courses and programmes ......................................................................................................... 24

3.6.1 Choice of subjects for integration............................................................................................................. 24 3.6.2 Subjects affected at compulsory school .................................................................................................... 25 3.6.2 Subjects affected at upper secondary........................................................................................................ 26 3.6.4 Non-vocational courses affected............................................................................................................... 26 3.6.5 Programmes affected ................................................................................................................................ 27 3.6.6 Vocational subjects and local courses....................................................................................................... 28

3.7 Historical perspectives............................................................................................................................ 29 3.8 Teachers.................................................................................................................................................. 30

3.8.1 Competence and qualifications ................................................................................................................. 30 3.8.2 Command of the target language .............................................................................................................. 31 3.8.3 Native speakers of the target language ..................................................................................................... 32 3.8.4 Teacher-pupil ratios .................................................................................................................................. 33 3.8.5 Qualifications and training........................................................................................................................ 33 3.8.6 Dual-qualification ..................................................................................................................................... 34 3.8.7 Teacher profile at atypical schools ........................................................................................................... 34

4. Forms and variety in SPRINT education.................................................................................. 35 4.1 Duration of SPRINT courses .................................................................................................................. 35

4.1.1 Compulsory school ................................................................................................................................... 35 4.1.2 Upper secondary ....................................................................................................................................... 37 4.1.3 Freedom of choice .................................................................................................................................... 38

4.2 Reasons for offering SPRINT................................................................................................................. 39 4.2.1 Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at compulsory school ......................................................... 39 4.2.2 Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at upper secondary and adult education levels................... 40 4.2.3 Other reasons for offering SPRINT .......................................................................................................... 42 4.2.4 Effects of SPRINT beyond those mentioned in the response to this survey............................................. 43

4.3 ‘Measurements of success’..................................................................................................................... 44 4.4 Reasons for giving up SPRINT .............................................................................................................. 45


5. Quality assessment and assurance............................................................................................. 48

6. Conclusions and Further action.................................................................................................. 50

7. Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 51

Appendix I ........................................................................................................................................ 52 Supplementary tables for student/pupil profiles ............................................................................................ 52

Appendix II....................................................................................................................................... 57 Courses at upper secondary and adult education levels affected by SPRINT ............................................... 57


1. Introduction and Background

1.1 Introduction The teaching of school subjects through the medium of a foreign language is neither a new development nor unusual in an international context. Its novelty today lies in the form it takes, and in terms of its availability to a large and growing number of young people throughout Europe.

Education through a medium other than the official national language has always been an option for select groups of people in the different nation states of Europe. Developments over the past 30 years or so have seen this form of education becoming available across an increasingly wide social spectrum. Across the continent, more and more schools are making it possible for pupils of all backgrounds to follow a part of their studies through the medium of one or more foreign languages.

There are many reasons for this development, but probably the single most important factor has been the establishment of the European Union. As a transnational and multilingual entity, the EU has chosen to support developments in education which are likely to promote greater linguistic competence among its future citizens. The ability to use two European languages alongside one’s own mother tongue has been expressed as a reasonable objective for all citizens, and schools are encouraged to work towards making this possible. (WHITE PAPER p671)

Here in Sweden, the growth and spread of this form of education can be linked directly to reforms of the system of education introduced from 1992. (See elsewhere in this Report - ’Historical perspectives’.)

The practice of teaching subject matter through the medium of a foreign language extends the period of time during which pupils are in contact with the target language without stealing time from the teaching of the subject. It has been studied by the Council of Europe (see e.g. THÜRMANN), and is one of several areas which are prioritised. It has shown consistent success over many years and under a variety of conditions in, for example the European Schools and the state schools of Luxembourg. It has been practised in schools in some of the German Länder and in France for more than 30 years. Over the most recent 10 years, it has developed strongly in several other European countries, in particular Austria, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands and, of course, Sweden. (For more on these developments see FRUHAUF; BAETENS

BEARDSMORE; VIBERG, INTERTALK, TEACHING WITH FOREIGN LANGUAGES.)

1.2 SPRINT Exactly what to call this form of education has been a problem. The term ’bilingual education’ (in Swedish, tvåspråkig undervisning) is widely used throughout Europe, but it is open to misinterpretation. For instance it applies that only two languages are involved; yet, internationally, there are many examples of schools working with 3, 4 or more languages.

A number of other terms have been attempted, for example ’immersion education’ and ’content-based language learning’, but these actually describe specific forms of the education and are insufficiently general. For a time the term ’plurilingual education’ was in vogue, but the common European consensus today is for ’Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)’. In Swedish this gives us språk- och innehållsintegrerad inlärning och undervisning which abbreviates to SPRINT. It is this term which The National Agency for Education has decided to use in this Report. (For more on the problem of nomenclature see NIKULA and

1 Throughout this Report, SMALL CAPITALS are used to refer to texts listed in the Bibliography.


VIBERG; for definition of CLIL see CLIL INITIATIVES , p9; for descriptions of the Canadian Immersion Program – whence ’immersion’ and ’språkbad’ – see VIBERG )

The development and spread of SPRINT in Sweden has been dynamic. From the two or three schools which had experimented with it in the 1980’s, the present survey shows it is today present, in some form, in around 4% of all Swedish compulsory schools (grundskolor) and more than 20% of all upper secondary schools (gymnasieskolor).

1.3 Further background While the exact extent of SPRINT, the forms it takes and its rate of growth, have been only vaguely appreciated, public awareness has been aroused. During 1998, The National Agency for Education and the Department of Education received a number of applications from municipal authorities seeking to introduce SPRINT especially at compulsory school level. In the same year, Svenska språknämnden expressed a concern over the effect on the Swedish language in use among school children as a result of the spread of content teaching through the medium of English. (See SKOLVERKET; SVENSKA SPRÅKNÄMNDEN)

In the light of these developments, at the end of 1998, The National Agency for Education decided that a second attempt should be made to carry out a quantitative survey of SPRINT education in Sweden, this time not confining the survey to upper secondary, but taking in also compulsory school and adult education levels. The further objective was to obtain some idea of the quality of the education on offer, and develop a strategy for further qualitative assessment.

This Report presents the results of that survey.


2. Method, scope and limitations

2.1 Definition Most of the data presented in this report was collected from schools around the country by means of two questionnaires. The first defined SPRINT in the following terms:

”During the last 10 years an increasing number of pupils have been offered subject teaching through the medium of a foreign language. This form of education goes under a number of different names: ’immersion education’, språkbad, två-språkig undervisning, ’bilingual education’, ’content-based language learning’, innehållsbaserad språkundervisning, ’Deutsche Klassen’, ’classes franςaises’, etc. etc.

”Common to all these forms of education is that the pupils’ contact with the foreign language is increased through the integration of language with content learning. For the sake of simplicity, therefore, when making reference to this form of education in future, we shall use the terms language and content integrated learning (språk- och innehållsintegrerad inlärning) and language and content integrated teaching (språk- och innehållsintegrerad undervisning). In both cases, we shall use the abbreviation SPRINT.”2

2.2 The first questionnaire3 The first questionnaire asked schools simply to say whether or not they offered, or were planning to offer, some form of education within the limits of the above definition. If they were, they were also asked to say which language was involved as target language.

The first questionnaire was distributed in February 1999 to 6320 schools: 5076 compulsory schools (grundskolor), 724 upper secondary schools (gymnasieskolor), 478 municipal centres for adult education (komvux), the two national schools for adult education (Statens skolor för vuxna) and 40 Swedish schools abroad. By the end of March 1999, a response of better than 70% was recorded in all categories.

A random 10% sample was made of non-responding schools in the first three categories, (146 compulsory schools, 17 upper secondary schools and 13 adult education centres). During April, these schools were contacted by phone and asked to respond verbally to the first questionnaire. (The schools were also asked why they had not responded to the written questionnaire. In the majority of cases, they replied that the questionnaire was in competition for their attention with many other things, and they had simply assigned it a low priority.)

2.3 Percentage SPRINT at compulsory and upper secondary levels The actual response to the first questionnaire showed that roughly 4% of responding compulsory schools and 23% of responding upper secondary schools were currently offering or planning to offer some form of SPRINT. The telephone interviews with the random 10% of non-responding schools produced a very similar distribution for these categories. (See Table 1.) 2Throughout the Report, text in italic script enclosed by double quotation marks, indicates a direct quote translated from the original Swedish. Quotes which are otherwise unreferenced are taken from the responses received to the two SPRINT questionnaires. 3 Copies of the original covering letter, the first questionnaire and the two versions of the second questionnaire are included as Appendix III in the Swedish language version of this Report.


2.4 Municipal centres for adult education The number of schools involved at municipal centres for adult education proved to be more difficult to determine. This appears to be because many municipal centres for adult education share premises, administrative and management staff with upper secondary schools. A large number of both negative responses (SPRINT is not on offer) and positive responses (SPRINT is on offer, or is being planned) for both categories were returned as a single response.

Those schools which responded positively, but described themselves as both upper secondary schools and adult education centres, turned out in most cases to offer SPRINT only to their 16-19 year-old students. After a full analysis of the response to the second questionnaire, we can only be certain that SPRINT was taking place with adult students in eight centres for adult education during Spring 1999.

For this reason, the statistics for the response from adult education centres have largely been conflated in this Report with the statistics for the upper secondary response.

2.5 Excluded categories Two other categories have been excluded from the Report altogether. As neither of the national schools for adult education offer or plan to offer SPRINT, there was no reason to include them. Of the 31 Swedish schools abroad which responded to the first questionnaire, 14 were offering and one planning to offer SPRINT. However, the conditions under which all these schools operate are so different, both from one another and from conditions in Sweden, that it was felt better not to include them on the distribution list for the second questionnaire.

2.6 The second questionnaire On the basis of the response to the first questionnaire, a second questionnaire was distributed in May 1999 to 297 schools which had stated that they were currently conducting SPRINT, and 105 schools that said they were planning to introduce it in the near future. The second questionnaire obtained a 55% response rate from ’active’ schools and a 38% response rate from schools where SPRINT was still in the planning stage. These results have been interpreted as indicating that the bulk of ’planning’ schools have still not committed themselves to offering SPRINT.

The volume of response to the second questionnaire, even from ’active’ schools, was disappointing. Telephone interviews with non-responding schools (conducted in August/September) suggest the most likely explanation to be schools assigning a low priority to the questonnaire in competition with other activities.

The bulk of the data on which this Report is based comes from the 196 responses received to the second questionnaire from individual schools. The information obtained has been supplemented by telephone, e-mail and in a few cases, by face to face interviews with representatives of some of the schools.

Tables 1 & 2 show the distribution of response to each questionnaire by category of school.


Table 1 – Response to first questionnaire by category of school

SPRINT – 1st questionnaire

Response by category

Category

Abbr

evia

tion

No . S

choo

ls

circ

ular

ised

No . s

choo

ls

resp

ondi

ng. b

y en

d Ap

ril1

As p

erce

ntag

e2

No . o

fferin

g SP

RIN

T - S

prin

g ’9

93

As p

erce

ntag

e2

No . p

lann

ing

to o

ffer

SPR

INT3

As p

erce

ntag

e2

SPRI

NT sc

hools

- to

tal3

As p

erce

ntag

e2

Compulsory schools GR 5076 3724 73,36 163 3,21 55 1,08 218 4,29 Upper secondary schools GY 724 554 76,52 122 16,85 44 6,08 166 22,93

Municipal centres for adult education

KOM 478 347 72,59 8 2,09 6 1,26 16 3,35

National centres for adult eduction4

SSV 2 2 100,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00

Swedish schools abroad4 SSU 40 31 77,50 14 35,00 1 2,50 15 37,50 Totals (ex SSV & SSU) 6278 4625 73,67 293 4,70 105 1,67 392 5 6,28

1 Includes all late responses received after the March 17th deadline. Also the 10% of non-responding schools which were telephoned in March and April. 2 As percentage of total number schools circularised 3 Includes all late responses received up to 17th September 1999. Figures for Upper secondary schools and Municipal centres for adult education adjusted according to information presented in responses and in telephone interviews conducted in June, August & September. 4 These categories excluded from the final study. 5 This figure adjusted to account for 8 schools being counted twice. 4 schools counted as both Active GR and Active GY; 2 schools counted as both Active GY and Planning GY; 2 schools counted as both Active GY and Active KOM

Table 2 – Response to second questionnaire by category of school

SPRINT - 2nd questionnaire1

Response by category

Category

Abbr

evia

tion

No .

scho

ols

offe

ring

SPR

INT

- Spr

ing

1999

No . r

espo

ndin

g to

2nd

qu

estio

nnai

re

No . s

choo

ls p

lann

ing

to o

ffer

SPR

INT

No . R

espo

ndin

g to

2nd

qu

estio

nnai

re

Tota

l num

ber s

choo

ls

offe

ring/

plan

ning

SPR

INT

- Sp

ring

1999

Tota

l num

ber s

choo

ls

resp

ondi

ng to

2nd

qu

estio

nnai

re

Compulsory schools GR 163 73 55 21 218 94 Upper secondary schools GY 122 81 44 17 166 98


KOM 10 9 6 1 16 10

Totals 295 163 105 39 392 2 194 2 1 The volume of response to the 2nd questionnaire (around 55% of the schools offering SPRINT and not quite 38% of the schools planning SPRINT), was disappointing. The telephone interviews with non-responding schools (both those conducted in March/April and those conducted in August/September) suggest the most likely explanation to be schools assigning a low priority to the questionnaire in competition with other activities. 2 This figure adjusted to account for 8 schools being counted twice. 4 schools counted as both Active GR and Active GY; 2 schools counted as both Active GY and Planning GY; 2 schools counted as both Active GY and Active KOM.


3. Schools, pupils and teachers

3.1 Geographical distribution As can be seen in Maps 1 and 2 (pages 13 & 14), the combined response to the two questionnaires shows the expected concentration of schools offering or planning to offer SPRINT in the major urban areas. It also shows that there is otherwise a distribution right across the country from Pajala to Ystad. Even in Blekinge, the one province which, in Spring 1999, showed no SPRINT activity, two schools in Karlskrona and one in Ronneby report that they are planning to introduce SPRINT.

3.2 Responsible authority for the schools Of the 400 schools responding positively to the 1st questionnaire, (including the 199 responding also to the 2nd questionnaire), 66 are independent (fristående) schools, the bulk of the remainder are municipal (kommunalla) schools (286), 13 fall under the jurisdiction of a regional authority (landsting). 30 schools failed to identify their responsible authority, while 5 described their authority as ‘other’. (See the footnotes in the appropriate columns of Table 3.)

Of the 13 regional authority schools, the majority specialise in offering either the Natural Resource Use Programme or the Health Care Programme. (A few health care schools noted on their responses that their school’s responsible authority was in process of change from a regional to a municipal authority.)

Table 3 – Responsible authority for the schools

Responsible authority for the schools GR Active GY Active GR Planning GY Planning

Responsible authority

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

&

2nd

ques

tionn

aire

s

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

qu

estio

nnai

re o

nly

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

&

2nd

ques

tionn

aire

s

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

qu

estio

nnai

re o

nly

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

&

2nd

ques

tionn

aire

s

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

qu

estio

nnai

re o

nly

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

&

2nd

ques

tionn

aire

s

Scho

ols

resp

ondi

ng to

1st

qu

estio

nnai

re o

nly

Tota

ls

Municipal 54 65 68 35 14 25 10 15 282 1 Regional 0 1 5 4 1 0 1 1 13

Independent 19 23 12 4 1 3 0 4 62 1 Other 0 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 5

Unknown 0 0 0 0 5 6 6 13 30 Totals 73 90 88 44 21 34 17 33 392 1

Other = National entry boarding

school

Other = National entry boarding

school, association, Kunskapslyftet2

1These figures adjusted to account for eight schools counted twice. 4 Independent schools counted as both Active GR and Active GY; 2 Municipal schools counted as both Active GY and Planning GY; 2 Municipal schools counted as both Active GY and Active KOM. 2 A special form of further education for the unemployed.


Map 1 - On-going SPRINT activity – Spring 1999


Map 2 - Planned SPRINT activity – Spring 1999


Map 3 – Independent schools with on-going SPRINT activity – Spring 1999


Map 4 – Independent schools planning SPRINT activity – Spring 1999


These figures show that by far the majority of SPRINT is being offered and planned in municipal schools. As can be seen in Maps 3 & 4, (pages 15 & 16) independent schools offering or planning SPRINT are concentrated to the Stockholm/Uppsala and Gothenburg urban areas.

Note that independent schools constitute a majority (8) of the 14 compulsory schools and all 3 upper secondary schools with ‘atypical’ pupil profiles (see below).

At this point in time, SPRINT is typically on offer under municipal auspices.

3.3 Student numbers, ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ student profiles The second questionnaire included two questions about the students.

In Question 6, schools were asked how many pupils were involved in SPRINT in each year of the school. In Question 7, they were also asked to give information about the pupils’ language competencies. This information can be used to identify a ‘typical’ student profile for schools with SPRINT, and also to identify schools which, for one reason or another have an ‘atypical’ student profile.

3.3.1 Student numbers Diagram 1 presents the results from the 73 compulsory schools and 88 upper secondary schools/adult education centres responding to the question about numbers of pupils involved with SPRINT in each year at the the school.

Diagram 1 - Numbers of schools and numbers of pupils

Numbers of SPRINT schools & numbers of pupils/students

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

GR

0

GR

1

GR

2

GR

3

GR

4

GR

5

GR

6

GR

7

GR

8

GR

9

GY

1

GY

2

GY

3

KOM

(GR

)

KOM

(GY)

KOM

(Fur

ther

ed.

)

Years

Num

bers

of S

PRIN

T pu

pils

/stu

dent

s

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80N

umbe

rs o

f SPR

INT

scho

ols

Totalnumber ofpupilsinvolved inSPRINT

Totalnumber ofschoolsw ithSPRINT


Clearly, SPRINT, in some form or another, is available to pupils in every age group from the pre-school Year 0 (age 6), to upper secondary Year 3 (age 18) and beyond. However, the majority of compulsory school pupils who meet SPRINT do so in Years 5-9 (ages 11-16), with more than 27% meeting it in Year 6 (1052 pupils) and Year 7 (1024 pupils). This bulge can be explained by the number of schools which choose to introduce pupils to new foreign languages by means of cross-curricular projects, thematic days or thematic weeks, during these years.

At upper secondary level, the variance in student numbers and in schools offering SPRINT in the three different years can be explained by the number of schools (particularly those offering the Economic version of the Social Science Programme), where SPRINT is not introduced until Year 2.

At municipal centres for adult education, the majority of the very little SPRINT taking place is concentrated to courses which emulate upper secondary level education. This may reflect teaching resources available. It may also reflect a number of other factors including student interest. At least one school (not included in these results), reports that a course integrating the teaching of History with English is on offer, but for two years has not attracted sufficent student interest for it to be run. Within Kunskapslyftet (a special form of further education for the unemployed), only one adult education centre reports offering further education in part using SPRINT. Interestingly this school (in Helsingborg) is the only school at any level offering SPRINT through the medium of Danish.

The figures collected by this survey show the total numbers of pupils affected by SPRINT, (including those pupils at atypical schools – see below), to be a little more than 15500; 7470 at compulsory school level and 8089 at upper secondary level. If these figures are extrapolated to include the schools which responded positively to the first questionnaire but failed to respond to the second questionnaire, it can be estimated that around 16700 compulsory school pupils and around 11700 upper secondary school students were actually affected by SPRINT in the Spring of 1999. In other words, of the c.1 million compulsory school pupils in 98/99, perhaps 1.7% were affected by SPRINT, and of the c.390000 upper secondary students in 98/99, perhaps 3% were affected. (Statistics for numbers of pupils in compulsory and upper secondary schools during the 98/99 academic year are The National Agency for Education’s own and were collected at the end of October 1998. For more on the numbers of learners involved in SPRINT see below under ‘Duration of SPRINT courses’.)

3.3.2 Pupil profiles As noted above, Question 7 invited schools to say roughly how many of their pupils involved in SPRINT •= were monolingual in Swedish, •= were bilingual with Swedish as one of their languages, •= regarded Swedish as a foreign or second language, and/or •= counted the target language as their mother tongue. The intention in asking these questions was to obtain a picture of the relative proportions of monolingual Swedish speakers to others in situations where SPRINT is taking place. Mean and median averages can be used to identify a Pupil Profile for the ‘typical’ SPRINT school (Table 4).


Table 4 – SPRINT student/pupil profiles

SPRINT – Pupil profiles

Compulsory schools Upper secondary schools & Adult education centres

Types of pupil

Num

bers

of

stud

ents

Mea

n av

erag

e/sc

hool

Med

ian

aver

age

/sch

ool

Num

bers

of

stud

ents

Mea

n av

erag

e ./s

choo

l

Med

ian

aver

age

/sch

ool

Monolingual Swedish speakers 4243 72 30 6212 73 10 Bilingual speakers counting Swedish as one of

their languages1191 20 10 650 8 6

Regarding Swedish as a foreign language 406 7 5 239 3 1 Mother tongue or bilingual speakers of the target

language158 3 4 194 2 1

3.3.3 Schools with atypical pupil profiles Using the pupil profiles, it is also possible to identify those schools which stand out as atypical, and which also proved to differ in a few other ways from the typical SPRINT school.

At compulsory school level, 14 schools , and at upper secondary level, 3 schools, can be identified as exceptional in terms of their pupil or student profiles.

The most obvious distinction between typical and atypical schools lies in the proportion of monolingual Swedish speakers to speakers of the target language. Effectively, at all atypical schools, the number of pupils who are identified as mother tongue speakers of the target language exceeds by a considerable figure the number of pupils given as monolingual speakers of Swedish.

Among the typical SPRINT schools, 1 upper secondary school and 4 compulsory schools have only slightly more native speakers of Swedish than they do speakers of the target language. These may be regarded as ’borderline schools’, and they are included without much further comment in the statistics for typical schools. All the other schools conform closely to the typical pupil profile.

The Pupil profiles of atypical schools are presented for comparison in Table 5. (Complete figures for typical, atypical and ’borderline’ schools are collected together in two tables in Appendix I.)

3.3.4 Other differences between typical and atypical schools Apart from the differences in pupil profile, the atypical schools are distinguished also in their responses to a number of other questions, in particular: ’Student numbers’ (Question 6), ’Teacher qualification’ (Questions 8, 9 & 10), ’Purpose’ (Question 11 and to some extent also in Questions 4 and 12 ).

Student numbers - Comparing the results of the response from the schools with atypical pupil profiles to the results of the total response (Diagram 2), it is clear that the atypical schools •= account for more than half of all the pupils in the pre-school Year 0, •= offer SPRINT throughout all the years of the school (there is no ‘bulge’ in Years 6 and 7) •= at upper secondary level, account for a disappearingly small percentage of pupils engaged

in SPRINT


Teacher Qualification - The teachers involved in SPRINT in the atypical schools are much more likely to hold qualifications from abroad than from Sweden. They are more likely to be native speakers of the target language themselves. (See further under ‘Teachers’)

Purpose - In answer to the question: What are the most important reasons for your school to offer SPRINT? The most common responses from the typical SPRINT schools were to increase student motivation (compulsory schools) and to increase students' command of the target language especially as regards communicative competence (upper secondary). The most common response to the same question from the atypical schools was in order to achieve bilingualism. However, 3 compulsory schools with typical pupil profiles also say they seek to achieve bilingualism.

3.3.5 Summary typical contra atypical There is a clear distinction between two groups of schools responding to the second questionnaire, the most obvious feature of which is illustrated by the differing profiles of the pupils and, to some extent, the teachers at the schools in each group.

Table 5 – Response from schools with atypical pupil profiles

Atypical schools – Pupil profiles Compulsory schools Upper secondary schools &


Types of pupil

Num

bers

of

stud

ents

Mea

n av

erag

e /s

choo

l

Med

ian

aver

age

/sch

ool

Num

bers

of

stud

ents

Mea

n av

erag

e /s

choo

l not

po

ssib

le1

Med

ian

aver

age

/sch

ool

not p

ossi

ble1

Monolingual Swedish speakers 19 1 3,5 2 - -

Bilingual speakers counting Swedish as one of their languages

503 36 31 206 - -

Regarding Swedish as a foreign language 672 48 63 49 - -

Mother tongue or bilingual speakers of the target language

693 50 45 156 - -

1 Only 1 of these upper secondary schools provided exact pupil numbers; 1 other said they had 2 monolingual Swedish speakers, but gave no more information. In telephone interviews, all three schools confirmed a majority of pupils were target language speakers.

3.4 Target languages The target language is the foreign language with which the subject is integrated for teaching and learning. A question about the target language was included in the first questionnaire, and the statistics presented here are taken from this response, supplemented and adjusted to take account of the response to the second questionnaire.

Two of the most serious criticisms leveled against SPRINT, (not just in Sweden), are that it benefits the spread of just one language, English; and that it undermines the position of the national language. In Sweden, these criticisms have been expressed, for example, by Svenska språknämnden in their ‘Förslag till handlingsprogram för att främja svenska språket’4. (SVENSKA SPRÅKNÄMNDEN)

At the same time, advocates of SPRINT argue that it is a pedagogy for promoting not one language, but language learning in general, and can even act as a support for the continued 4 ‘Suggestion for an Action Plan to Promote the Swedish Language’ (Own translation)


Diagram 2 - Numbers of SPRINT pupils/students at schools with typical and atypical pupil profiles

Numbers of pupils at schools with typical and atypical pupil profiles

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

GR

0

GR

1

GR

2

GR

3

GR

4

GR

5

GR

6

GR

7

GR

8

GR

9

GY

1

GY

2

GY

3

KOM

(GR

)

KOM

(GY)

KOM

(Fur

ther

ed.

)

Years

Num

bers

Number ofpupilsinvolved(excludingpupils atschools w ithatypical pupilprofiles)

Number ofpupilsinvolved atschools w ithatypical pupilprofiles


development of the mother tongue. These views are expressed, for instance, in the report from the CEILINK symposium, “Content and Language Integrated Learning Initiatives for the Millenium”5. (CEILINK)

In the Swedish context, the response to the two SPRINT questionnaires shows that while English continues to dominate, other languages are by no means excluded. German, French, Spanish and Finnish are all on offer in several schools, while single schools offer or plan to offer Arabic, Estonian, Hebrew, Modern Greek, Portuguese and Sami. At compulsory school level, 23 schools, and at upper secondary/adult education level, 16 schools, offer SPRINT through the medium of two or more languages. Several schools which currently offer SPRINT only through the medium of English, also state in their responses that they plan or hope to be able to offer French and/or German SPRINT in the future.

Note that Diagrams 3 & 4 exclude the responses from the schools with atypical pupil profiles.

5 CEILINK = ‘Consolidating Experience through Inter-LINKing Socrates Projects’ The symposium, held in Strasbourg in October 1998 and sponsored by the European Commission, brought together participants in Socrates projects linked to content and language integrated learning - SPRINT


Diagram 3 – Target languages involved at compulsory school level

Other languages = Arabic, Estonian, Hebrew, Modern Greek, Sami (Lappish) Note: 23 GR offer SPRINT education in more than one language.

Diagram 4 – Target languages involved at upper secondary and adult education levels

Other languages = Finnish, Danish Note:16 GY or KOM offer SPRINT in more than one language.

SPRINT target languages - compulsory school level

English68%

Other6%

Finnish3%

Spanish6%

German10%

French7%

SPRINT target languages - upper secondary level

English82%

Spanish5%

German6%

Other2%

French5%


3.5 Curriculums By far the majority of all the schools responding to the second questionnaire conduct their SPRINT within the parameters of the Swedish national curriculum. (As a number of schools offer two or more forms of SPRINT and in some cases these follow different curriculums, the number of responses to this question exceeded the number of schools responding; hence the use of percentages in the following.)

Of all compulsory schools with a typical pupil profile, 94% said they followed the national curriculum and 2% (1 school) responded that they offer the International Baccalaureate’s Middle Years Programme. (The IB Organisation report that, nationally, in Spring 1999, there were 4 compulsory schools offering the MYP.)

At upper secondary level, 88% of the comparable response said they follow the national curriculum, 8% (9 schools in the study) responded that they follow the curriculum for the International Baccalaureate. (The IBO report that there were actually 15 schools following the IB curriculum in the Spring. At time of writing this figure has risen to 17).

A number (4) of the schools which responded by saying they follow the curriculums of other EU countries or a special variant of the Swedish national curriculum, are among the 14 schools identified as not typical SPRINT schools, and are not included in these statistics at all.

This leaves 3 compulsory schools and 4 upper secondaries which say they follow a curriculum other than either the national or the IB. One upper secondary (in Torneå) works in a cross-border project with a Finnish school (in Swedish, Finnish and English) and has created a programme of study which accommodates both the Swedish and Finnish national curriculums. The remaining schools say they offer specially designed local variants of the national curriculum; 1 compulsory school claims to offer a Waldorf curriculum, and 1 (independent) compulsory school – mysteriously – claims to follow their own curriculum.

3.6 Subjects, courses and programmes 3.6.1 Choice of subjects for integration There are, probably, no subjects which cannot be integrated with the teaching of any foreign language, but in some countries, certain subjects have been identified as more or less appropriate. In Germany, for instance, history, geography, politics and biology are all frequently integrated with foreign language teaching. Mathematics, sports or music, on the other hand are usually not considered appropriate. What is appropriate, however, depends a great deal on the underlying purpose of the language and subject integration in question. (For SPRINT subjects in German bilingual programmes, see CHRIST)

If the purpose is to find volumes of material, extensive technical vocabulary and many occasions for using the spoken language in contexts of conversation, discussion and presentation, then subjects such as biology, chemistry, philosophy and religion may be considered particularly appropriate. If, in addition, it is considered important for the teaching material to reflect on the cultural background of the target language, if SPRINT is intended to stimulate intercultural competence, then integrating languages with aspects of history, social science, and geography may also be appropriate.

But if the purpose is to immerse the pupils as quickly as possible in the target language, in such a way that they cease to be conscious of using a foreign language, then a subject with a limited technical vocabulary, such as mathematics, is perhaps to be preferred. And if the purpose is to help pupils overcome self-consciousness, or develop a more holistic understanding and command of the target language, then combining action or melody or


graphic representation with language by integrating language with sports or music or art can be most appropriate.

Another aspect, of course, is the availability of resources. Some schools in Sweden clearly offer SPRINT in the combinations they do because these are the combinations for which they have teachers who are interested and in some way qualified. (See elsewhere in this Report under ‘Teachers’.) Other schools use foreign language textbooks because, they argue, nothing suitable exists in Swedish. (See below.)

3.6.2 Subjects affected at compulsory school Both mathematics and music figure large in lists of subjects affected by SPRINT. At compulsory school level, (Diagram 5), music is the third most popular subject to integrate with language teaching. Further down the scale, sports, art, home economics and mathematics are all offered, alongside more vocabulary-rich subjects such as aspects of the social and natural sciences, history, biology and geography.

A deeper analysis might be expected to show that music, sports, art, crafts and home economics are more prevalent in the lower classes at compulsory school and during the early stages of exploring a new language, while the natural and social sciences attract more attention in the higher years.

Diagram 5 – Subjects affected by SPRINT at compulsory school level

Subjects affected by SPRINT at compulsory school level

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Social science

History

Music

Natural science

Religion

Biology

Home economics

Art

Geography

Sports

Mathematics

Chemistry

Crafts

Physics

Computing

Drama

Technology

Subj

ects

Frequency


3.6.2 Subjects affected at upper secondary At upper secondary level, (Diagram 6) the number of schools offering history (58) exceeds the number of schools offering social science (39). In the 94/95 survey, the three most popular subjects were social science, history and mathematics, in that order.

Otherwise the response from upper secondary level shows the science subjects, sports and religion vying with one another for fourth place, and geography growing in relevance. (Geography took very little place in the 94/95 survey, when it had only just been re-introduced into the curriculum as a subject in its own right.)

Diagram 6 – Subjects affected by SPRINT at upper secondary school and adult education levels

3.6.4 Non-vocational courses affected A closer analysis of some of the subjects being offered is possible by looking at the courses affected by SPRINT within the different subjects. (The relevant tables and diagrams are collected together in Appendix II.) In history, for instance, the History A course (HI200) is involved in SPRINT nearly half as many times again as History B (HI200). The core course, Social Science A, (SH200), is mentioned 28 times in the source material, while Social Science B and C are only mentioned 19 times each.

Certain core courses are more likely to be affected by SPRINT than other courses in the same subjects. In particular the Natural Science A (NK200) is more than twice as commonly affected by SPRINT than Natural Science B (NK201). This probably reflects the fact that

Subjects affected by SPRINT at upper secondary level

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

History

Mathematics

Social science

Chemistry

Natural science

Sports and health

Bilology

Physics

Religion

Psychology

Geography

Economics

Technology

Philosophy

Art

Music

Computing

Subj

ects

Frequency


NK200 is offered in both SP and NV programmes, but NK201 is only available to SP students.

The results presented which relate to economics call for a particular note. In most cases, the A and B courses (FE201 & FE203) are studied as part of the economics specialism on SP. With few exceptions, most schools offering SPRINT together with economics have neglected to list in their response the other economics courses which they offer integrated with their target language, contenting themselves with eg: “Econ. courses” The thin list of other courses presented here may not be representative of all the courses actually on offer, but are specifically mentioned by a small number of schools. Among these are two municipal centres for adult education: one in Göteborg, offering FE201, FE203, FE200 and FE 204 through the medium of English; and one in Helsingborg offering aspects of FE200, FE204 and PRT202 through the medium of German.

Mathematics presents an interesting picture. Prior to the reforms of the upper secondary system and the introduction of courses, mathematics was considered a particularly easy subject to teach through the medium of a foreign language. As mentioned above it has a relatively small technical vocabulary and it was fairly simple to find foreign teaching material which could be adapted to the requirements of the Swedish curriculum. Following the reforms, however, it became much more difficult to adapt textbooks designed for foreign curriculums to the requirements of the 5 Swedish courses. In particular, the C course (MA203), was felt most problematic. The distribution of mathematics courses affected by SPRINT shown here may reflect this.

On the other hand, there is a clear tendency in all subjects for the A course (usually the first course the students meet), more frequently than the B course, to be offered with some SPRINT element. The results for mathematics may simply be a more complex reflection of this tendency.

The results as regard the science subjects (other than natural science) are interesting in that they show chemistry, and in particular Chemistry A (KE200), to be more affected by SPRINT than biology. In this context it is worth noting that 3 upper secondary schools state that they offer chemistry taught through the spoken medium of Swedish, but using textbooks written in English. A particular textbook is specifically mentioned in 2 responses. The responses praise the quality of this material in terms of problem based learning (PLB) and imply that SPRINT is involved in their teaching of chemistry not for itself, but as a consquence of there being no acceptable PBL material available in Swedish. “We consider the books so much better than Swedish textbooks that we let all our students use them.”

3.6.5 Programmes affected The subjects affected and their frequency in the source material illustrate the bias of interest of the dominating theoretical programmes, the Natural Science Program (NV) and the Social Science Programme (SP). In this respect, little has changed since the 94/95 survey. There are still very few other programmes affected, and the third most commonly affected programme is still the Health Care Programme (OP).

One development is the growth of interest in SPRINT (from nothing at all to 5 schools) in the Natural Resources Program (NP). However, no other significant development in the spread of SPRINT to other vocational programmes is apparent. At least two SPRINT experiments noted in 94/95 – on the Media Programme (MP) in Umeå, and the Vehicle Engineering Programme (FP) in Norrköping – have ended with the abandonment of SPRINT. (See elsewhere in this Report, ‘Reasons for giving up SPRINT’.)


3.6.6 Vocational subjects and local courses On the OP, NP and other vocational programmes where SPRINT occurs, a variety of subjects and courses are affected. In some schools, only subjects and courses from the core curriculum are involved. In most cases, however, locally designed courses (such as ‘Nursing Care’ and ‘International co-operation’) are offered. Only in a very few cases are courses from the programmes’ characteristic subjects affected.

The NV and SP schools also offer locally designed courses (such as ‘European knowledge’). A number of schools (7) also say they offer training for an international language examination. Preparation for the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English examination is most popular, but mention is also made of the Cambridge English Proficiency level examination, the DELF (elementary) and DALF (advanced) exams in French, ÖSD (an Austrian diploma in German), and others. In 6 cases, students’ individual choice ( individuella val) hours are used to offer SPRINT as extended English, in one case extended French and in one case extended German.

Diagram 7 – Upper secondary school programmes affected by SPRINT

’Other’ includes locally designed programmes combining elements of 2 or more of the national prorammes. The National Programmes are: Social Science Programme (SP); Natural Science Programme (NV); Health Care Programme (OP); Natural Resource Use Programme (NP); Electrical Engineering Programme (EC); Arts Programme (ES); Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Programme (HR); Business and Administration Programme (HP); Industrial Programme (IP); Food Programme (LP); Child Recreation Programme (BF); Construction Programme (BP); Energy Programme (EN); Vehicle Engineering Programme (FP); Handicraft Programme (HV); Media Programme (MP)

Upper secondary school programmes with SPRINT

0 10 20 30 40 50

SP

NV

OP

NP

EC

ES

HR

HP

IP

LP

BF

BP

EN

FP

HV

MP

Other

Prog

ram

mes

Frequency


3.7 Historical perspectives Subject teaching to school pupils and students, predominantly Swedish native speakers, through the medium of a foreign language, has probably occurred for many years in isolated cases. The first schools to try out this form of teaching on a broader scale are generally deemed to have been Ebersteinska upper secondary school in Norrköping, and Röllingby upper secondary school in Åkersberga, which both began to experiment with English language ‘immersion education’ in the 1983/84 academic year. True, Kungsholmen upper secondary school in Stockholm began in 1973, but at the time the student recruitment base was predominantly among non-Swedish speakers, and the curriculum followed was the International Baccalaureate. Even today, Kungsholmen upper secondary school has an exceptional balance of native Swedish speakers to speakers of English among its students. (Note, however, that the balance still does not give Kungsholmen an atypical pupil profile. Kungsholmen can be grouped with 4 compulsory schools as ‘borderline schools’ – see above under ‘Schools with atypical pupil profiles’.)

Among the atypical and borderline schools, there are more which began at an earlier date. Lycée Française dates from 1954, Estniska skolan from 1945 and Deutsche Schule refers to a foundation in 1624! Among the typical schools, however, while a few more had joined the trail-blazers by the end of the decade, it was not until after the early years of the 1990’s that the number of SPRINT schools began to increase dramatically.

As can be seen from Diagram 8, the significant years for SPRINT at upper secondary level were 93/94 and 94/95, immediately following the reform of the upper secondary system.

Diagram 8 – SPRINT at upper secondary schools and municipal centres for adult education: Academic year of commencement (1st student intake)

At compulsory school, by contrast, the significant years are 95/96.

Note that the statistics are for the introduction of some form of SPRINT into schools alone. A number of survey responses gave dates also for the commencement of different

Upper secondary & adult education level - Academic year of commencement (1st student intake)

0

5

10

15

20

25

Academic years

Num

bers

of s

choo

ls

CommencementProjection


programmes within the same school, and/or for the commencement of SPRINT offered through the medium of one or more other languages. For example, one compulsory school is represented in the above diagram as beginning with English medium SPRINT in 1993. French and German medium SPRINT became available at this school in 1996, and Spanish medium SPRINT came the year after. These developments are not taken into account in either of these diagrams.

Diagram 9 – SPRINT at compulsory school: Academic year of commencement (1st student intake)

3.8 Teachers The second questionnaire included three questions related to SPRINT teachers.

In Question 8, the schools were asked to say how many teachers were currently (Spring 1999) working with SPRINT. The response (from the schools with typical pupil profiles only) was a total of 405 at compulsory school and 615 at upper secondary.

Extrapolating to include the schools which responded positively to the first questionnaire, but failed to respond to the second, it can be estimated that around 1800 teachers were working with SPRINT in the Spring of 1999: around 900 at compulsory school level and a little over 900 at upper secondary level.

3.8.1 Competence and qualifications Over the years, a number of criticisms have been directed at the competence of teachers working with SPRINT. As there are no formal qualifications for SPRINT teachers, questions have also been asked about the appropriateness of the qualifications which teachers actually hold.

For this reason, questions 9 & 10 attempted to identify the actual qualifications (both formal and informal) held by SPRINT teachers. The different questions and the results are presented in the table below.

Compulsory school level - Academic year of commencement (1st pupil intake)

0

5

10

15

20

25

Academic years

Num

bers

of s

choo

ls

CommencementProjection


Table 6 – Response to questions 8, 9 & 10

Questions 8, 9 & 10 GR

To

tal

GY

& K

OM

To

tal

How many teachers are currently involved with SPRINT? 405 615 How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the target language with the

support of Swedish teacher training in the target language? 199 199

How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the target language with the support of foreign training in the target language?

104 59

How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the affected subject through the medium of the target language with the support of Swedish teacher training in both the

target language and the subject?

116 87

How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the affected subject through the medium of the target language with the support of foreign teacher training in both the

target language and the subject?

86 51

How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the affected subject through the medium of the target language with the support of Swedish teacher training in the

subject and the target language as a mother tongue?

22 21

How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the affected subject through the medium of the target language with the support of Swedish teacher training in the

subject and in-service training?

24 245

How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the affected subject through the medium of the target language with the support of extensive experience of teaching the subject through the medium of the target language in a country where the target

language is the principal medium for education?

17 36

How many of these teachers are qualified to teach the affected subject through the medium of the target language with support of another sort?* 34 58

* The most frequently cited other sorts of support are: •= a native speaker of Swedish who has lived and either studied or worked for an extended period in a

country where the target language is used as a national language •= a native Swedish speaker married to a native speaker of the target language who uses the language

on a regular basis at home •= a native speaker of the target language (though without formal teaching qualifications)

3.8.2 Command of the target language Perhaps the most serious criticism which SPRINT teachers have faced, has been of their command of the target language; specifically of English.

For example, in their ’Förslag till handlingsprogram för att främja svenska språket’6, Svenska Språknämnden, write: ”No one knows … what effect Swedish teachers’ more or less defective English can have on pupils’ knowledge …” (SVENSKA SPRÅKNÄMNDEN) Svenska Språknämndens comments are, perhaps, based on an assumption that the teachers involved in English medium SPRINT are not qualified as language teachers.

It is of relevance, then, that the data gathered for this survey shows 389 SPRINT teachers with Swedish qualifications to teach the target language as a subject, and 163 with a similar foreign qualification. Furthermore, 340 teachers hold dual qualifications (Swedish or foreign) to teach both one or more subjects and the target language.

6 ’Suggestion for an Action Plan to Promote the Swedish Language’ (Own translation)


Much of the criticism of the teachers’ command of English, however, comes from upper secondary level students following SPRINT programmes. This has been noted continually, since Michael Knight's report from the pilot SPRINT education at Ebersteinska school at the end of the last decade. (KNIGHT)

Among students attracted to SPRINT through the medium of English, there are many youngsters who have (or believe themselves to have) a very good surface competence in English. Their pronunciation and active knowledge of modern, everyday spoken English may even be greater than that of some of their teachers – who are, in many cases, two generations older. Anecdotal evidence suggests that at least some pupils exhibit a considerable degree of intolerance for their teachers’ Swedish accented English. The implication is that pupils’ criticism of their teachers’ competence may have more to do with e.g. the teachers’ pronunciation, than with their broader command of the language.

It is not possible from the materials collected for this survey, to make statements about the actual competence of SPRINT teachers beyond the figures given in Table 6. Clearly, however, there is good reason for further study in this area.

3.8.3 Native speakers of the target language Beyond pandering to or confronting the prejudices of certain students, there are several arguments both for and against employing native speakers of the target language as teachers on SPRINT programmes. On programmes where the objective is a command of the target language equivalent to that of native speakers, then teachers who are themselves native speakers are clearly the ideal. However, there are very few schools in Sweden which aspire to this extreme goal.

On the evidence of the response to this survey, most schools working with SPRINT are simply trying to raise the status of the target language, or make studying it more interesting and meaningful. All but a few schools work within the structure of the Swedish National curriculum. In these contexts, while a native speaker of the target language can be a valuable asset, especially if qualified as a teacher, it is perhaps of greater importance for the school to employ in the first instance competent teachers, holding Swedish qualifications.

The argument that native speakers provide better models of language use is one which has most relevance lower down the school system and with languages other than English. Beginners of all ages are less likely to have met a range of models of the target language, thus the quality of the models they are exposed to at school are of greater importance.

At compulsory school level, of the 405 SPRINT teachers, Table 6 (above) shows only 22 to be both native speakers of the target language and holders of a Swedish teaching qualification to teach a subject. However, we may reasonably expect a good number of the 86 teachers who hold dual, foreign qualifications as both language and subject teachers also to be native speakers of the target language. Unfortunately, the distribution of teachers with foreign qualifications is very restricted. The 86 teachers with dual qualifications are concentrated in just 18 schools (of 63).

At upper secondary level there is an even smaller proportion of native speakers and teachers with foreign qualifications among the 615 SPRINT teachers. It is much more common at this level for teachers to be Swedish speakers, holding Swedish qualifications to teach their subject(s) and having received some form of in-service training to equip them to work with SPRINT. Nevertheless, there are still 138 teachers with dual qualifications to teach both the target language and their subjects, and 51 of these hold a foreign qualification. Once again, however, these teachers are concentrated to just a few schools – 16 of 85.


3.8.4 Teacher-pupil ratios It is very difficult to generalise about teacher-pupil ratios because of the variety of forms which SPRINT takes in the different schools.

At compulsory school level, in 15 schools one teacher is working alone with SPRINT and at 18 schools, teachers are working in teams of 2 or 3. Only in 9 schools are there 11 or more teachers involved in SPRINT. At one school, one teacher reports teaching English integrated with music to nearly 400 pupils in all classes from Year 1 to Year 6. At another school, another lone teacher reports integrating German with home economics for 30 children in Year 8. A third school reports 17 teachers working with 180 children in Years 7-9.

At upper secondary level, there are fewer lone teachers working with SPRINT. Only 8 schools report a single SPRINT teacher, while 12 schools report teams of 2 and 46 schools report teams of between 3 and 8 teachers. The remaining schools give a figure between 9 and 37. As at compulsory school level, there is a variety of teacher/pupil combinations, from the school where one teacher works integrating English with History B for a class of 30+, to the school where 30 teachers work with 150 pupils.

3.8.5 Qualifications and training As observed above, there is, at present, no formal qualification to work with SPRINT in Sweden. Very little in-service training opportunities are available and pre-service teacher training specifically for SPRINT does not exist. In this respect, Sweden does not lag significantly behind most of the rest of Europe. Only two European Universities (Nottingham in England and Wuppertal in Germany) are currently known to offer full teacher training programmes specifically for SPRINT, and both are very recent developments (For more on teacher training in Europe see especially the concluding chapter in FRUHAUF; also chapter 4 of CLIL INITIATIVES. For recent developments see COYLE.)

While extended (12 month long) in-service training for SPRINT has been available in Finland (at the University of Jyväskylä) since 1991, this is apparently a unique case. (MARSH & MASIH 1996, RÄSINEN) The in-service training which many Swedish teachers have received, will have been of considerably shorter duration. Most in-service training available to Swedish SPRINT teachers has taken the form of 2-3 week residential courses. Many of these courses have concentrated on improving the teachers’ command of the target language rather than considering aspects of SPRINT pedagogy. 7

This is, of course, no bad thing in itself, but it is becoming more and more apparent that improving subject teacher’s command of the target language is only a part of the whole issue of teacher qualification for SPRINT. Other relevant issues are, for example: •= the involvement of language teachers in subject teaching and their qualifications to teach

the subject(s) in question; •= theories of second language acquisition and the practice of communicative methodology

and their relevance for language and subject integration; •= the practicalities of team teaching in cross-curricular situations; •= quality assessment and assurance in SPRINT situations.

7 In this respect, note should be made of the international Teacher-DIESeLL project (financed by the EU’s SOCRATES programme), which set out to devise an extended in-service training programme for SPRINT teachers, drawing on the experience of the University of Jyväskylä. The project’s Swedish partners were the University of Uppsala and Mitthögskolan. The pilot phase of the project which has involved a number Swedish and Finnish teachers from several different SPRINT schools, reached its conclusion in the summer of 1999. More information from the co-ordinating institution, the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. (TEACHER DIESELL)


3.8.6 Dual-qualification For teachers at compulsory school, the combination of subject and language is less of an issue, but it has only recently become possible to combine training as an upper secondary level language teacher with training as a subject teacher at Swedish teacher training institutions.

It is interesting, then, to see that as many as 87 upper secondary teachers, hold dual Swedish qualifications. This may indicate an increasing number of newly graduated teachers becoming involved in SPRINT. Alternatively, since it has always been possible to obtain dual qualifications through in-service training subsequent to graduation, it may simply be indicative of the number of subject teachers involved in SPRINT who have an interest in languages, and the number of language teachers with a developed interest in a particular subject.

3.8.7 Teacher profile at atypical schools The 14 compulsory schools and 3 upper secondaries with atypical pupil profiles also appear to have atypical teacher profiles. Unfortunately, several of the schools concerned did not respond to this question, making it difficult to say anything very reliable about them.

What can be said is that the ratio of teachers to pupils in atypical schools appears greater than in typical SPRINT schools. There are likely to be more teachers who hold foreign qualifications to teach the target language. Similarly, there are likely to be more teachers who hold foreign qualifications to teach their subject(s).


4. Forms and variety in SPRINT education Hugo Baetens Beardsmore, Professor of Bilingualism at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, is credited with the dictum that: ‘There is no one right way to do bilingual education.’ The responses received to this survey might have been designed to illustrate the truth of his statement.

The second questionnaire gave four opportunities for the contact people responding to give more extended information about the form of SPRINT on offer at their school. The response to Questions 3, 11 and 12, as well as the opportunity to attach supplementary documentation, resulted in a wealth of information about the many very different forms which SPRINT takes in schools all around the country.

The freedom to experiment, to create school environments which inspire both teaching and learning, to offer something a little out of the ordinary; all this has been made possible by the reforms of the school system undertaken during the 1990’s. The blossoming of SPRINT in its many different forms is a direct consequence of the reforms.

4.1 Duration of SPRINT courses The period of time over which SPRINT may stretch varies considerably, from an occasional half-day to several school years. Likewise, the amount of time given up to SPRINT within these periods may vary from a single 40 minute lesson to many hours each week.

4.1.1 Compulsory school As can be seen from Diagram 10, at compulsory school level, SPRINT is most likely to be offered over a period of years. This does not mean that 100% of teaching in affected subjects over this period takes place through the medium of the target language. Normal practice in those schools (20) which offer SPRINT over ‘a period of 4 years or more’ depends on the extent of SPRINT and its purpose. If, for example, native-speaker competence in two languages is the objective, then, in most schools, pupils will start out being taught in all subjects largely through the medium of their strongest language. Gradually, the target language will be phased in, first as a subject in itself, then, progressively, as the medium of instruction.

Alternatively, if the objective is a communicative competence in the target language which is not of native speaker standard, then any number of subjects or periods in a week may be affected, from almost none to almost all. At many schools, however, only one or two lessons a week seem actually to be affected. This is particularly true of those schools where only one subject or class teacher is involved.

There are other models. One small school (Years 1-6), involved in an international project for schools from thinly populated areas, writes: “Together with the pupils, we have decided that every Wednesday a.m. we speak only English (Swenglish when our knowledge isn’t sufficient).”

The majority of those 21 schools which offer SPRINT over ‘a period of 2-3 years’, do so in Years 7-9. Again, the relative proportions of target language to Swedish in use vary considerably from school to school. There are several where modules of a single subject, for example, social science, are offered alternately in Swedish and the target language throughout the 3 years. There are schools where modules of a variety of subjects are offered through a combination of Swedish and the target language. There are schools where a suite of subjects, for example biology, physics and chemistry, are offered through the medium of the target language, while other subjects continue to be taught through Swedish. And there are a few


schools where the majority of the pupils’ hours in school are taught through the medium of the target language.

Diagram 10 – SPRINT at compulsory school level – Duration

In all the situations discussed so far, even where a major portion of the teaching is conducted through the medium of the target language, a proportion of teaching will continue to be carried on through the medium of Swedish. (Or, in the case of schools seeking to promote bilingualism, through the medium of the strongest language.)

There are 28 schools which say they offer SPRINT over a period of 2 years or less. In these schools, the most common purpose for SPRINT is to familiarise or help pupils along with their studies in a new foreign language, and many responses refer specifically to Years 5, 6 or 7. Thematic days or weeks, in which a selection of subjects are taught through the medium of the target language, is one common variant. One school reports: “Within the framework of language choice in Year 6 we have whole language days 2-3 days/school year. Groups in German, French, Spanish, basic English and extended Swedish dedicate a half day to the languages and cultures.”

Thematic cross-curricular projects are also commonly mentioned “Teachers in different subjects co-operate with language teachers in Eng., Ger., Fr., and carry out small projects during 1-2 weeks. Could be translation of recipes.” Going away over a weekend on a ‘language camp’ is also a possibility.

Other possible forms which SPRINT can take at compulsory school are particularly noticeable in schools with a low pupil-to-teacher ratio. Two examples from different schools:

“Depending on the children’s knowledge and interests, work with English/German/French /Spanish can take place daily and without breaks through out the school year.”

For how long a period are pupils involved in SPRINT?

0 5 10 15 20 25

an unspecif ied period

occasional lessons

a period shorter than1 year

a period of 1 year

a period of 2-3 years

a period of 4+ years

SPR

INT

take

s pl

ace

durin

g ...

Numbers of schools


“Pupils can in principle choose to study whatever they want in English. As we are a little school, we can be very flexible when it comes to the pupils’ choice.” In responding to the questionnaires, or to telephone enquiries, teachers and administrators frequently commented that the incidence of SPRINT at their schools was of such a modest nature that they hesitated to report it. There seems to be a widespread assumption that ‘true’ SPRINT involves many subjects, much lesson time, and stretches over many years. As can be seen from the above, the actual situation is a great deal more varied.

From the figures collected for this survey it is possible to conclude that the majority of compulsory school pupils in typical SPRINT schools meet SPRINT in a limited situation involving one or two subjects, for one or two hours a week or for a handful of thematic days a term. This is true whether the period when they may be affected by SPRINT is confined to one school year, or spread over several years. Of the 6243 pupils reported in typical SPRINT schools in Spring 1999, only 2422 (39%) were affected by SPRINT for a period extensive in terms of the number of subjects and/or the number of hours involved. Of the 2422, more than half (1283) were studying in Years 7-9.

4.1.2 Upper secondary At upper secondary level, (see Diagram 11) the duration of SPRINT teaching is more consistent.

Diagram 11 – SPRINT at upper secondary schools & adult education centres – Duration

By far the majority of programmes (43) offered through SPRINT stretch over 3 full years. Of those which do not, 15 programmes are offered over 2 years and 14 over 1 year. Schools offering electives through the medium of SPRINT account for all the schools which only offer SPRINT over 1 term. Of the 7 programmes which are given in Diagram 11 as running for ‘a period of 3 terms’, 5 are actually run over a period of either one year or two depending on student interest. The 21 programmes whose duration ‘cannot be defined in terms’ include 11 who failed to answer the question. The remainder write of project or thematic periods. Examples:

For how long a period are students involved in SPRINT?

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

of 1 term

of 2 terms

of 3 terms

of 4 terms

of 5 terms

of 6 terms

w hich cannot bedefined in terms

No response

SPR

INT

take

s pl

ace

durin

g a

perio

d ...

Number of schools


“We work with themes within the framework of the ‘market square of knowledge’, a PBL form of study where English is both the language used for information searches and for presentations. This takes place during project periods or during whole terms or school years.” “Periods of 3-4 weeks, 1-4 periods/school year.” The most common reason for schools to offer SPRINT for the first time in upper secondary Year 2, is that SPRINT is offered within a particular branch (gren) of the programme studied. The economics specialism for SP students seems to be most popular, but the technical specialism for NV students is also mentioned.

4.1.3 Freedom of choice To what extent can SPRINT be said to widen or limit pupil choice? In particular, what safeguards do schools have to help pupils who get into difficulties or who for other reasons regret finding themselves studying a subject through the medium of another language?

The variety of response here reflects the variety of forms which SPRINT takes, but there are similarities which bridge lower and upper secondary schools, in particular in the response from schools which offer SPRINT over a period of 2-3 years. Schools of this sort comment that pupil choice is expressed first in applications to the SPRINT programme: “Students have chosen SP-bilingual in Year 9.” After this, if the pupils find they have problems, many schools offer parallel teaching through the medium of Swedish: “One can begin in Year 7, but can change over to another form of education during the period if one wishes. We have planned in each Year for two classes per Year.”

Some schools allow students to drop out whenever they wish (“In principle, drop out possible at any time.”). Others, for administrative and pedagogical reasons, restrict this possibility. (“Drop out possible at the end of every term.”)

These schools (and many schools offering SPRINT less extensively) also allow for pupils to choose to join in as well as drop out. (“During Year 7, the pupils have the possibility to drop out or join. I started with 12 and now have 20.”) However, especially at upper secondary level in more extensive SPRINT, the later a pupil wishes to join a programme, the more important his or her competence in the target language needs to be:“Possible to join in depending on space and sufficient appropriate qualifications.”

Students choosing to drop out may face several problems. It is often necessary for them to change classes:“Students can drop out whenever they choose, but must then leave the [French] section.” Furthermore: “Dropping out involves more work for the student.”

However very many schools comment that “This form of teaching is often appreciated by pupils and none have dropped out.“ Only 1 school out of all the 144 typical SPRINT schools reports a serious drop-out problem: “Nearly half the original intake dropped out during the course because of difficulties with the English.” This was from an OP 3rd year SPRINT experiment.

Smaller schools, and schools with less extensive SPRINT, can be both more accommodating and less accommodating, depending on local resources. One upper secondary teacher writes: “Drop out. This took place from the SP-B course. The students were allowed to remain in the class but to study in Swedish and have a number of [extra] lessons with me.” In one compulsory school : “The pupils can in principle choose to study whichever area of work they want in English. As we are a little school, we can be very flexible as regards pupil choice.” However, an upper secondary in a thinly populated area writes: “The only possibility to


choose not to follow SPRINT is through joining an adult education group instead, as our groups are so small.”

In some schools, especially in the lower years of compulsory school, pupils have continual choice (“The pre-prepared environment makes it possible for the children to work independently. There are no obstacles for the children to start or finish whenever they wish. If the child needs help it is always available.”) In some of those compulsory schools where SPRINT is used to support and extend foreign language learning in Years 5-7, as one school writes: “Teaching Obligatory.” Pupils are obliged to participate in the thematic projects or thematic days which are related to the language they have chosen to study. These relatively short periods of SPRINT cannot be compared to the years of SPRINT study in some of the more extensive programmes at upper secondary level. Besides, in most cases, “all the children want to join in.”

Some few schools allow for no choice beyond the initial choice of school. One of the schools where bilingualism is the stated objective, responded to the question of pupil choice with: “There are no alternatives.” One (independent) upper secondary, where SPRINT is the only form of education offered, comments that dropping out means moving to another school.

4.2 Reasons for offering SPRINT 4.2.1 Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at compulsory school The most common reason for offering SPRINT at compulsory school, (see Diagram 12) is to increase pupil motivation. This can be seen as a general statement of intent which a number of the other responses elaborate upon. For example, 11 schools say they use SPRINT to make both languages and subjects more interesting to study and so improve the overall quality of the education on offer.

Ten schools note in particular that, (whatever their reasons for introducing it in the first place), they continue to offer SPRINT because it is highly appreciated by current pupils and highly sought after by new pupils. This also implies that SPRINT improves pupil motivation, and perhaps that it attracts the more motivated learner.

Introducing pupils to foreign language study, (specifically to the concept of using the foreign language as a tool for learning), and increasing the pupils’ command and communicative competence in the foreign language, are together mentioned by 17 schools as reasons for offering SPRINT. Both can also be seen as means by which pupil motivation might be improved. Internationalisation, mentioned by eight schools as a reason for working with SPRINT is often linked to international projects where the language of communication is also the SPRINT target language. Again, working together with children in other countries and using the foreign language one is learning as a medium of communication can be highly motivating.

Only seven schools mention giving the school a higher profile as a reason for working with SPRINT, and only six mention parental demand as a factor.


Diagram 12 - Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at compulsory school

Note: 27 other reasons were given, 4 schools left this answer blank

4.2.2 Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at upper secondary and adult education levels Diagram 13 shows the reasons for offering SPRINT at upper secondary level. At this level, concerns for the future, for further and higher study, and for improved chances for employment, are important factors, mentioned in a total of 29 responses. One upper secondary level nursing school writes: “Swedish nursing and health care personnel must be able to speak English freely and understand spoken English because in our hospitals we can meet patients who cannot speak Swedish. But most people can manage a little English.”

Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at compulsory school level

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Teacher demand/interest

Parent demand

School's profile

Internationalisation

Introduce languages tostudents

Increase command &communicative comp.

Student demand andappreciation

Improve quality oflanguage education

Increase pupil motivation

Rea

sons

Frequency


Internationalisation, mentioned in 24 responses, takes on a much greater significance than at compulsory school level. This may be linked with the concern to improve communicative competence (in international projects, visits overseas etc.) which 18 schools mention.

Getting the students used to using the target language as a tool is mentioned by just eight schools, though it may be an implied reason also in the responses mentioning internationalisation and improved communicative competence.

Using SPRINT in order to give the school a higher profile is the least student-centred reason given in the response to this question. It is mentioned by 12 schools at this level.

Diagram 13 - Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at upper secondary and adult education levels.

Note: 37 other reasons were given, 1 school left this answer blank

Most common reasons for offering SPRINT at upper secondary and adult education levels

0 5 10 15 20 25

In order to stretch moreambitious students

Course material betterthan available in Sw edish

Local demand

Improve quality oflanguage education

Student demand andappreciation

Help students get used tousing language as tool

Improve chances higherstudies/studies abroad

School's profile

Improve chances forfuture w ork

Increase command andcommunicative comp.

Internationalisation

Rea

sons

Frequency


Seven schools say that they continue to offer SPRINT because of the appreciation shown by current students and the continued demand from new ones. Five schools also mention local demand as a reason for offering SPRINT.

Improving the quality of language teaching takes a much smaller place here than in the response from compulsory schools, perhaps reflecting the smaller number of language teachers involved at this level.

4.2.3 Other reasons for offering SPRINT Both upper secondary and compulsory school responses to the question ‘Why offer SPRINT?’ contained a good many answers that do not lend themselves to being presented diagrammatically. In fact, only 4 compulsory schools and 1 upper secondary did not respond to this question, and many offered several different reasons for offering SPRINT.

Among these reasons are a number that are familiar from the 94/95 survey and from other surveys conducted in Sweden and abroad. There are several responses which cite the pedagogical quality of teaching material available in the target language, compared with the material available in Swedish. This is relevant not simply for the chemistry texts mentioned earlier, but also for biology, physics, history and the teaching of the target language as a subject. One compulsory school writes that SPRINT gives “interesting material [to use] during English lessons”. Improving language study and making it relevant to the pupils is also a factor. One reason for offering SPRINT is ”To offer meaningful teaching in English”. One of the vocational programmes writes: ”To give students a useful English within the area of their interest/vocation”, while a compulsory school finds SPRINT a good way to ”Create more active language situations; [and] move the language out of the classroom”. Improving the students’ ability to learn: “Learning appears to be better.”

Improving the pupils’ degree of understanding for others and fostering their own personal development, partly through SPRINT study and partly through consequential international contacts, is noted by some schools: “The pupils’ personal development; Interest and understanding for other people and countries.” Cross-curricular study, which is an underlying feature of SPRINT, has a number of supporters. One upper secondary school sees SPRINT as offering “A greater wholeness – make the subject more exciting and interesting”, while another writes: “We believe in subject integration and a holistic perspective for learning.” A compulsory school writes: “It is important to introduce and work with foreign languages in many different ways at school.” SPRINT is used in some schools (particularly at upper secondary level, but also in compulsory school) as a challenge for able students: “That ambitious students get competence and a language into the bargain.” In other schools it is used to help shy pupils to overcome their self-consciousness. One compulsory school writes that SPRINT is used to “Make less dramatic, play with knowledge, practice the things one can, dare”, another describes “Excellent study results/self-confidence strengthened.” Taking the last reason for using SPRINT a stage further, at least one school which is a ‘Home for the Care of Children and Young People’ (Hem för vård av Barn eller Ungdom - HVB), uses SPRINT to help extremely disadvantaged children. “Pupils are placed in our school by the Social services or under the Law for the care of children and young people. Most of the pupils do not have the prerequisite to achieve acceptable results at school.” Combining


SPRINT with Waldorf pedagogy, the school finds their (native Swedish speaking) pupils have a longer attention span if taught through English.

One school notes the value of SPRINT in the struggle to achieve a better balance of sexes in programmes usually dominated by boys: “attracting more girls to the NV program”. The one municipal centre for adult education offering SPRINT on Kunskapslyftet8 in association with Danish and German may point the way for SPRINT to be used in adult education. Specifically to create greater opportunities for the unemployed to find work abroad.

Three schools give as reasons for offering SPRINT a political decision of the municipal authority. In one case, an upper secondary has been persuaded to offer a limited form of SPRINT as a consequence of demand from pupils passing out of a very successful, SPRINT programme at a compulsory school in the same municipality. In the second case, a political decision in a large municipality lead to several upper secondary schools being asked if they would be interested in offering SPRINT. One school accepted, and is now into its third year of working with SPRINT. In the third case, introducing SPRINT into a school in a run-down district became the tool which the municipality used to began revitalising both the school and the surrounding area. In the latter two cases (which both have a few years behind them), it was a vital prerequisite of success that individual teachers at the schools should be convinced of the pedagogical value of SPRINT, and commit themselves to supporting it.

4.2.4 Effects of SPRINT beyond those mentioned in the response to this survey It is significant that many of the beneficial effects which are often attributed to SPRINT in international contexts, are also mentioned in the responses to this survey. Particularly, of course, the value of SPRINT for promoting communicative competence in the target language, in improving motivation generally, and in improving attitude towards the target language.

A number of effects are, however, noticeable by their absence, or low frequency, in the survey material.

In particular, few schools had much to say about the effect (positive or negative) of SPRINT on pupils’ and students’ command of Swedish. Yet one of the claims made for SPRINT is that it may support the continued development of the mother tongue. (CEILINK and see above under ‘Target Languages’) It is also claimed that SPRINT (by virtue of stimulating students’ common underlying linguistic proficiency) may promote the learning of other foreign languages beyond the target language. (CUMMINS) Again, little or no mention was made of this effect in the survey material.

As noted above, only one school mentions the value of SPRINT for redressing the balance of the sexes in natural science classes, yet this is something which has been observed repeatedly in Swedish schools where SPRINT is offered on otherwise male-dominated programmes. (See for example, KNIGHT)

No school mentions the positive effect on classroom democracy which SPRINT can facilitate. Anecdotal evidence from Sweden and Finland claims that, in some schools, the problem of teachers with less than native-speaker competence in English has been turned to advantage. The balance of knowledge in the classroom is seen as having been redressed in favour of the students, and the whole class together is encouraged to appreciate that, collectively, students and teacher know more than they do separately, and can learn from one another. (See TEACHER

DIESELL)

8 Kunskapslyftet = a special form of further education for the unemployed


Finally, only one school mentions the value of SPRINT as a means of helping weaker students develop confidence in themselves and giving them a second chance to learn subjects which they may have already studied but not fully understood in Swedish.

Apart from asking schools to say why they choose to offer SPRINT, the survey did not set out to elicit responses of this sort. It was considered more appropriate not to restrict schools but invite as wide a range of response as possible. In this respect, the result (identifying more than 70 distinct reasons for offering SPRINT), was very satisfactory.

However, a further study of schools with SPRINT might profitably build on the results presented in the present Report, by looking in more detail at just the effects mentioned in this section.

4.3 ‘Measurements of success’ The final two diagrams, 14 & 15, show the response to Question 12. In this question the schools were asked what they would consider a good measurement of the success of SPRINT at their school.

Both at compulsory school and upper secondary level, the engagement, motivation, positive attitudes and satisfaction exhibited by students were frequently cited as signs of success. At upper secondary level, one measurement frequently given is the graduating students’ future course in life, in particular their ability to find work – especially work with some international element – or their choice of and success in higher studies both in Sweden and abroad. At compulsory school, the pupils’ improved ability to use the target language, and their attitude towards language, towards language learning, and towards the culture and values associated with the target language, was also a popular measurement.

A further measurement of success given by many schools is the continued and growing demand for the education on offer: “The students are happy, develop and recommend Year 9 pupils to choose this education. The number of applicants are more than we can accommodate.”. One interesting measurement mentioned by several schools at both compulsory and upper secondary levels is the success of international exchange programmes and projects, and the judgement of native speakers of the target language: “The degree of contact and exchange of teachers, students with partner schools; The compliments we get during study visits eg. to the Austrian L[abour] O[rganisation], the EU, OSCE on our students’ ability.” Two schools say they have been awarded “The EU’s mark of distinction for quality – The European Lable”, which can also be seen as an external commendation.

In more objective terms, a good many schools mention comparing SPRINT pupils’ grades and results in national tests with those of non-SPRINT pupils at the same schools. It is unclear from many of these responses exactly what is being tested. Is it the pupils’ command of the target language? Is it their level of ability and knowledge in the subjects studied? Is their command of Swedish at all involved? These questions cannot be answered from the material gathered in this survey.

To end this section on more of a downbeat, it is a matter of some concern that, while all but 5 of the responding schools gave at least one reason for offering SPRINT, 20 could not say how they might go about ‘measuring the success’ of SPRINT at their school. One responded: “Don’t know.” This has particular implications for the discussion of quality assessment and assurance, below.


4.4 Reasons for giving up SPRINT A number of schools which appeared in the survey material for the 94/95 survey responded to the first questionnaire of the present survey saying they no longer offer SPRINT. Contact with a number of individuals (teachers, retired teachers and school leaders) at these schools provides a short list of reasons why SPRINT may be abandoned.

SPRINT is most usually given up when key teachers move on to other jobs or into retirement. Inspirational, committed teachers remain important factors in the establishment of SPRINT in a school. If these teachers receive poor support from school leaders and are unable to spread their enthusiasm to enough colleagues, then SPRINT is unlikely to survive their departure.

Note in this context that one upper secondary school for Natural Resource Use responded saying they had offered a very successful SPRINT programme during the Spring, using a visiting lecturer from Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, as the lecturer has now returned home, the programme has come to an end.

Other reasons for abandonment are: •= Economic constraints. SPRINT, especially in vocational training, tends to costs more

(especially in the start-up phase) than teaching through the medium of Swedish. •= Lack of demand. Apart from the municipal centre for adult education noted above

(‘Student numbers’), one school claims to have lost out in a profiling competition with another local school. The other school was better able to attract the limited number of pupils locally with an interest in SPRINT.

•= A political decision of the local municipality either to close a school or to amalgamate it with other schools. During this process the core of teachers working with SPRINT is broken up and scattered among several other schools.


Diagram 14 - Most commonly cited ‘measurements of success’ for SPRINT at compulsory school level

Most commonly cited 'measurements of success' at compulsory school level

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Low drop-out rate / highattendance statistics

''Student results' (methodof measurement?)

Successful participation ininternational projects

Post-SPRINT ed.(secondary sch, abroad)

That the students develop

Results of internalevaluations

Continuing interest in &demand for education

Results of national tests('national prov')

Student results ('betyg',subject tests)

Engagement, motivation,pos. attitude, satisfaction

Improved ability to use &attitude tow ards L2

Frequency


Diagram 15 - Most commonly cited ‘measurements of success’ for SPRINT at upper secondary and adult education levels

Most commonly cited 'measurements of success' at upper secondary and adult education levels

0 5 10 15 20 25

That the students develop

Results of national tests('national prov')

Student results ('betyg')

Assessment duringw ork/study placement

Low drop-out rate / highattendance statistics

'Student results' (method ofmeasurement?)

Communicative competenceand improved ability to use

Results of internalevaluations

Results of internationalexaminations

Post-SPRINT activities(travel, higher ed., w ork)

Continuing interest in &demand for education

Engagement, motivation,pos. attitude, satisfaction

Frequency


5. Quality assessment and assurance SPRINT education is as much in need of quality assessment and assurance as any other form of education. Quality assessment and assurance is intimately bound up with the purposes a school has in offering SPRINT. Without some means of assessment, they cannot demonstrate to pupils, parents, the local education authority or the supervisory authority the value of what they are attempting. Without some means of assessment they cannot themselves judge the effectiveness of what they are doing, assure its continued value, or hope to improve it.

Schools ought, as a matter of course, to document their work with SPRINT. This documentation should consist of a description of goals, give a general outline of methods and materials in use or planned, and present the tools by which success may be measured. As a matter of course, the documentation should be updated from time to time, and be freely available to parents, students and other interested parties. It can be supplemented in a number of ways.

Many schools responding to this survey cite a variety of means for measuring success, not all of them objective. There should be room in any documented system of assessment for any and all of these methods, provided they are supplemented by more objective testing.

Many schools already report using internal evaluations to assess, for example, student satisfaction. This is one simple way to measure success, and in so far as the results are discussed and acted upon, a simple way to assure one aspect of the quality of the education.

Account also needs to be taken of the students’ developing knowledge of the subjects they are studying. Regular testing is a common feature of education in most subject areas, but with SPRINT, at least some of the tests ought to be composed so as to allow comparison with non-SPRINT students. Some sort of assessment should also be made of the SPRINT students’ command of Swedish, especially in the language of the subjects being taught. In the majority of schools where SPRINT is offered in one or more subjects, and where a parallel class is following the same subject(s) taught through the medium of Swedish, joint tests can be organised at regular intervals for both classes. The results should give a good indication of the relative degree of knowledge in the subject held by all pupils. If the tests are conducted entirely through the medium of Swedish, then they are also good indicators of the SPRINT pupils’ continuing ability to use Swedish as well as their target language. Such a procedure (hinted at in several responses to the Survey questionnaires and described fully by one school) may not be appropriate or possible in every situation, but it is strongly recommended that some similar check be devised.

In this survey, 27 schools said they used SPRINT to improve their students’ command of the target language; 26 schools said that the improvement in target language command was a measurement of their success. In order to assess developments in this area, it is clear that many schools use the national tests in English in Year 9 and, (for upper secondary), the English A and B course tests. (National tests also exist for the upper secondary B courses in German and French.) A further check is offered by the results of international tests such as the Cambridge examinations in English.

However, no mention is made of parallel testing to measure the degree of improvement in command of the target language over what might be expected from non-SPRINT students. In respect of this question, a recent study has shown that a disturbingly high number of (non-SPRINT) upper secondary level students of English who graduate with good grades, achieve a disappointing result in a university entrance level diagnostic test in the written language. In her conclusions the researcher comments that the teaching profession today tend to use


“methods which stress […] the communicative process in language learning at the expense of grammar and vocabulary”. She found no sign that enthusiastic TV or film viewing, or Internet use, were of any assistance in improving her subjects’ command of grammar and vocabulary, however, “[s]tudents who read a lot seem to score higher than those who do not read many books.” (ERICSSON)

As the most common feature in SPRINT situations is study with the help of written material in the target language, it would be interesting to know whether graduating SPRINT students would achieve a better result in Ericsson’s test.

In-service training for teachers ought also to be a feature of any school’s striving to maintain and improve the quality of education on offer. As noted above (‘Teachers - Qualifications and Training’) there is, as yet, no formal qualification for SPRINT teachers and little in the way of appropriate in-service training. This makes it all the more important for schools to enable their teachers to identify, acquire and maintain skills necessary for SPRINT, and to document their efforts in this direction.

External evaluations are a further means of assessing and assuring the quality of the education on offer. By becoming involved in university level research, or by inviting researchers to carry out independent evaluations, a number of schools have benefited from having an eye cast over their subject and language integration. As yet, however, academia shows rather little interest. It would be a positive development to see more doctoral studies taking place into many aspects of SPRINT. (Some examples of research: KNIGHT, EKMAN, HALL, WASHBURN, DENTLER)

Finally, material availability (or the lack of availability) is a common complaint among SPRINT teachers. Many schools find themselves using material produced for completely different markets – for native-speakers of the target language, designed to satisfy curriculum and examination requirements which are alien to the Swedish education system. Some of this material teachers believe to be of high pedagogic value (see above ‘Subjects affected at upper secondary level’). Whatever its qualities, however, it is important for schools to evaluate foreign material in terms both of its content and of its linguistic suitability. Material produced for 14 year old native speakers of German may be linguistically far too complex for a Swedish 16 year old, but in terms of its content, may be far too simple.

This problem will continue as long as no locally produced teaching material exists. Fortunately, 1999 has seen the publication of the first text book for teaching a Swedish subject through the medium of English. Hopefully more will follow.


6. Conclusions and Further action While most schools and teachers working with SPRINT are certainly aware of the need to ensure the quality of the work they are doing, it is apparent that rather a large number are unclear how to go about it. The National Agency for Education is in a position to give a lead in this matter.

The National Agency for Education hope this Report will serve to assist schools in raising the issue of quality in SPRINT education, and indicate how schools might be expected to act to satisfy minimum requirements for assessment and quality assurance.

Further action might most easily involve visits to a selection of different schools. During the visits, the representative(s) of the National Agency for Education could observe classroom practice; meet and interview teachers, students and school leaders and receive copies of the school’s documentation. The visitor(s) would be in a position to assess the school’s provisions for quality assurance, and to encourage and advise on improvements as necessary. They would also be able to gather more information than was possible in the present survey about other interesting aspects of SPRINT. (See for example ‘Effects of SPRINT…’ above.) The visits would result in a series of short reports on the schools which could be seen as supplementary to this Report.

To extend this further, the National Agency for Education might consider formal or informal co-operation with the Mainstream Bilingual Education Research and Training Team of the Continuing Education Centre of the University of Jyväskylä, who have carried out two evaluations of SPRINT in Finland for the Finnish National Board of Education. (MARSH ET AL. 1996, and see MARSH & LANGÉ 1999)

Beyond this, the National Agency for Education could organise a series of workshop seminars to help create meetings between schools. Teachers working with SPRINT often feel rather isolated from one another, and occasions for meetings are very much appreciated. Meetings could be arranged around themes such as internationalisation with SPRINT, assessment, in-service training, quality assurance.

In an attempt to raise academic interest in SPRINT, and perhaps to stimulate teacher training institutions to look at the possibility of offering more developed in-service or pre-service teacher training, a national conference might be organised. Results or on-going reports from a variety of research into SPRINT from Sweden, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands and England might be included on the program. The University of Gothenburg might be an appropriate institution to approach to co-host such a conference because of the degree of research into SPRINT already taking place at the Institute for German and Dutch. There is also at least one doctoral study related to SPRINT being carried on at the Institute for English.

Finally, an appropriate institution might be encouraged to build and maintain a bibliographical database of published research and teaching materials relevant to SPRINT in Sweden. The bibliography of this report attempts to provide a foundation for such a database.


7. Bibliography NOTE: SMALL CAPITALS identify texts referred to in the body of the Report.

BAETENS BEARDSMORE H. (ed) (1993) European Models of Bilingual Education, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, UK.

Bengtsson J. & S. Blotzki (1997) A too difficult decision? Zur Anwendbarkeit des Kieler ADD-Tests im Göteborger Immersionsprojekt, Arbeitsberichte und Materialien zu bilingualem Unterricht Schwedisch-Deutsch Nr. 1, Institutionen för tyska och nederländska, Göteborgs universitet.

Björklund S. (1996) Lexikala drag och kontextualisering i språkbadselevers andraspråk, Universitas Wasaensis, Vasa, Finland.

CEILINK (1999) ’Recommendations from the CEILINK Think Tank’ i/in CLIL Initiatives for the Millenium: Report on the CEILINK Think-Tank, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

CHRIST I., 1996 'Bilingual teaching and learning in German' i/in Fruhauf et al. (eds) Teaching Content in a Foreign Language: Practice and perspectives in European bilingual education, European Platform for Dutch Education, Alkmaar, Netherlands.

CLIL INITIATIVES for the Millenium: Report on the CEILINK Think-Tank, (1999) (eds D. Marsh & B. Marsland), Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

COYLE D. (1999) ’Introducing the BILD Project’, i/in The EuroCLIC Bulletin #6, The EuroCLIC Secretariat, Den Haag, Netherlands. Också ifrån /Also from <http://www.euroclic.net>.

CUMMINS J & M Swain (1986) Bilingualism in Education: Aspects of theory, research and practice, Longman, UK.

DENTLER S., M. Haglund-Dragic & K-H. Schneider (1998), 'Geografi i den svenska skolan på tyska - går det?' i/in Kriser och Förnyelser: Humanistdag-boken 11, Göteborgs universitet.

EKMAN B. (1993, 1994) Engelskspråkig variant av samhällsvetenskaplig linje: Utvärdering av en ny utbildningväg vid Katrinelunds gymnasieskola i Sundsvall, Rapport 1, 2, 3, Skolkontoret, Sundsvall, Sverige. Rapport 3 (i engelsk översättning) i/Report 3 (in English translation) in Thürmann (ed) Report on Workshop 12B - Bilingual education in secondary schools - learning and teaching non-language subjects through a foreign language, Council for Cultural Co-operation of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France.

ERICSSON E. (1999) Upper secondary school English in relation to university requirements, (Pedagogiskt/didaktiskt examensarbete och engelsk D-uppsats; Handledare: Sture Widell/Mats Mobärg) Gymnasielärarprogrammet, Göteborgs universitet.

FRUHAUF G., Coyle D., Christ I. (eds), 1996, Teaching Content in a Foreign Language: Practice and perspectives in European bilingual education, European Platform for Dutch Education, Alkmaar, Netherlands.

Haglund-Dragic, Monica (1999) ’L3 Deutsch im schwedischen Bili-Projekt’ i/in Dentler et al. (utg.), Tertärsprachen, Empirische Untersuchungen, Tübingen: Stauffenberg.

HALL P. (1996) Teaching Content through a Foreign Language: Sypunkter från elever, lärare och ledare, Institution för utbildningsvetenskap, Mitthögskolan, Härnösand.

HALL P. (1998) Engelska eller svenska som undervisningsspråk i gymnasiet. Ett försök till jämförelse, Institutionen för utbildningsvetenskap, Mitthögskolan, Härnösand.

Hansson J. (1999) A Comparison Between Two Educational Models: Content-based language teaching in English vs Conventional teaching of content in Swedish, (D-uppsats; Supervisor: R Hirsch) Department of Language and Culture, Linköping University.

Hägerfelth G. (1992) ’Skolundervisning på främmande språk’, Språkvård 3/1992, Tidskrift utgiven av Svenska språknämnden, Stockholm.

Hägerfelth G. (1993) ’Internationalisering i den svenska gymnasieskolan: Bilingual education eller ämnesundervisning på främmande språk’, Språk i Norden/Sprog i Norden 1993: Årsskrift for Nordisk språkråd og Språknemndene i Norden, Nordisk språkråd, Novus förlag/Almkvist & Wiksell/Gylendal.


HÄGGSTRÖM C (1999) Geografiska informationssystem projekt SPRINT, (Handledare, C Hildesson) Kulturgeografiska institutionen, Handelshögskolan, Göteborgs universitet.

INTERTALK: Plurilingual Education across Europe (1997) Video produced with support of the European Commission, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

Janulf, P. (1994) Utvärdering av den Pedagogiska Utvecklingsverksamheten för Finskspråkiga Elever i Botkyrka Grundskolor Åren 1986-1994, Botkyrka kommun utvecklingsenheten för invandrar- och flyktingfrågor.

Klawitter-Beusch J. (1999) Durch wieviele Länder fließt ein Vierländerfluß? Zum Leseverständnis im Göteborger Immersionsprojekt, Arbeitsberichte und Materialien zu bilingualem Unterricht Schwedisch-Deutsch Nr. 2, Institutionen för tyska och nederländska, Göteborgs universitet.

KNIGHT M. (1988) ’Third and final report on English at Ebersteinska skolan’ i/in L. Naeslund (1990) Engelskspråkiga tekniska studievägar vid Ebersteinska skolan i Norrköping, Gymnasieavd., Skolöverstyrelsen, Stockholm.

Kroschewski A., A. Schuenemann, D. Wolff (eds) (1998) A Resource Base for Bilingual Educators: Bibliographie Bilingualismus und Bilingualer Unterricht, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Laurén U. (1994) Tvåspråkiga och enspråkiga skolelevers skriftliga produktion: Performans och kreativitet, Universitas Wasaensis, Vasa, Finland.

MARSH D. & MASIH J., 1996 'Teaching Content through a Foreign Language in Finland' i/in Fruhauf et. al. (eds) Teaching Content in a Foreign Language: Practice and perspectives in European bilingual education, European Platform for Dutch Education, Alkmaar, Netherlands.

Marsh D., P. Oksman-Rinkinen & S. Takala (eds) (1996) Mainstream Bilingual Education in the Finnish Vocational Sector, National Board of Education, Helsinki, Finland.

MARSH D., B. Marsland & T. Nikula (1999) ’CLIL: a Review of Current Thinking’ i/in Marsh et al. (eds) CLIL Initiatives for the Millenium: Report on the CEILINK Think-Tank, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

MARSH D. & G. LANGÉ (1999) Implementing Content and Language Integrated Learning: A Research-driven TIE-CLIL Foundation Course Reader, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyväskylä, Finland on behalf of TIE-CLIL.

Marsh D., C. Ennser & D. Sygmund (1999) Pursuing Plurilingualism - Vers le Plurilinguisme - Unterrichtsziel Mehrsprachigkeit, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

Masih J (ed) (1999) Learning through a foreign language: models, methods and outcomes, CILT, London, UK.

Miliander J. (1996) 'Immersion/bilingual education' i/in Språkundervisning i förändring (Bilaga till LMS-Lingua nr 5:96), Finnvedens Tryckeri AB, Sverige.

Muhr G. (1997) Bilingual Teaching: Comparative perspectives on the situations in the United Kingdom and Sweden, Högskolan i Karlstad, Sverige & University of Greenwich, UK.

NIKULA T. (1997) 'Terminological considerations in teaching content through a foreign language' i/in Marsh et al. (eds), Aspects of Implementing Plurilingual Education: Seminar and field notes, Jyväskylä, Finland.

NIXON J. & B. Rondahl (1996) 'Sweden - a country of rapidly increasing bilingual/immersion education', i/in Fruhauf et. al. (eds) Teaching Content in a Foreign Language: Practice and perspectives in European bilingual education, European Platform for Dutch Education, Alkmaar, Netherlands.

NIXON J. & J. Kibe (1998) ’Visions from Sweden: Towards competence in International Communication’, i/in Marsh et al. (eds) Future Scenarios in Content and Language Integrated Learning, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Nordin, J (1999) Mathematics course C for the Swedish ‘gymnasium’, Sundsvall RÄSINEN A. & D. Marsh (1994) Content Instruction through a Foreign Language: A Report on the 1992-

1993 TCE Programme, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. SAINT (The Swedish Association of Bilingual and Immersion Teachers)

<http://www.skolinternet.telia.se/saint>. SKOLVERKET (1999), I. Nyman, E. Oscarsson & S. Petersson, Interimsrapport - Språk- och

innehållsintegrerad undervisning SVENSKA SPRÅKNÄMNDEN (1998) ’Förslag till handlingsprogram för att främja svenska språket’ i/in

Språkvård 2/98, Tidskrift utgiven av Svenska Språknämnden, Stockholm. Också i/Also in Språk i Norden/Sprog i Norden 1999: Årsskrift for Nordisk språkråd og


Språknemndene i Norden, Nordisk språkråd, Novus förlag. Också ifrån/Also from <http://www.spraknamnden.se>.

Sveriges Nationalatlas/PC-Atlasen (1998) GIS 1.1 LMV, SSAG och SCB, SNA förlag, Stockholm. (Bearbetad av C. Hildesson 1998 och C. Häggström 1999.)

TEACHING WITH FOREIGN LANGUAGES (1998) Video, screened by BBC in ’The Learning Zone’, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

TEACHER DIESELL (1999) D. Marsh & B. Marsland (eds.) Learning with Languages - Upper secondary Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

TEACHER DIESELL (1999) D. Marsh & B. Marsland (eds.) Learning with Languages - Lower secondary Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

TEACHER DIESELL (1999) D. Marsh & B. Marsland (eds.) Lehren und Lernen in Fremdsprachen - Sekundarstufe II, Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

TEACHER DIESELL - The DIESeLL Disseminator: Pursuing Plurilingualism/Vers le Plurilinguisme/Unterrichtsziel Mehrsprachigkeit (1999) D. Marsh, C. Ennser, D. Sigmund (eds), Continuing Education Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

THÜRMANN E (ed), (1993) 1st & (1995) 2nd Progress Reports of the Research and Development Programme of Workshop 12A & (1996) Report on Workshop 12B - Bilingual education in secondary schools - learning and teaching non-language subjects through a foreign language, Council for Cultural Co-operation of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France.

VIBERG Å. (1997) Utbildning och undervisning på främmande språk, Skolverket, Stockholm <http://www.skolverket.se>, titta under/look under ’Internationellt/Interkulturellt’.

WASHBURN L. (1997) English Immersion in Sweden: A Case Study of Röllingby High School 1987-1989, Engelska Institutionen, Stockholms universitet.

WHITE PAPER on Education and Training: Teaching and Learning - Towards the learning society, (på svenska/in Swedish: Lära och lära ut: på väg mot kunskapssamhället: vitbok om utbildning) (1995) The European Commission, Office for the Official Publications of the European Commission, Luxembourg .

Åseskog T.(1982) Att undervisa el-lära på engelska : ett försök på el-tele-teknisk linje på gymnasiet Rapporter från Engelska institutionen 1982:1, Göteborgs universitet.

Åseskog T. (1993) ‘Immerssion – att undervisa på ett främmande språk’ i/in T. Lindblad & B. Andered (eds) Så här gör vi – En idébok om engelskundervisningen i gmnasieskolan, Göteborgs universitet, Avdelning för språkpedagogik.

SPRIN

T: Content and Language Integrated Learning and Teaching in Sw

eden 52 (59)

Appendix I

Supplementary tables for student/pupil profiles

Supplem

entary Table 1 - SPRINT Student/Pupil profiles at com

pulsory school level SPR

INT – Learner profiles: C

ompulsory schools

Overall totals

(73 schools) 14 schools w

ith atypical pupil profiles

4 borderline schools 55 schools w

ith typical pupil

profiles

Types of pupil

Numbers of students

Mean average /school (69 schools)1

Median average /school (68 schools) 1

Numbers of students



Numbers of students

Mean average ./school

Median average /school

Numbers of students



Monolingual Sw

edish speakers4262

62 22

19 2

0 74

19 20,5

4188 78

30 B

ilingual speakers counting Swedish as one of their

languages1694

25 2

503 46

6 56

14 15

1638 30

2

Regarding Sw

edish as a foreign language1078

16 0

672 61

56 213

53 15

865 16

0 M

other tongue or bilingual speakers of the target language

851 12

0 693

63 39

64 16

16,5 865

16 0

1 4 schools did not provide figures 2 3 schools deem

ed ’atypical’ did not provide figures

3 1 school deemed ’typical’ did not provide figures

SPRIN

T: Content and Language Integrated Learning and Teaching in Sw

eden 53 (59)

Supplementary Table 2 - Student/Pupil profiles at upper secondary and adult education levels

SPRIN

T – Learner profiles: Upper secondary &

adult educaion levels

Overall totals

(88 schools) 3 schools w

iith atypical pupil profiles

1 borderline school 84 schools w

ith typical pupil

profiles

Types of learner

Numbers of students



Numbers of students

Mean average /school (not possible) 2

Median average /school(not possible) 2

Numbers of students

Mean average /school (not possible)

Median average /school (not possible)

Numbers of students



Monolingual Sw

edish speakers6214

73 45

2 -

- 225

- -

5987 72

41

Bilingual speakers counting Sw

edish as one of their languages

856 10

3 206

- -

112 -

- 538

7 2

Regarding Sw

edish as a foreign language288

3 0

49 -

- 0

- -

339 4

0

Mother tongue or bilingual speakers of the target

language350

4 0

156 -

- 113

- -

81 1

0

1 3 schools did not provide figures 2 1 school deem

ed ’atypical’ did not provide figures, 1 other school only provided figures for monolingual Sw

edish speakers. 3 1 school deem

ed ’typical’ did not provide figures


Appendix II

Courses at upper secondary and adult education levels affected by SPRINT

Courses in mathematics

Course Code Frequency

A MA200 31 B MA201 29 C MA203 12 D MA204 26 E MA205 8

Courses in social sciences and humanities (with natural science for social science students)


History A HI200 42 History B HI201 26

Social science A SH200 28 Social science B SH201 19 Social science C SH202 19

Geography A GE200 14 Geography B GE201 13

Religion A RE200 20 Religion B RE201 13 Philosophy FS200 7 Psychology PS200 21

Deeper studies in humanities or social sciences HS200 4

Natural science A NK200 28 Natural science B NK201 12

Courses in the natural sciences and computing


Biology A BI200 21 Biology B BI201 12

Chemistry A KE200 25 Chemistry B KE201 16 Physics A FY201 20 Physics B FY202 12

Technology A TL202 9 Technology B TL203 2

Computing DAA200 5


Courses in economics


Economics A FE201 10 Economics B FE203 9

Export and import FE200 2 International economics FE204 2

Organisation and leadership FE205 1 Text processing A ADM211 2

Marketing MRKFÖ200 1 Auditing and taxation assessment RD200 1

Quality techniques PRT202 1

National courses in nursing and health care


Health HÄ200 1 Healthcare knowledge HÄ201 1

Acute healthcare OKU200 1 Healthcare A OKU204 2 Healthcare B OKU205 2 Social care A SOO202 2 Social care B SOO203 2

Techniques in healthcare SOO204 1 Ethics MÄNK200 1

Medical foundation course A MÄNK201 2 Medical foundation course B MÄNK202 1

Humanity socially and culturally MÄNK203 2 Dental care TDVKU200 1

Other national courses


Tourism and travel service TURE200 1 Environmental knowledge MILJÖ201 1 Characteristic subjects for the NP programme 5 Characteristic subjects for the HR programme 3 Characteristic subjects for the EC programme 1

Other national courses 10


Local courses

Course Name Frequency

Local OP courses Nursing Care 3 International co-operation 2 International healthcare 1

Local SP/NV courses European knowledge 8 Knowledge of the United Nations 2 Tourism 3

Local language courses Preparation for international examination such as the CAE

7

Extended English 6 Extended French 1 Extended German 1

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