The purpose of our study is to interpret and understand the experiences that parents to multilingual children have towards multilingualism in pre-school. We are also interested in finding out what these parents think about their children?s development in multilingualism both in pre-school and at home. Our study is based on qualitative interviews. We interviewed nine families that have multilingual children in pre-school.  The data we collected from our interviews has been analyzed using socio-cultural and inter-cultural theories along with previous research. The result of our study showed that parents to multilingual children have both positive and negative opinions about the multilingual concept. Most of our informants had positive opinions about multilingualism in general.

AbstractThe Swedish society has always been monolingual, but has for the past decades transformed into a multicultural and multilingual society. The aim of this study is to investigate if and in that case how preschool teachers work with language development in bilingual and multicultural preschools. The concept of linguistic and cultural diversity includes several different components, not least the social interactions that are of great importance to every individual's development, learning and participation in the world. By understanding the importance of language, language development and the role of mother tongue in second language acquisition, we look into various researches done concerning the effects of the preschool teachers? opinions, methods used to language developmental primarily for children who are multilingual and how the physical environment is shaped to promote language in multicultural and multilingual preschools.The method used in this study is semi-structured interviews with preschool teacher working in multicultural or bilingual preschool settings.

The aim of this study was to examine bilingual childrenslexical organization and to investigate weather bilingual children hadundergone the syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift in grade four. Thirtychildren from multi-ethnic areas were tested with Kent-Rosanoff wordassociation test in both Swedish and Arabic. The results showed thatmore than 40% of the children had undergone the shift in bothlanguages, 20 % had undergone the shift in only one of theirlanguages and almost 40% had not made the shift in any language. Acomparison with results from monolingual Swedish children in gradethree in a previous thesis, showed that the bilingual children in thisstudy did not reach the corresponding level of lexical organization.The study points to the necessity of including tests regarding lexicalorganization when assessing both mono- and bilingual children withsuspected language impairment. The study also underscores theimportance of supporting mother tongue development in bilingualchildren by for instance adequate mother tongue education.

In school there are many pupils with Swedish as their second language and these pupils often have less basic condition compared with pupils with Swedish as their mother tongue and the most common root cause is lack of language knowledge, also the time spent in Sweden matters.I have trough questionnaires and literature studies investigated if there, for pupils with Swedish as their second language, is an easier way to figure out how to read and write in Swedish using fiction literature as learning material compared with ordinary ways.In the questionnaires that I performed participated a number of teachers that teach Swedish as a second language. These teachers all work in schools with a big share of pupils with Swedish as a second language.I also tried to evaluate if there was a difference between teachers with a graduation in Swedish as second language compared with these who don?t have a graduate but still work with these pupils.The result shows that I discovered that only the graduated teachers have used fiction literature as a learning material in the daily work and have experienced good results from the pupils, they also knew why they used fiction literarture for reading and writing training.As a teacher it is very important to have the knowledge regarding children that have Swedish as a second language, to be able to support them in a correct way.Despite the pupil can?t speak or read the new language, it has feelings and knowledge about the circumstances that they can?t express.The teachers mission is to knew and have understanding for these circumstances.Keywords: Pupils with Swedish as second language, learning to read and write, fiction literarture, school..

This paper investigates the methods used by teachers when teaching elementary mathematics to children with Swedish as their second language. The original mathematical terminology derives from Latin, Greek and Arabic, this terminology is not of great importance in this paper, the everyday language spoken in elementary classes when teaching mathematical concepts and calculations to younger children is. The use of everyday language is an advantage for children with Swedish as their second language as mathematical problems presented in a more plain language is easier to comprehend and solve than problems in mere numerals. Special teachers in home language classes often have the task of clarifying the mathematical concepts, introduced to the children during mathematical lessons, in the pupils first acquired language. A qualitative method was used in this study.

It is common today that many children in Sweden  grow up in families that speak two or several languages. Language and identity building is connected to each other. So is also Languages and learning (Becknert m. fl. 2008:13).

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how people from Iran experience reading in their mother tongue, Persian, compared to how they experience reading in Swedish and if there was a difference. The questions to be answered in the thesis were: What is the dominant purpose when people read their mother tongue and when they read in Swedish. Do they read because they need information, because they want to relax or do they, when they read, reflect on their own lives? The method was qualitative, interviews were conducted with 8 Iranians living in Sweden. The theoretical background consists of a description of theories on reading and theories on language and identity.

With the growing amount of citizens with another mother tongue than Swedish, the need for assessment instruments in other languages than Swedish within the Swedish health care increases. To enable this, the knowledge of multilingualism and adequate assessments are required. The aim is to develop a modern Arabic version of a screening material that is comparable to what is used in the Swedish clinic in the assessment of people diagnosed with aphasia. In the present study, Short Aphasia Examination (Kortfattad Afasiprövning), which is one of the few screening material is available in Swedish and among the ten most frequently used assessment materials (Blom Johansson, Carlsson & Sonnander, 2011). Translation and adaptation was made to the Standard Arabic (KAPARABISKA) and Arabic dialect of Hadari (KAPHADARI).

The purpose of this study is to see how preschool teachers are working with supportive signs and if it is a working tool for children's language development. Is the supportive signing just for kids with special need for support or can it be good for all children?I've done the study by interviewing preschool teachers that is working with supportive signs in preschool. I also had a questionnaire for parents that yielded less fruitful results. I have chosen to use children's language and constructivist and socio-cultural theories.What I came up with is that the supportive signs are very helpful in preschools, but it requires a lot from the one doing it.

This thesis will discuss teachers handling of the background, experience and earlier acquired knowledge of students. Our aim is to study the teachers? use of the cultural knowledge that of which the students already possess and the consideration the teachers have for the students own parental tongue. From this we want to see if there are any obstacles or pits with the work of gathering up experiences. The study is based on interviews with seven different teachers at a multi cultural elementary school in one the suburbs of Stockholm.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate how parents? in multilingual families perceive language learning and reading for young children, and how their practice of this can be understood in relation to their language situation and cultural background.This study focuses on the interaction between parents? and young children in the light of the literacy practice. Important concepts such as early childhood literacy and family literacy have been used to study language, culture and literacy practice as phenomena that interact. The theoretical framework is a sociocultural perspective. Through qualitative interviews with seven parents?, it was found that multilingual families have a strong ambition for their children to learn all the languages spoken in the family.

This work is an essay on language, multilingualism, and identity. My purpose in this work was to try and explore how today's young people views in their native language, identity and language development in a multicultural society. I was also interested in how young people find a balance between two very different cultures. Since my work will be based on interviews, I have chosen a qualitative approach. My choice of the qualitative method is primarily related to my purpose.

The underlying purpose of this study is to see whether a library focused solely on providing literature in other languages than Swedish serves as a unifying, integrating force, or as an agent for division and exclusion. The study focuses on the International Library in Stockholm. The authors have created a profile of the visitors of the selected library, concerning their characteristics, their library habits and their perceptions of the International library. This profile has then been compared with the staff?s perception of the visitors as a group.

The underlying purpose of this study is to see whether a library focused solely on providing literature in other languages than Swedish serves as a unifying, integrating force, or as an agent for division and exclusion. The study focuses on the International Library in Stockholm. The authors have created a profile of the visitors of the selected library, concerning their characteristics, their library habits and their perceptions of the International library. This profile has then been compared with the staff?s perception of the visitors as a group.

This study investigates how Arabic-speaking students in Sweden use syntax and prepositions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and how their writing is influenced by Swedish grammar and Arabic dialects. The focus is on identifying systematic patterns of cross-linguistic influence and variation between different groups of learners. The data consists of written translations by 30 students in grades 7?9 who receive mother tongue instruction in Arabic. All students translated the same Swedish source text into MSA, and the translations were analysed with attention to syntactic structures and the use of prepositions. The theoretical framework draws on transfer theory, interlanguage theory, and the interdependence hypothesis, complemented by perspectives on multilingualism and diglossia. These frameworks make it possible to capture both external influences from Swedish and Arabic dialects, as well as internal processes of second language development.