Slang at work helps adult migrants develop language skills

SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) has clear objectives to prepare students to use Swedish in the labour market. Each municipality has great freedom to design its own education and many link it closely to the labour market through various initiatives involving work placements, vocational Swedish, and vocational orientation.

You want them to understand Swedish that is spoken in different ways, among different ages and dialects.

Robert Walldén

In new research, Robert Walldén, associate professor of Swedish with a didactic focus, has taken a closer look at a municipality that offered SFI students language practice in workplaces.

“Many reported positive experiences and got to talk a lot, for example with young people and older people. Many of the pupils do not have Swedish around them in their everyday lives, so talking with first language speakers of Swedish was highly valued by the pupils.”

Several students stated that they experienced that dialects and slang can be difficult to understand and that they thus got to experience more authentic Swedish, outside the classroom. They also felt that they had a supportive environment around them, it was okay to say the wrong thing and they were not judged on their Swedish.

Previous research, like Walldén's results, has shown that SFI teaching is not sufficient to develop oral skills. Many of the students felt that classroom teaching focuses mostly on grammar and writing, even though the course linked to the internship focussed a lot on oral presentations and discussions.

“You want them to understand Swedish that is spoken in different ways, among different ages and dialects. This can also be included in teaching, for example with film clips, but when it becomes an authentic situation, it is put to the test and becomes a stronger experience.”

There is a challenge in using internships in education, says Walldén. "The question is how to integrate it and make the internship part of the language programme. Just because students are out on internships, they do not automatically learn the language, the new knowledge must be used in the programme. Many municipalities work with this in different ways, but the research does not know how it works.

“This shows that it is a challenge for SFI to integrate the knowledge from work places into the programme. In purely pedagogical terms, there are benefits. This has been called for by research and the work of the municipality in question with language development tasks linked to practice is a positive example of how to work."

Investment in language training requires a lot of resources in the form of planning and the availability of recruiters and supervisors.

“I think this is an initiative that is well invested; the students' experiences were predominantly positive. They learned not only professional language but also everyday words and words relevant to society. It should not only be measured by whether the students get a job or not. Whatever the outcome, they should be given the opportunity to develop their language skills," adds Walldén.

Text: Marc Malmqvist & Adrian Grist