Swedish Language to Immigrants (SFI): Some Reflections on Motivation

Viktor Sundgren

Swedish Language to Immigrants (SFI): Some Reflections on Motivation

Journal of the Scandinavian Society of Korea
Abbr : JSSK
2016, (18), pp.73-92
Publisher : The Scandinavian Society of Korea
Research Area : Social Science > Area Studies > North Europe(Scandinavian)

Viktor Sundgren ¹

¹한국외국어대학교 스칸디나비아어과

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at the recent debate regarding teaching the Swedish language to immigrants (SFI) in Sweden, reviewing recent articles in this area. Teaching Swedish to immigrants is seen as a key to integration and it is therefore important that it is effective and achieves its goal. However, there has been widespread criticism in terms of the results it achieves. Especially, many students interrupt their studies before they complete the highest course level. In 2010, a performance-based financial compensation system was introduced in order to make the students complete the courses quicker. As seen in many evaluation reports, this way of aiming at increasing the students’ instrumental motivation has been inefficient, and the compensation system was eventually abolished. Although many factors for improvements are present in the discourse, when reviewing a number of articles it is striking that the most important factor for learning – integrative motivation – receives little attention. In order to improve SFI and the immigrants’ language learning, there needs to be more research on the individuals’ needs and their integrative motivation.

KEYWORDS

Swedish as a Foreign Language, Swedish Language for Immigrants, Motivation, Language Attitude, Educational Psychology

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.

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