"It’s a nightmare to stand and teach something you know nothing about" : A study on lower secondary school teachers’ attitudes and didactic choices regarding the Nordic languages module in the Swedish subject, and students’ attitudes toward the modul

The Nordic countries engage in strong cooperation and have agreed on the importance of teaching about Nordic languages. Despite this shared intention, the teaching of Nordic languages is not prioritized in Swedish lower secondary school. The aim of this study is to highlight the attitudes of teachers of Swedish toward teaching Nordic languages in lower secondary school, with an emphasis on didactic choices regarding the subject. Furthermore, students’ attitudes towards receiving instruction about Nordic languages are also explored. The research focuses on the attitudes and didactic choices of teachers of Swedish as well as students' attitudes, based on semi-structured interviews with teachers and a student survey. The result shows that the teachers are positive and emphasize the importance of Nordic languages, but they report a lack of time, and some feel unprepared for this aspect of teaching. In light of this, Nordic languages are often deprioritized in the subject of Swedish. Moreover, most of the students express a positive attitude toward learning more about Nordic languages.