The purpose of this essay is to capture some teachers' experiences on multilingualism of newly arrived students studying Swedish as a second language in the introduction of a upper secondary school. My focus is to put forward a discussion on multilingualism and how teachers collaborate with tutors and plan their teaching.

I have chosen to do a qualitative study where I interviewed five teachers who have different experiences and educations. The survey was conducted by interviewing five teachers, four teachers teaching in Swedish as a second language and a mother tongue teacher who teach in Arabic.

The result shows that the interviewed teachers have quite similar perceptions about the perception of multilingualism in newly arrived students. Teachers collaborate and plan instruction to support language development in bilingual students. The teachers believe that multilingualism and mother tongue are resources for students' learning and development.

Teachers also report that they adjust teaching based on students' conditions and needs. They arrange trips and excursions to stimulate students' integration into society. However, there have been some difficulties in teaching, for example, to adapt their teaching to students' different levels. The conclusion is that teachers collaborate with each other in groups of teachers and support students to learn Swedish.

Keyword

Swedish as a second language, foreign language, code-switching, meta-language, bilingualism, multilingualism, learning, language development, scaffolding.