I teach pre-service courses in English for Young Learners, supervise degree projects for teachers-to-be, and work as course coordinator and teacher in school practicum courses for student teachers and supervisors of students teachers at school. 

 

My licentiate thesis Bilingual subject-specific literacies? Teachers' and learners' views and experiences of two school languages in biology, civics, history and mathematics: Case studies from the Swedish upper secondary school investigates teacher and student cognitions about bilingual education.

Key words: Teacher and learner cognition, CLIL, bilingualism, subject-specific literacies.

Research interests

My interests as regards research and teaching are teacher cognition, historiography of teaching and learning, and teachers' professional language.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Samverkan mellan professioner

  2024. Magnus Kilger, Annika Flick, Ylva Sandberg.

  Conference

  Inom lärarutbildningarna är samverkan en viktig fråga som också ofta återkommer i studenternas utvärderingar. Frågan handlar om hur vi under utbildningen kan skapa och stärka samverkan mellan lärarprogrammen redan under utbildningen för en fortsatt samverkan i studenternas kommande yrkesprofession som lärare i förskoleklass, skola eller fritidshem. Det är centralt inte minst mot bakgrund av läroplanens mål att stödja elevernas utveckling och lärande i ett långsiktigt perspektiv (Skolverket, 2022).

  Syftet är att studera hur samverkan mellan de olika lärarkategorierna i grundskolan initieras och systematiseras med fokus på samarbete mellan fritidshem och grundskolans tidigare år. Avsikten är att utveckla samverkansformer mellan de olika institutionerna som bedriver lärarutbildnig och tillsammans med några utvalda grundskolor belysa hur samverkansformerna ser ut, samt att utveckla och fördjupa detta arbete.

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• Facing the validity gap. Perspectives on the final degree project

  2024. Birgitta Fröjdendahl, Ylva Sandberg. Educational Research and Evaluation 29 (1-2), 50-68

  Article

  This study detected patterns in teacher educators’ and pre-service teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding the degree project. Requirements in policy documents were also considered. The analysis centred on validity, teacher cognition and grounded theory. Conversations were conducted with instructors and students at three departments for teacher education in Sweden. Findings showed inadequacies with regard to construct- and consequential validity for instruction and learning, timing, pre-service teachers’ prior knowledge and attitudes to educational research. Recommendations for improvement involved having teaching practice and the project run parallel and part-time during a term. Further proposals tallied with national regulations about autonomy and academic literacy for teachers. For example, the pre-service teachers responded positively to introducing crash courses and providing opportunities for supervision prior to the course. Improved validity was deemed imperative for developing long-term literacy and motivation towards incorporating science and empirical data in the teaching profession.

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• Perspectives of the degree project: Small-scale action research in Swedish higher education

  2023. Ylva Sandberg, Birgitta Fröjdendahl. Social sciences and humanities open 7 (1)

  Article

  The degree project in educational sciences constitutes the pre-service teacher students' final academic achievement in the Bridging Teacher Education Programme at a university in Sweden. The degree project is complicated or a possibility because this university thesis constitutes only one part of the professional degree. The other part of the thesis project, a BA/BSc or MA/MSc, has been acknowledged as previous academic achievement, a required academic qualification for enrolment in the programme. A further difficulty or opportunity is that students' previous theses were achieved in academic disciplines not typically related to teacher education, sometimes several decades ago. This study aimed to visualise the notion of degree project in bridging teacher education. Our initial questions were: Could the transition between academic disciplines be facilitated? Could knowledge of degree project genres be visualised to enhance academic achievement? What is professional development for student teachers? In the actual study, the scope was limited to perspectives of the degree project and suggestions for improvement of degree project design. Thus, in participatory inquiry conversations, small groups of students and lecturers shared their perspectives of the degree project, and provided suggestions for improvement of the project design. Findings from qualitative analysis of the audio recorded data revealed students’ difficulties in conceptualising the writing assignment, mainly due to unpreparedness. Means of addressing the unpreparedness emerged as task-sequencing throughout the study programme, applying an academic literacies approach. Implications for further action research and teaching are participatory inquiry conversations as continual components in the study programme. A further area of potential investigation is application of instructional design theory to degree project supervision.

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• Björklund, S. & Björklund, M. (eds.) (2023). Policy and practice for Multilingual Educational Settings. Comparisons across contexts. Bilingual Education & Bilingualism. Multilingual matters

  2023. Ylva Sandberg. Language Policy 22, 371-373

  Article

  Read more about Björklund, S. & Björklund, M. (eds.) (2023). Policy and practice for Multilingual Educational Settings. Comparisons across contexts. Bilingual Education & Bilingualism. Multilingual matters

• Mötet kurslärare - handledare i VFU: Handledares perspektiv på handledning och samverkan

  2022. Karin Boberg, Olle Fritzell, Ylva Sandberg. NU2022.

  Conference

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• Utveckling av trepartssamtal inom kompletterande pedagogisk utveckling (KPU)

  2020. Veronica Flodin (et al.).

  Conference

  Trepartssamtalet, dvs ett samtal mellan kurslärare, student och VFU-handledare, är en central del i den verksamhetsförlagda utbildningen (VFU), och dessutom ett av få tillfällen i hela lärarutbildningen där campus, student och skola möts. Studenterna lyfter fram trepartssamtalet i kursutvärderingar som ett av de viktigaste inslagen under utbildningen. Men trepartssamtalet är också kostsamt på olika sätt. Det kostar i tid att resa ut till skolorna och det behövs också många lärare att bemanna dem. Det är därför viktigt att utveckla och utforska olika former för samtal i VFU som inte är en ren minskning av kvalitet, utan kan vara en form som gynnar studenternas lärande. Projektet omfattar två delstudier där I) studerar digitala trepartssamtal och II) studerar trepartssamtal i grupp. Delprojekt I) är en erfarenhetsbaserad studie där vi jämför våra resultat med till exempel Karlstads universitet som har lärarutbildning (och därmed trepartssamtal) på distans (Johansson och Johansson, 2018). Delprojekt II) innebär trepartssamtal med studentpar, och genomförs som en möjlig aktivitet inom klustren i den nya VFU-organisationen. Studier har visat att studenter som gör VFU i par eller grupp har möjlighet att genom gemensam planering och gemensamma reflektioner hitta kopplingar mellan den egna undervisningen och innehållet i de lästa kurserna (Cavanagh & McMaster, 2015; Manuchechrie, 2002). Delprojekt II sker också i samverkan med VFU-kursansvariga vid institutionerna HSD och ISD.Under paneldiskussionen kommer vi presentera resultaten i de olika delprojekten, vad vi har lärt oss och vilka utmaningar som vi kan ställas inför, till exempel:•Tekniska krav och hantering av GDPR•Krav på stödstrukturer, till exempel digitala verktyg, gott samarbete med VFU-sekretariatet för placeringar och med lärare i övriga kurser•Pedagogiska anpassningar av kursuppgifter och rutiner för samtalet•Studenters och lärares engagemang och medverkan i projektet•Att både få komma tillbaka till engagerade handledare, och att skala upp erfarenheter till att omfatta fler utbildningarReferenser: Cavanagh, M., & McMaster, H. (2015). A professional experience learning community for secondary mathematics: developing pre-service teachers’ reflective practice. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 27(4), 471-490.Johansson , M. & Johansson L.E. (2018). Verksamhetsförlagd utbildning inom professionsutbildning - utvecklings- och forskningsprojekt från sjuksköterskeprogrammet och lärarutbildningen. Rapport, Karlstad universitet nr 2018:2Manouchehri, A. (2002). Developing teaching knowledge through peer discourse. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(6), 715–737.

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• Flipping the Classroom with Routine and Innovation

  2020. Mara Haslam, Oliver Smith, Ylva Sandberg. Teaching, Technology, and Teacher Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic, 465-472

  Chapter

  This chapter discusses experiences with online teaching in pre-service teacher education. During a ten-week course for future primary school teachers of English in February-May 2020 a flipped classroom course design with seminars on campus was suddenly shifted to distance education. Our teacher response to the situation encompassed three main areas: increased flexibility, increased student autonomy, and development of innovative repertoires of formative assessment. Our recommendations include that teachers should look for ways to build on proven physical classroom strategies in the digital environment.

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• Identification of linguistic spaces

  2020. Ylva Sandberg.

  Conference

  The present paper investigates content-teacher fluency in bilingual classrooms. Adopting a CLIL teaching literacy perspective (Sandberg, 2019), building on the Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990) and the concept of grammatical metaphor (Magnusson, 2011), the aim of the study is to describe, explain and reflect on content-teachers’ conceptualisation of school-related, academic language (Lindberg, 2009) in bilingual classrooms. In the investigation, content teachers working in bilingual high school study programmes were observed and interviewed. In the emerging data, the professionals demonstrated notions of content teaching through two languages at times as gap-filling activities. As experts in their field, they expressed no anxiety as to the content areas to be taught. Rather, the linguistic wrapping was found to be an obstacle. From time to time, the teachers had to search for words to describe and explain pronomena. They found elaborations on topics difficult because they did not to a great extent know what school-related, academic language to use. Moreover, the teachers could not teach their students to use this language because they were not aware when and how to approach this language. It became clear that they did not have enough knowledge, or terminology, to address the linguistic side of the phenomena they were focusing on in their teaching. With the Nocting Hypohtesis in mind, the content teachers could be alerted to the linguistic spaces that mediate the learning and teaching of content areas in the school subjects. Learning to identify words and phrases as grammatical metaphors that be unpacked before continuing, the fluency of teacher language could be enhanced, and thus the learning potential for the students could increase. For teachers and learners in classrooms where several languages are at work, language awareness is likely to evolve implicitly. For significant improvement in CLIL teacher fluency, however, and for potential success in student learning, explicit attention to linguistic features is necessary, As shown in the study, the Noticing Hypotheis is to be noticed in the development of CLIL teaching literacy, and grammatical metaphor could be a helpful mediator in this process.

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• Teaching and Learning Content through Two Languages

  2019. Ylva Sandberg. Investigating Content and Language Integrated Learning, 298-314

  Chapter

  The present qualitative study focuses content teachers’ reflections on language practices in CLIL biology and history. Building on theory from teacher cognition and bilingual education, the study aims to document and interpret the teachers’ descriptions of, and motivations to, bilingual practices in the CLIL strand at their school. The study encompasses semi-structured interviews with eight teachers at three different upper secondary schools, four biology and four history teachers, and the data were collected over a two-year period. The analyses were thematic and adopted a constant comparative approach. Overall, findings show that English and Swedish co-exist as resources for teaching and learning in CLIL biology and history. More specifically, teachers’ motivations to language use could be related to two themes: access to study material and adaptation to student group. Following a discussion of the results, the study concludes with recommendations for teaching and implications for further research.  

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• Bilingual subject-specific literacies? Teachers' and learners' views and experiences of two school languages in biology, civics, history and mathematics

  2018. Ylva Sandberg (et al.).

  Thesis (Lic)

  This licentiate thesis investigates teachers’ and students’ cognitions of bilingual subject-specific literacies. The thesis builds on three different studies, referred to as case studies, conducted in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) study programmes in the Swedish upper secondary school. Participants’ views and experiences of two languages of schooling, English and Swedish, were elicited in interviews, and analysed thematically. To gain understanding of the three studies in combination, a further analytical framework was developed and tested. In this analysis, participants’ descriptions, explanations and reflections on teaching and learning curriculum content bilingually emerged as three-dimensional discourses.

  In the first study, new and experienced teachers’ challenges and strategies were in focus. The biology and civics teachers, who were new teachers, and new to CLIL, found teaching through the second language of schooling, English, time-consuming and demanding. They expressed concern about limited communication and learning in the classroom. The mathematics teachers, who had long teaching experience, and of teaching in the CLIL programme, had developed strategies to meet perceived challenges, for example, they had designed parts of lessons in a monolingual mode, and parts of lessons in a bilingual mode.

  The second study explored intermediate CLIL teachers’ rationales for language choice in teaching. The biology and history teachers found that access to English, as afforded through the CLIL framework, coincided well with the new syllabi for their school subjects. For instance, the history teachers could use web-based study materials in English in class, and found teaching and learning more authentic than in the mainstream, Swedish-speaking, study programmes. The biology teachers mentioned that access to English terminology facilitated the teaching and learning of complex subject-specific content areas. It functioned as a potential source to enhance students’ understanding.

  The third study documented students ́cognitionsof CLIL. The views of upper secondary students studying curriculum content through English were overall positive. However, results showed that their experiences of CLIL varied with school subject. Whereas studying mathematics through English was reported to be conducive to learning and understanding, learning civics through English only, or trying to listen to lectures in civics, where teachers would change languages seemingly without a rationale, were perceived as less conducive to learning.

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Show all publications by Ylva Sandberg at Stockholm University