Foreign language provision at secondary level in Sweden.

The law corresponds to a decision on a coherent Swedish language policy in the Swedish parliament in December of 2005, which, however, in addition to what became the Foreign language provision at secondary level in Sweden 95 SOCIOLINGUISTICA 24/2010 formulation of the law, also assures the opportunity to learn FLs. Members of the association have continuously criticized the "language choice model" on two counts, firstly the fact that a second FL is not a compulsory subject at lower secondary level, and secondly the reality that remedial English/Swedish exists as an alternative to studying a FL. It is not only those involved in teaching foreign languages other than English, but also politicians and school authorities, who are deeply concerned about the future pool of foreign language (FL) resources in Sweden. The learning of a second FL is strongly encouraged and seen as important by Swedish authorities, but the instruments for promoting FLs, i.e. the "language choice" at grades six or seven and a more favourable system of merit assessment, seem not to be sufficiently powerful to balance out the limited interest in second FLs among students or the population at large. [Extracted from the article]