Aim of this paper is to discuss second language teacher students' encountering with SwedishSchool, mother tongue tuition and second language learning. Trainee teacher students with Swedish as a Second Language have told their life stories. They encountered the Swedish school and the Swedish language and in the 1990s.

A narrative analysis shows that those teacher students' received tuition in their mother tongues when they encountered SwedishSchool. Mother tongue in school was positive for their continued linguistic development. Good skills in the mother tongue are transferred to the second language and it became much easier to continue developing a second language when skills in their mother tongue improved. The respondents' mother tongue was very important for the development of bilingualism or multilingualism. When the skills in their mother tongue increased, they became aware of the fact that they could switch between their languages.