Starting age for publicly funded English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) instruction ranges between 6 and 13 inEurope (Källkvist et al., 2025). World-wide and in Europe, more and more countries start as early as 6–7. Interestingly, this goes against research on student proficiency outcomes; in Europe, studies consistently show thatlater starters (10–11 years) perform as well as early starters (age 6–7) when leaving compulsory school (Pfenninger & Singleton, 2017). In light of this tension between educational language policy and evidence, we areconducting a systematic literature review of empirical studies examining the effect of starting age of formal EFLteaching world-wide. Like other systematic reviews, we aim to provide a synthesis “of the state of knowledge ina field” (Page et al., 2021, p. 1). Importantly, our systematic review goes beyond studies of EFL proficiency outcomes by also including research that takes a holistic approach (Pfenninger & Singleton, 2017) to EFL teachingand learning, paying attention also to student and teacher perceptions, experiences and beliefs. Relying on thePreferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines (Page et al., 2021), fivedata bases were searched around the domains of English as a second/foreign language instruction AND education* policy AND start* age OR early start*, resulting in 1,097 records, then reduced to 33 following removalsof duplicates and off-topic records. Included studies are empirical, using starting age of EFL formal educationas one variable and represent contexts across the globe. In this paper, we address three questions: 1) Whatgeopolitical areas are covered in the research reviewed?, 2) What is the reported starting age in these contexts?,and 3) What are the findings as to a) student proficiency outcomes and b) any other variables in studies taking aholistic approach?

In this session, we present the potential contribution of nexus analysis (NA, Scollon & Scollon 2004) to the study of language ideologies (LIs) as discourse in social action. NA is a change-oriented, ethnographic discourse analytical method that centers the analyst’s focus on social action (Scollon & Scollon 2004; Hult 2015, 2017, 2019). It maintains that language is an important mediational means that enables and shapes social practices, and that three cycles of discourse intersect to form a nexus of practice: the historical body of those involved, the discourses in place in and around the site of the action, and the interaction order that governs the social arrangement of actors.

LIs, as any set of beliefs about language(s) manifested socially in a specific site, or nexus, may be traced in one, two or all three discourse cycles: data may reveal LI(s) embodied in the interlocutors’ historical bodies, such as their observed habits in the nexus studied; discourses in place are brought into the nexus of practice from other scales (Blommaert 2007), defined here as hierarchical and stratified social structures; third, in the interaction order, a nexus analyst may, through ethnographic engagement, trace LIs that manifest in the power relations in the site.

We provide two recent, brief but illustrative examples of nexus analyses, one from the nexus of a vaccination appointment in a clinic in Kazakhstan, and the other from the nexus of an EFL teacher and mentor interacting with her multilingual, multicultural high school students in Sweden. The Kazakhstan example illustrates a social action that mediates state-promoted ideology of “pure Kazakh”, whereas the Swedish example depicts the embodiment of the teacher/mentor’s ideology of the need for Swedish-English bilingualism for success in Swedish education. We conclude by relating these two manifestations of LI to the three discourse dimensions of NA.

This paper presents a systematic literature review of studies about the starting age of formal L2 English language teaching world-wide ("L2" = English as a foreign, second, third etc. language). Like other systematic reviews, the aim is to provide a synthesis "of the state of knowledge in a field" (Page et al., 2021,  p. 1) by mapping empirical research on starting age and understanding the grounds of policy decisions regarding starting age of L2 English teaching. Included studies were about a) educational policy on starting age, or b) empirical studies about L2 English language learning aiming to inform policy on starting age, or both. Initial searches revealed that existing systematic reviews of L2 English teaching in schools (e.g., Butler, 2015; Liang et al., 2024; Porto et al., 2021) are restricted geographically and do not focus on starting age in formal education. This, coupled with increasing expectations that educational policy be evidence-based (Baker & Wright, 2021), led to three research questions (RQs): 1) What parts of the world are covered in published studies on the starting age of formal L2 English language teaching?; 2) What is the reported starting age of L2 English in formal education in contexts studied?; and 3) What do the studies inform us about policy and its relation to empirical evidence? Relying on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines (Page et al., 2021), five data bases were searched around the domains of English as a second/foreign language instruction AND education* policy AND start* age OR early start*, resulting in 1,097 records, reduced to 92 following removals of duplicates and off-topic records. Addressing the RQs requires content analysis (Bryman, 2016) of selected studies, using deductive analysis for RQs 1 and 2, and inductive analysis for RQ3. Analysis is currently ongoing and results pertaining to the RQs form the focus of the presentation.

Engelska är både mål och verktyg i svensk utbildning. Den här boken ger en överskådlig bild av vad vi faktiskt vet – och vad vi fortfarande inte vet – om engelska som målspråk och som undervisningsspråk, från förskola till högre utbildning. I boken samlas forskning, styrdokument och praktik för att visa att delarna hänger ihop. Målet är att knyta ihop ett område som ofta upplevs som splittrat och att göra det lättare att se hur språkval, uppgifter och interaktion i klassrummet påverkar elevers lärande i och genom engelska.

This presentation is part of a larger project that aims to gain an in-depth understanding of disciplinary literacy in primaryschool teacher education in Sweden, including for example teacher educators’ beliefs about literacy practices. In thepresentation we will discuss the results from a sub-study of three teacher educators’ talk about literacy in relation totheir teaching practice and about students’ writing in their respective discipline, namely biology, Swedish (comparativeliterature) and mathematics. Nexus analysis, based on mediated discourse theory (Scollon & Scollon 2004), is used asthe analytic framework focusing on the concepts of ‘social action’, ‘historical body’ and ‘discourse in place’. Drawingon dialogical interviewing principles (Way et al. 2015), semi-structured interviews were conducted on Zoom at auniversity in the south of Sweden. Analysis revealed clashes between the historical body of the participants and thediscourses in place due to the intricate web of literacies and interdisciplinary fields that teacher educators need tonavigate. We argue that this type of meta-methodological perspective, in which the social actions of the participantscome to the fore, can clarify the complex connections inherent in literacy practices as opposed to common proceduresin the field such as think-aloud protocols and expert-novice distinctions.

References

Way, A., Kanak Zwier, R., & Tracy, S. J. (2015). Dialogic Interviewing and Flickers of Transformation: An Examination and Delineation of Interactional Strategies That Promote Participant Self-Reflexivity. Qualitative Inquiry,21(8), 720–731.

Scollon, R. & Scollon, S.W. (2004). Nexus Analysis. Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London & New York:Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

An increasingly globalised world has led to great language diversity in institutional settings. Sweden is no exception; 3 of 10 students in compulsory school have a migrant background. Increased diversity may result in challenges, e.g. knowing how to balance the use of the target language with other languages represented among the students to facilitate learning and interaction. As educational policy documents for Swedish schools offer little guidance, teachers of English as a foreign/second language (L2) are left to their own devices regarding what language(s) to draw on in instruction. With the aim of developing an empirical knowledge base about teacher beliefs and practices in multilingual L2 English classrooms in Sweden, a web-based questionnaire was distributed to a stratified random sample representative of secondary-school teachers (N = 139). The questionnaire was designed to target six salient constructs related to multilingual teaching/learning conditions. Quantitative data analyses revealed that although multilingualism is perceived as a resource, there was greater variation in teachers’ perceptions of the role of students’ L1s in learning and teaching, and whether to exclusively use English when teaching. Furthermore, the participants strongly support the Swedish policy of offering mother-tongue instruction at school, which has been in place over the past five decades.