In 1995 Sweden introduced a new curriculum for compulsory school (Lpo 94). A new grading system was also introduced, but criteria for assessment were given only for the final marks. For the term marks schools were supposed to set up their own criteria. In my research I study the historical background to the Swedish grading system and how teachers from schools interpreted the new ideas in the curriculum in their local plans and criteria for assessment for school year eight for three different subjects: English, Chemistry and Physical Education. Two kinds of documents are analyzed in this study. The first category is “official documents”, the curricula and syllabuses used in Swedish compulsory school from its start in 1842 up to the present day, as well as inquiries and reports that deal with the question of grading. The second category is “local documents”, local plans and criteria for assessment. School grades have been known in Sweden since the 16th century. From the beginning the grades were personal comments from the teachers, later the syllabuses stated more precisely the contents that were to be taught and the grading system became more regulated. This was a gradual development that went on until the 1970s. In Lpo 94 objectives were provided by the state, while local authorities, schools and teachers were to decide how to reach the objectives. The examination of the plans and criteria for school year eight shows in short: • More schools 2005 than 1996 have used the central syllabuses for school year nine and made minor changes to fit school year eight. • In the documents from several schools there is no correspondence between the plans and the criteria. The goals set up in the plans do not have equivalents in the criteria. • The documents put high demands on the readers either to be well acquainted with the grading system or to find their own information. • The local documents have clearly been written by the teachers. The Compulsory School Ordinance states that pupils and parents should be involved in the work. This, however, does not seem to be the case. • Many schools seem to have lowered their demands for the grade Passed from 1996 to 2005. In some schools the demands are so low that in practice it seems as if the pupils are more or less guaranteed to get a Passed as long as they attend the lessons. When the parliament decided upon a new grading system there seem to have been no discussions about how goal-referenced grading was supposed to work when there were no goals or objectives. That was left to the schools or teachers to solve. What happened then was that the groups of teachers wrote their own criteria. The idea that teachers and pupils should do this work together was never put into practice. The decentralization of the Swedish school has, as far as grading is concerned, led to an increase in the power of the teachers, while the pupils are still excluded from decision making.

When the new curriculum for Swedish compulsory school (Lpo 94) and a new grading system were introduced, criteria for assessment were given only for the final marks. For the term marks schools were supposed to set up their own criteria. Originally the school authorities gave no reasons why teachers should do this, but gradually some reasons appeared in various school documents. One reason was that if the criteria were created locally it would give opportunities for teachers and learners to discuss the learning goals in the classroom, and there would also be discussions between colleagues about teaching, learning and assessment. Another reason was that this way the system would be clear to the learners so they would know what was required of them. In my research I study how teachers from 93 different schools interpreted the new ideas in the curriculum in their local plans and criteria for assessment for three different subjects: English, Chemistry and Physical Education. The first part of the study shows that when local criteria were first set up, the learners had not been involved, and the system was not presented clear enough for them to understand the contents. Neither had there been any in-depth discussions in the staff rooms about assessment. In many cases the language of the documents is such that both pupils and parents must find it very difficult to understand what is required in order to achieve a certain mark. One reason for this is, in my opinion, that teachers never quite understood why they should draw up local school plans and criteria, nor did they realize the difference between national and local criteria. In part two of the study the focus is on one subject, English. What research and what new ideas had made their way into the English syllabus and how were they interpreted in the local documents? It turns out, however, that only few schools had integrated the most significant new ideas, like learner influence and intercultural competence in their goals and criteria. The most characteristic feature was rather that many schools created new goals for English. Most frequent were criteria that had to do with grammar. More than half of the schools presented a number of criteria for grammar skills, while in the syllabus grammar is only mentioned once. The reason why grammar is so heavily emphasised is probably not that most English teachers in Sweden find grammar the most important aspect of English teaching. I would rather suspect that quite a few teachers did not have any strategies when they were given the task to formulate criteria, something they had never done before. Instead of starting by asking the obvious question “What are the most important aspects of my subject?” it seems likely that many teachers started out with the question “What can easily be tested in my subject?” The answer as regards English is of course “grammar”, and so the criteria are full of grammar objectives. Obviously the teachers were not properly informed about why they should formulate assessment criteria. They had had very little in-service training about the new syllabus and no training at all to make them better prepared for this task. Consequently they were not prepared to interpret the new ideas that were presented in Lpo 94.

The Danish Evaluation Institute, EVA, is an independent institution under the Danish Ministry of Education. EVA initiates and conducts evaluations of teaching and learning - from pre-school to post-graduate education. In 2003 English as a subject in Danish primary and lower secondary schools was evaluated. The report of this evaluation deals with four key issues. The first is a description of the teaching, its organisation and implementation and the pupils’ experience of the educational practices. The second issue focuses on how English teachers and schools have put into practice the obligation to make evaluation form the basis for guiding the individual pupil and planning the teaching. The third issue deals with the significance of the learning environment, and the fourth examines how the school management and the municipal authorities safeguard their responsibility for the teaching. Each of the issues is summarised in recommendations aimed at the parts involved from the Ministry of Education to the individual English teacher. The overall expression is that the teaching of English is characterised by a professional commitment from the teachers and a strong focus on developing the pupils’ communication skills. However, this is not supported by a systematic use of English as the classroom language. Furthermore, the work with language, use of language and language acquisition only play a small part of the teaching. The pupils are motivated to learn English and appriciete the work of their teachers, but call for more authentic material, more influence in the teaching process and more variation of the teaching.

When the Swedish nine-year compulsory school got new curricula and syllabi in 1994, the concept of Language Choice was introduced. All pupils will be offered to study a Modern Language: German, French or Spanish. Besides the Modern Languages the schools need to offer further English or Swedish. Pupils with another native language than Swedish are given the possibility instead to choose their native language or Swedish as a second language. Rather soon after the introduction of new curricula and syllabi it became apparent that there were a great number of pupils who chose to study Swedish or English. Many schools also made the two subjects into only one Language Choice, but even though this has become the largest Language Choice alternative it is, perhaps, the part of the compulsory school that has been most anonymous. We have analyzed the Language Choice alternative of Swedish - English. The purpose of the mapping is to get answers to uestions like • How is the Language Choice in Swedish and/or English organized? • Which are the contents of the teaching in the Language Choice of SwEng? • Does SwEng lead to an improvement of Swedish and English for the pupils who choose it? • When and why do pupils drop out of Modern Languages? • What do the pupils, teachers and principals think about SwEng? • How have the inspections of the National Swedish Agency for Education commented upon local variants of Language Choice organizations? • How has the organization of Optional Subjects in the nine-year compulsory school developed? To get answers to these questions we have carried out five types of data acquisitions: • An electronic survey has been carried out. 124 principals gaive answers to questions about how the Language Choice of Swedish/English is organized around the country. • We have carried out in-depth interviews with principals, teachers of Modern Languages, teachers of SwEng and pupils at eight schools which have been chosen to show a cross-section of the nine-year compulsory schools of the country. • The statistical material of the National Swedish Agency for Education has been studied to get answers to questions about how and when the pupils choose different Language Choice alternatives. • A study of the inspection reports made by the National Swedish Agency for Education has been carried out to examine report comments concerning the Language Choice. • We have studied school historical documents from the time when the trial with the comprehensive school started from 1949 till our days, to be able to describe the historical background regarding the history of Optional Subjects – and the role of languages in the nine-year compulsory school. The results show an activity not only lacking a name but also an identity.