Building socially sustainable societies through the linguistic and cultural integration of immigrants

The Nordic countries share the ambition of building socially sustainable societies, and to achieve this goal, the inclusion of newcomers – and hence the successful teaching of the Nordic languages as second languages – is a key component. The Nordic welfare societies share several unique traits regarding societal and educational structures, therefore sharing and building knowledge about the Nordic languages as second languages is highly relevant. This project brings together researchers and teacher educators from across the Nordic region who will share ongoing research and development projects from the field of second language teaching and learning in the Nordic countries through on-line seminars and a network meetings. The meetings and seminars will address the following themes: Current issues in second language pedagogies i.e. technology, translanguaging, grammar; the Nordic languages as second languages across the Nordics; the status of the Nordic languages and language policies across the Nordics; the status of minority languages/family languages; innovation in second language teaching and issues of inclusion of second language learners. The network will focus on a comparative Nordic perspective, and the outcomes will include an extensive overview of insights from current research in the Nordic languages as second languages and the different educational models and practices in use in the participating countries. The outcomes will be highly relevant for both teacher educators and their students and will be made accessible to both educators and students, but also constitute a resource for further research and network building both for researchers within and beyond the network.