the number of minority students attending Norwegian schools.
In order for a minority student to function in the regular classroom, changes have been made
to the way teaching a second language was conducted in America. These changes included
the manifestation of English as a second language (ESL) standards that had to be reflected in
the school’s ESL curriculum. Complementing this, in order to improve second language
teaching, the Norwegian school system had to make changes to the politics regarding school
and the way it includes students with diverse backgrounds, after experiencing an increase in
the number of minority students attending Norwegian schools. Based on this, both America
and Norway are countries with great experience within the field of second language teaching
and were chosen as target countries for this thesis of which the main topic is methods for
teaching a second language.
A qualitative approach was used during the research period for this thesis. Interviews
with both English as a second language (ESL) teachers and Norwegian as a second language
(NL2) teachers were conducted, in addition to interviews with students from both schools. A
total of 6 teachers and 10 students were interviewed. Complementing the interviews,
observations of multiple ESL and NL2 lessons were also conducted. The results of the
interviews were compared between the schools and discussed in light of the theory.