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This article builds on a study set within the Swedish educational system and focuses on lower secondary teachers’ use of national test results when awarding final grades of English as a foreign language (EFL). In Sweden, teachers are entrusted with the responsibility of assessing their own students’ competences as well as assigning grades. To support them, there are compulsory national tests to be used as important advisory tools; however, they are not exams in a strict decisive sense. After a brief contextualization and conceptualization regarding language education in Sweden, including the assessment, teachers’ somewhat contradictory perceptions and use of results from the national EFL test for 11–12-year-olds are described and discussed. Data emanate from large-scale teacher questionnaires conducted for three years (2013, 2016 and 2019), which are analyzed from quantitative as well as qualitative angles. Results indicate that a number of teachers struggle with factors related to the language construct as well as to the educational context and consequences at individual, pedagogical and structural levels. This is discussed from various angles, linked not least to the policy, curriculum and other frame factors. Furthermore, the need for further research in direct collaboration with teachers is emphasized.

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This article surveys doctoral dissertations in language education written in Sweden over the ten years from 2000 to 2009. The survey concentrates on foreign languages. 23 dissertations are studied, 12 dealing with English, five with French, two with German, one with Spanish, one with Italian, and two with no specific language. Eighteen of the dissertations principally deal with years seven to nine of primary/lower-secondary school and with upper-secondary school, two deal with language studies at university level, and one deals with upper-secondary school and university. The article ends with a short follow-up on the researchers surveyed and the research they have conducted since writing their dissertations. The contents of the dissertations allow six overall research themes to be discerned: The concept of culture, Assessment of students’ oral and written proficiencies, Error analysis and transfer, English outside the English classroom, The professional practice of teachers and Language acquisition.