Despite a Language Act (2009) that protects the Swedish language (SOU 2009:600), influences from English are increasing on a regular basis much due to the Internet, movies, and TV. Young people grow up as “digital natives” (Prensky 2001) and learn English in an informal context at a very young age (Cabau 2009). However, not all young people watch movies in the English language and partake in participatory cultures, for example, read and write blogs, take an active part in discussion forums online, or write English fan fiction. As a result of the discrepancy between those students who use English to a great extent through, for example, frequently playing computer games and those students who do not use the English language at all outside a school context, a Swedish classroom contains students of highly diverse knowledge concerning the English language, in this paper referred to as diversity and the diverse classroom. English teachers are thus required to juggle an exceedingly diverse class.

The study presented in this paper aims to explore in what ways teachers at upper secondary level (grade 10-12) work in a heterogeneous classroom with particular focus on the students’ diverse knowledge of the English language. Presumably, this phenomenon does not differ that much from the situation in other countries where English is taught as a second language and is a highly influential language. Hence, this study has implications for teacher educators and teachers of English as a second language on a global scale