The aim of the present poster board proposal is to introduce new pathways in pedagogy and language in higher education concerning the teaching of Swedish as a foreign language. Five universities in the Baltic-Scandinavian region initiated a project called ”One step toward Sweden”, running from 2013 to 2016, financed by the Nordic Council. The five universities are the University of Daugavpils in Latvia, University of Klaipeda in Lithuania, University of Tallinn in Estonia, Turku University of Applied Science in Finland and University of Gävle in Sweden.

The primary purpose of the project is to develop educational materials for teaching the Swedish language, culture, literature and social life. The material will be developed specifically for young people in the Baltic region among whom the interest for the Swedish language and culture is increasing. Ten chapters will be outlined, centered around themes which are easily accessible for young people, relating to real life situations and containing natural dialogue. All chapters will be associated with a sound file containing natural speech of different speech genres (formal and informal for example). The teaching material will primarily be made accessible digitally, and will be made available free of charge.

A second purpose of the project is to create an innovative network for cooperation within the field of teaching Swedish as a foreign language between the teachers and researchers of the universities participating in the project. The project will stimulate student and teacher mobility and enable the implementation of technology in foreign language teaching.