Joanna Rokita-Jaśkow - Böcker

Acknowledging the differing motivations between multilingual and monolingual societies in advocating for the adoption of a second language amongst (pre)primary school children, this book discusses universal challenges in implementing early language teaching in various international contexts.Effectively teaching additional languages to young learners requires an understanding of their learning capacities, as well as their socio-linguistic backgrounds and linguistic repertoires. Demonstrating findings from global contexts such as those from Japan, Cyprus, Spain, Poland, Slovenia, Germany, South Korea, Croatia, Indonesia, Canada, and the UK, this book provides valuable means to support additional language acquisition that have garnered local success, focusing on plurilingual contexts, migrant populations, and the need for samples of ELL syllabi, outcomes and assessment. Through cross-sectional surveys, ethnographic small-scale studies and experimental empirical research reports, this book looks to foster future plurilingual individuals who can communicate successfully.This book will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of Bilingualism/ESL, teaching and learning, early childhood education and education policy. Curriculum designers working in international language education contexts may also find this volume of use.

This book provides a holistic overview of what leads to success in foreign language learning at an early age and deepens our understanding of early foreign language learning. The studies use an array of methodological approaches to research learners aged between three and ten, as well as their parents and teachers, in instructional, minimal-input settings. They describe various ways of organising and promoting very early foreign language learning, both through language policy and innovative pedagogy, and focus on ways of providing input for second language acquisition, which include oral classroom discourse strategies, as well as learner development of literacy skills. Special attention is given to the necessity to develop critical reading skills, the ability to handle multimodal texts, and attitudes, motivations and behaviours and how these may impact on the teaching and learning process. Chapters emphasise that ultimate outcomes depend on extra linguistic environmental factors, such as parental involvement and teacher competences. These include establishing control in the classroom, as well as using appropriate strategies for Negotiation of Meaning, and helping learners build positive self-concept. This book will be of interest to all professionals involved in the teaching of foreign languages to young learners, as well as to researchers, teacher educators and students working in this area.

This book provides a holistic overview of what leads to success in foreign language learning at an early age and deepens our understanding of early foreign language learning. The studies use an array of methodological approaches to research learners aged between three and ten, as well as their parents and teachers, in instructional, minimal-input settings. They describe various ways of organising and promoting very early foreign language learning, both through language policy and innovative pedagogy, and focus on ways of providing input for second language acquisition, which include oral classroom discourse strategies, as well as learner development of literacy skills. Special attention is given to the necessity to develop critical reading skills, the ability to handle multimodal texts, and attitudes, motivations and behaviours and how these may impact on the teaching and learning process. Chapters emphasise that ultimate outcomes depend on extra linguistic environmental factors, such as parental involvement and teacher competences. These include establishing control in the classroom, as well as using appropriate strategies for Negotiation of Meaning, and helping learners build positive self-concept. This book will be of interest to all professionals involved in the teaching of foreign languages to young learners, as well as to researchers, teacher educators and students working in this area.

This book synthesises research on very early language learning in pre-primary organised instruction settings such as kindergarten, nursery or afternoon classes. Using a framework of ecological development, it investigates the nested systems in which very young learners operate, the other agents involved in each of these systems and the influence these agents have on children’s foreign language learning. It explores the ecosystems of the individual learner and their family, educational institutions, general social climate and language education policies, resulting in a holistic view of early language learning and the key transitions into and out of pre-primary formal instruction settings. This is the first book to gather research to date on very young learners in formal settings, offering a comprehensive state of the art to researchers and graduate students in early language learning, second language acquisition and early years pedagogy.

This book synthesises research on very early language learning in pre-primary organised instruction settings such as kindergarten, nursery or afternoon classes. Using a framework of ecological development, it investigates the nested systems in which very young learners operate, the other agents involved in each of these systems and the influence these agents have on children’s foreign language learning. It explores the ecosystems of the individual learner and their family, educational institutions, general social climate and language education policies, resulting in a holistic view of early language learning and the key transitions into and out of pre-primary formal instruction settings. This is the first book to gather research to date on very young learners in formal settings, offering a comprehensive state of the art to researchers and graduate students in early language learning, second language acquisition and early years pedagogy.

This book has been constructed on the premise that heterogeneity, first, concerns young language learners, who due to the disparity in the pace of development need appropriately tailored educational solutions, and, second, it refers to a diversity of contexts in which learning takes place.