Transcript Issues for Introducing Early Foreign Language Learning

Issues for Introducing Early Foreign
Language Learning
• No theoretical optimum age to start
teaching
• Early learning of non-mother tongue
should be integrated to other teaching in
primary school
• The main concern in to prepare the ground
for secondary school
• Linguistic and pedagogical skills of the
teachers are the two most important
factors
Conditions to Introduce EYL
• It should be properly planned
• Governments and private institutions must
ensure that adequate resources are
provided
• Evaluation of the learning outcome is
essential since these provide information
on the validity of teaching
AIMS of Introducing EYL
• Psychological preparation (to motivate the
learner, to learn English for fun, to motivate
children to learn English in interesting and fun
ways, and developing awareness of language)
• Linguistic preparation (to develop
communicative competence, develop global and
specific understanding of simple oral texts
related to well known objects)
• Cultural preparation (Showing respectful attitude
towards other languages, their speakers and
their culture)
Questions of Introducing English at
Primary Level
• What are the advantages and the
drawbacks
• Is there an optimum starting age?
• Who will do the teaching and what kind of
training should they have?
• Who will be the teacher trainer?
• What kinds of methodology can be created
which are finely tuned to pupil’s age,
abilities and socio-economic group?
Questions of Introducing English at
Primary Level
• How far is it beneficial to integrate foreign
language learning with the primary curriculum
generally?
• What are the merit of developing language
awareness as well as language competence?
• What kinds of learning outcomes and
achievements can we expect?
• What are the best methods for assessing
language development?
Learning a first language
• Bubbling: from birth to around 8 months
babies can produce a wide range of
noises and sounds
• The first word: At about eleven months
infants put names in their own fashion to
the object and people around them.
During the second year, the earlier random
vocalization begin to take on the aspect of
genuine communication
Learning a first language
• Two words: Between 18 monthsand two years,
they enter a genuinely syntactic phase by
placing two words together (there, look, want,
more, all gone) to create new meaning (there
doggy)
• Syntactic and lexical complexity: between 6 and
12, children continue to expand their reading
vocabulary and to improve their understanding
of words (Tell me your name, Ask me my name)
Learning a first language
• Conversational skills: In interactional
tasks, young children may not know that
they do not understand or that directions
they are given and incomplete and
unclear. Older children are more likely to
realize that something is unclear, try to
identify the problem, and suggest an
alternative. As children get older, they are
more able to take another person’s
perspective
Five Stages before School Age
• First utterances are used to get attention,
direct someone attention to an object or an
event, get something they want, make
request, and simple statements (Doggy
gone). Much meaning is conveyed by
intonation.
• Chidlren begin naming and classifying
things; asking questions using where and
begin to talk about location changing
Five Stages before School Age
• Children ask many different kinds of
questions often using intonation with
statements (Doggy gone Mummy? They
express more complex desire using “I
want”, refer regularly to event in the past,
and can talk about on-going actions using
still of the present continuous (Mummy still
in bed)
Five Stages before School Age
• Children use increasingly complex structure to
make a wide range of request, explain things, or
ask explanations, using why?
• Children can use the language they need to give
information, ask and answer questions, make
direct and indirect requests, make suggestions
and offers, state intentions, and ask about those
of others.
Young Children are Different from
Older Learners because they:
• Have a lot of physical energy and often need to
be physically active
• Have a wide range of emotional needs
• Are emotionally excitable
• Are developing conceptually and are at early
stage of their schooling
• Are still developing literacy in their first language
• Learn more slowly and forget things quickly
• Tend to be self-oriented and preoccupied with
their own world
• Get bored easily
• Are excellent mimics