When teaching foreign languages to very young learners, motivation is an issue that needs to be taken into account even more than in the case of any other age group. Teaching materials and students’ textbooks used in schools and preschools, however carefully crafted, often fail to cater for the genuine interests of children and to invoke intrinsic motivation for learning. This article aims to examine whether centring teaching around authentic media material, such as popular cartoons, and the accompanying branded toys, affects the level of second language (L2) knowledge and motivation for learning. The ‘one environment – one language’ approach was developed for this case study, which focuses on the learning progression of one four-year-old during the period of 18 months. The results speak in favour of using this approach both in kindergarten settings, exploiting role play with playschool character toys, as well as in home settings, where family characters can be used to connect home and preschool environments.
The paper studies attitudes of teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) towards inclusion of children with special educational needs (SEN) in Serbian mainstream schools. The participants were 96 primary teachers of English with diverse experience in teaching inclusive EFL classes. The results showed that most of the respondents (N=84. i.e. 87.5%) had negative attitudes towards inclusion, due to both the lack of competences and to the absence of adequate conditions for effective inclusive practice: only 29.16% of the respondents claimed they had been specially trained to teach SEN children; 69.79% reported the availability of SEN teams in school, but most of them claimed that the teams met irregularly; only 27.08% (N=26) reported having a classroom assistant in school; most of the respondents (N=89, i.e. 92.7%) expressed their concerns related to a number of challenges they faced in daily work. Considering the fact that teachers are the key to supporting the process of inclusion, and that positive attitude is a predictor of success in inclusive teaching, the change of Serbian EFL teachers' negative attitudes towards inclusion is of great importance. This can be achieved by providing adequate pre-service and in-service education of EFL teachers, and by improving the conditions in our schools.
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