The implementation of foreign languages in preschool education has prompted the need for qualified teachers. However, most recent studies report a gap between the supply of qualified foreign language teachers of young learners and the demand for such teachers as foreign languages are introduced earlier and earlier. The authors of this paper present some models of initial and in-service training of preschool foreign language teachers in Slovenia. As learners’ beliefs about language learning have been considered an important variable, like many other individual differences in language learning, the main aim of the research was to determine pre-service preschool teachers’ beliefs about early foreign language learning. The research was conducted on a sample of 90 pre-service preschool teachers. The results imply that future preschool teachers are aware of the importance of foreign language learning and their awareness raises with the year of study. The results of the survey indicate that it would be beneficial to include early foreign language teacher training in the education of preschool teachers who are willing to teach foreign languages in kindergartens in Slovenia and elsewhere.
Despite the fact that English is taught as a foreign language in schools from an early age, students often face difficulties when it comes to the development of their writing skills. This paper aims at exploring teachers’ perceptions regarding the development of the writing skills of elementary and secondary school EFL learners. Altogether, 85 Kosovar teachers were included in the survey. Even though the teachers believe that writing is important, they do not give the same emphasis to developing it as to other skills. According to their responses, some common difficulties learners experience while writing are a lack of vocabulary, writing anxiety, lack of ideas, mother tongue interference, grammar difficulties, weak structure organization and poor spelling. The teachers suggest that these difficulties might stem from a lack of reading and writing practice, ineffective teaching methods and low motivation for writing. We recommend various actions, such as teacher development courses to help them acquire more effective strategies of teaching writing, increased writing practice in the classroom, and the use of different learning strategies to meet all students’ needs.
The article reports the findings of a survey, conducted among primary school English language teachers in Slovenia, aimed at revealing their attitudes towards the use of narratives in teaching English as a foreign language to children aged from eight to nine years (3 rd and 4 th grades respectively). The research results show that most teachers use narratives when teaching English, generally once or twice per month, and that teachers who do not use a course book in the classroom employ storytelling or story reading techniques more frequently than teachers who follow a course book in their teaching. Despite the fact that the teachers participating in the study are aware of the importance of narratives in teaching English as a foreign language to young learners, there is still a lot to be done concerning the selection of the narratives, the narrating techniques and the post-narration activities. Proper teacher training for teaching a foreign language to young learners could address most of these issues.Keywords: narratives in foreign language teaching, young language learners, English as a foreign language
In recent years, there has been an increased focus on the teaching of reading to children, and the development of their literacy skills in their mother tongue and foreign languages.The theoretical part of the article introduces literacy, and its role within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Literacy is part of the linguistic competences (particularly phonological, orthographic and orthoepic competences) that need to be acquired for successful communication. Unlike Slovene, English is a language with deep orthography, therefore, the development of literacy skills in English poses a considerable challenge to Slovenian learners. In the empirical part of the article, course books used for teaching English in the second cycle of Slovenian primary schools have been analysed with regard to literacy development, especially phonological, orthographic and orthoepic competences. This includes activities for developing orthographic reading skills, phonological and phonemic awareness, and the like. The research has shown that this area is approached to a greater or lesser extent in course books, and that literacy skills are mostly developed in an unprincipled way, without any systematic planning. Finally, a more systematic approach is recommended in developing early literacy skills in English as a foreign language.
<p style="text-align:justify">Foreign language teaching in the Slovenian educational context begins in the first grade (age 6). Many studies report a lack of qualified teachers at this stage of learning around the world and numerous authors emphasise the misconception that basic linguistic and didactic knowledge of teachers is sufficient for teaching children. All three Slovenian public universities are aware of this problem and offer pre-service and in-service programmes for (student) teachers who want to specialise in teaching English to young learners. In the present article, we focus on the subject-specific teacher competences for teaching English in the first three years of primary education; namely, linguistic, subject didactic and intercultural competences. We explore teachers’ self-assessment of these competences and their perception of certain elements pertaining to them. The study seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) What subject-specific competences do teachers consider essential for teaching English in the first cycle of primary education? (2) To what extent do teachers believe they have developed certain subject-specific competences? (3) What are teachers’ attitudes toward certain subject-specific competences that the teacher needs for teaching English in the first cycle of primary education? The results of the quantitative survey, in which 100 teachers participated, show that teachers perceive their subject didactic competence to be the most developed and their intercultural competence to be the least developed. Moreover, they consider that a basic level of English is not sufficient for teaching English in the first grades.</p>
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