Blossoming in English: Preschool Children’s Emergent Literacy Skills in English

Lucas, Carmen; Hood, Philip; Coyle, Doreen

doi:10.1080/02568543.2020.1742256

Cited by 14 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Several qualitative studies in various settings underscore these results (Alstad & Tkachenko, 2018;Boyd & Ottesjö, 2016;Elvin et al, 2007;Lucas et al, 2020). They suggest that exposure to a foreign language could lead to positive transfer in the first language (Lucas et al, 2020), increased majority and first language use of children with a migration background (Alstad & Tkachenko, 2018), and awareness of distinctive linguistic features of the majority and foreign language (Boyd & Ottesjö, 2016;Elvin et al, 2007). The only study that reported slower development of other languages, in this case the first language, was conducted at an English-only centre (Lin & Johnson, 2016).…”

Section: Development Of Other Languagesmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…This might be linked to the young age of children, in which they are also still developing their first language. Negative effects were generally not reported in the studies looking into children's development of the majority and first language (Alstad & Tkachenko, 2018;Bergström et al, 2016;Boyd & Ottesjö, 2016;Ferjan Ramírez & Kuhl, 2017Lucas et al, 2020;Takahashi et al, 2011). However, one study suggested that exposure to the first language at preschool was important for children to develop school-related vocabulary in this language (Lin & Johnson, 2016).…”

Section: Summary Of Review Findingsmentioning

confidence: 98%

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The effects of foreign language programmes in early childhood education and care: a systematic review

Thieme

Hanekamp

Andringa

et al. 2021

Language, Culture and Curriculum

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This systematic review investigates the effects of foreign language programmes in early childhood education and care (ECEC), which are increasingly popular. Foreign language ECEC centres familiarise very young children with a foreign language, and in general also expose them to the majority language. This review synthesises research on the effects of foreign language ECEC on children's development of the foreign language, majority language, first language, and wellbeing, as well as programmerelated and child-related factors that influence language development and wellbeing. The reviewed studies indicate that foreign language ECEC fosters foreign language development, without negatively impacting the majority and first language. Children can experience positive wellbeing in these programmes, but only if programmes are play-based and if the language policy is not too strict. Some studies report that programme characteristics, such as input quantity, language policy, and teacher strategies, modulate the effects of foreign language ECEC on language development and wellbeing. Few of the reviewed studies examined child characteristics, but the available findings indicate that children's age, as well as their temperament and inclass behaviour, are related to foreign language learning. However, these findings need to be interpreted with caution, because research into foreign language ECEC is still in its infancy.

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Section: Development Of Other Languagesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Summary Of Review Findingsmentioning

confidence: 98%

The effects of foreign language programmes in early childhood education and care: a systematic review

Thieme

Hanekamp

Andringa

et al. 2021

Language, Culture and Curriculum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, how to best approach this "grammatical" dimension within English Language Teaching to Young Learners is a practically unknown element within the EFL Portuguese context and EFL syllabus design (Mourã o, 2018;Lucas, Coyle & Hood, 2020;Lucas, 2020).…”

Section: Second Language Play As a Viable Path To Second Language Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, Krashen further considers that the only instance in which the teaching of grammar can result in language acquisition (and proficiency) is when the students are interested in the subject and the target language is used as a medium of instruction. As a consequence, CLIL under the form of English Across the Curriculum is the ideal situation for English language learners in a monolingual environment, as it is the case of Portugal (Coyle & Hood, 2010;Lucas, Coyle & Hood, 2020;Lucas, 2020). These findings are particularly relevant for the Portuguese context and for primary English language teachers, as they set a viable path to second language acquisition, while preserving students" engagement and motivation within English language learning.…”

Section: A Case Study Reinforcing the View Of Stephen Krashen Towards Theory Of Second Language Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching English to Young Learners: Second Language Acquisition or Foreign Language Learning? – A Case Study

Lucas

2021

WJEL

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A well-known, long-standing and heated debate across the literature concerning applied linguistics is whether within the classroom teachers are dealing with second language acquisition or second language learning. This controversial issue is especially relevant for contexts where English is learned as an English as an Additional Language (EAL) as in Portugal. This is particulalry important at a national level, where English is currently taught as a compulsory subject across primary education, with minimal input.However, the English language curriculum, its pedagogy, and assessment are not anchored on Content for Language and Integrated Learning (CLIL) principles, hence resorting mainly to the students’ mother tongue. As we move towards identifying and synthesizing best pedagogical practices for Teaching English to Young Learners, it is key that we seek a deep understanding of the most effective teaching strategies to foster second language acquisition. As the matter of fact, second language acquisition and overall literacy development have long been considered key to young learners of English, as a strong and solid primary education is critical to ensuring their long-term academic success (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Nonetheless, one major issue concerning primary English langauae teaching is the overwhelming lack of CPD opportunities and research-informed teaching, thus resulting in English language teachers’ unsufficient pedagogical preparation, leading in turn to students’ disengagement within the second language learning process.Therefore, this paper seeks to explore whether exposure to English-only language lessons, through cross-curricular work sets a viable and solid path for second language acquisition in contexts where it is commonly believed that it is only possible to learn English as a set of isolated words.As methodology for the present study there was resort to children’s literature, language games and to an English-only classroom environment to simulate a bilingual education classroom. Within storytelling and cross-curricular work, key vocabulary was taught, hence working the language both at word and sentence level.The findings, based in students’ samples of work, do illustrate pedagogical practices which demonstrate successful second language acquisition, namely morpheme order acquisition, even with minimal exposure to the target language.

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“…As such, children's ability to convey ideas through the printed word is highly emphasized as their success as literacy learners is contingent on their ability to read and write. As early as preschool, young children are building their repertoire of print knowledge and are using emergent writing in the form of drawing, scribbles, letter strings and invented spelling that reflect phonetic principles as part of their transition to conventional forms (Sulzby 1992;Al-Momani et al 2010;Arikan and Taraf 2010;Wedin 2010;Yang and Hua 2010;Al-Mansour and Al-Shorman 2011;Doyle 2013;Lucas et al 2020). In this study, the emergent literacy theoretical constructs are important considering that the participant children had had no previous contact with the foreign language, and as such, the constructs to bear in mind needed to consider how literacy develops both in the native and in the foreign language.…”

Section: Motivation For Developing Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Reading and Writing Connections in Developing Overall L2 Literacy: A Case Study

Lucas

2020

Languages

Self Cite

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This study focused on the characteristics of an action-research study concerning an English language reading and writing intervention program in a primary state school, located in northeast Portugal (low-Socio Economic Status setting), where four groups of children (n = 92) participated in the academic year 2019–2020, after the National strategy for foreign languages was launched. The longitudinal study carried out in the action-research methodology, where the teacher, syllabus designer and researcher was the main author, was set out with two main aims. The first was to tackle and to overcome the lack of teacher training for teaching English to young learners in Portuguese primary schools. The second was to prompt intervention, through the design and implementation of a suitable pedagogic approach for teaching English to young learners, in line with Content for Language and Integrated Learning (CLIL) principles, namely English Across the Curriculum, thus fostering the interrelationships between English language reading and writing skills. The findings of the action-research reading intervention program demonstrate that it is possible to overcome such barriers as pupils’ negative attitudes and counteract the damaging effects of poverty in foreign language literacy development by exposing them to children’s picturebooks/storybooks, thus fostering the overall literacy development. The key concepts explored in these books, being associated with primary key curriculum themes are an effective way to establish clear positive connections among English language reading and writing relationships. In addition, the current study also sheds light on how primary English language school teachers can design suitable pedagogic approaches to foster overall literacy development, thus advancing innovative teacher training opportunities.

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Blossoming in English: Preschool Children’s Emergent Literacy Skills in English

Cited by 14 publications

References 51 publications

The effects of foreign language programmes in early childhood education and care: a systematic review

The effects of foreign language programmes in early childhood education and care: a systematic review

Teaching English to Young Learners: Second Language Acquisition or Foreign Language Learning? – A Case Study

The Reading and Writing Connections in Developing Overall L2 Literacy: A Case Study

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