Parents’ discourse on English for young learners

Abstract

English, the global lingua franca, enjoys a growing status worldwide. The high status of English is also linked to the increasing interest in teaching English to young learners (EYL), and is reciprocally linked to complex political, cultural and social forces. Research on the advantages of learning English at a young age is controversial and inconclusive, but despite uncertainties it seems that EYL will continue to be a growing trend. This study aimed to understand the forces that drive the EYL phenomenon and focuses on the analysis of parent’s discourse from a critical discursive sociocultural perspective. Findings illuminate the subtle, powerful ways in which parents’ discourse leads to the growing of EYL in Israel. Parents’ overenthusiasm to promote English in schools stems from their perceptions about the high value of English, global aspirations and their belief in the popular axiom ‘the younger the better’. Findings further suggest that decisions about EYL and its teaching are not necessarily based on professionals or academics but rather exist within the powers of the community, with parents being a dominant force.

Parentocracy within meritocracy: parental perspective on lecture-style English private tutoring in Hong Kong

“…By addressing the first research question of motives, the study reveals that, as indicated by all the participants, the hope of optimising children's future success through English learning can be a reason driving parents to pay the tuition fee. This finding exemplifies a typical context with 'English fever' (Chik and Besser 2011;Fish, Parris, and Troilo 2017;Park 2009) where parents believe in the instrumental values of English for their children's academic, social and economic advancement (Carmel 2019;Wei 2011). Another motive concerning 'outsourcing' English learning to EPT reflects parents' perceived incompetence in teaching their own children and the possible limitations of schooling.…”

“…To date, there is a paucity of empirical data showing parents' motives for paying for their children's EPT within this privatised educational context. This is an important area of research since parents are key stakeholders of EPT as consumers of this monetarily purchasable resource for their children (Carmel 2019;Gupta 2020). The increasingly prevailing ideology of parentocracy, fuelled by 'English fever' (Fish, Parris, and Troilo 2017;Park 2009) in non-English-speaking societies worldwide, has also suggested an urgent need to understand the EPT phenomenon from the parental perspective.…”

Parent and Teacher Perceptions of Gradeless Assessment and its Relationship with Education Commodification: A Case Study

“…For many parents, English is regarded "as a valuable asset associated with prestige and economic welfare", which can determine someone's opportunities of success and social mobility (Carmel, 2019, p. 1). Consequently, many parents believe that the earlier they start learning, the better their chances to succeed (Carmel, 2019;Nikolov, 2016) despite strong evidence which proves otherwise (e.g., Rokita-Jaśkow & Ellis, 2019).…”

“…what subjects are important, and which are not) also play key roles in the legitimation of commodification. In this context, learning English has become instrumental to the narrative of (global) success, and it plays a determining role in an individual's social dimension (Carmel, 2019;Nikolov, 2016). In South America, English remains the quintessential foreign language to teach at schools, largely supported by a neoliberal narrative of potential opportunities (Kamhi-Stein et al, 2017).…”

“…In addition, academic success, as reflected in school grades, heightens competition and stress among peers (Bernales-Carrasco, 2020). is is particularly true for young learners, whose parents strongly believe English can determine their children's opportunities of success and social mobility (Carmel, 2019), leading to parliamentary initiatives to tackle the consequences of such commodification by proposing the elimination of summative assessments for early education (Sepúlveda, 2018). Given this context, parent obsession with quantifiable measurements of their children's proficiency levels is hindered by implementation of a gradeless system which perceives assessment "as a means to improve (rather than prove) learning" (Inbar-Lourie & Shohamy, 2009, p. 91).…”