Using Corpus Methods to Triangulate Linguistic Analysis Edited By JesseEgbert and PaulBaker. Routledge, 2020. 300 pp., ISBN: 9780367777050. 96£

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that young children who learn additional languages are more likely to have success in a multi-cultural and multi-linguistic world. Currently, teaching a foreign language in preschool settings is a widespread modern trend in many European countries. Preschool bilingual education: Agency in interactions between children, teachers, and parents (Multilingual Education) (investigates early bilingual development and education in preschool contexts and explores effective language teaching strategies for very young learners in Europe. Author Mila Schwartz brings together scholars to discuss significant issues regarding contemporary bilingual education for preschool children and effective bilingual pedagogical practices.Preschool bilingual education explores interactions among three important actors in preschool bilingual education: teachers, children, and parents. Their interactions are examined from the following four aspects: (1) child's, teacher's, and parents' agencies in interactions; (2) child's agency; (3) teacher's and child's agencies in interaction, and (4) parents' , child's, and teacher's agencies in interaction. The book brings together several research topics, such as educational linguistics, educational ethnography, language education policy, childhood development, and parenting.Eleven chapters in this volume cover theories, language-conducive strategies and contexts, and recommendations for teaching bilinguals in preschool settings. In the book's Introduction, Mila Schwartz lays a conceptual introduction for this volume. Part I "Teachers' challenges in navigating bilingual spaces in their classrooms and practical decisions" contains three chapters. In the chapter titled "Separating the languages in a bilingual preschool: To do or not to do?", Danijela Prošić-Santovac and Danijela Radović explore issues concerning young children's language acquisition in a Serbian/English bilingual kindergarten. The chapter examines teachers' and children's attitudes on a paired bilingual model: the "one person -one language" (OPOL) approach; the teachers' and children's views on the use of several language teaching strategies and their relationship across languages; and how teachers' and parents' strategies influence the children's motivation and attitudes towards second language acquisition. The results demonstrate that while the teachers strongly support the OPOL approach, the children and the parents favor the incorporation of L1 into the L2 teaching process. Many children prefer trans-languaging and translating teaching strategies while, teachers object to these strategies. The dominate strategies used by teachers are non-linguistic strategies while metalinguistic strategies are used the least. The most dominant motivational strategies adopted by teachers are verbal teaching strategies. Parents were found to consciously and positively motivate their children's language learning by personal attitudes, both educational and social. The result suggests that the bilingual model combined with the t...