Common challenges in diverse contexts

Editorial: Introduction to the special issue on English language learning in primary schools

“…Moreover, the authors found a correlation between the teachers' self-assessed L2 proficiency and their L2 reported use in the classroom: the higher their self-assessed proficiency, the more the L2 was reportedly used. The findings are highly relevant against the backdrop of the need for highly qualified professionals to teach foreign languages at the primary school level (Butler, 2019).…”

“…One of the reasons for this educational change is the belief in "the earlier the better" notion, which has already been shown not to hold true when linguistic outcomes are assessed in foreign language settings (see García Mayo & García Lecumberri, 2003;Huang, 2015). Age is just one variable among many others that need to be taken into account when assessing child language learning in educational contexts (see Butler, 2019), and that is the reason why more research on identifying those other variables is necessary.…”