Learning a Second Language in Pre-School: Using Dramatized Stories as a Teaching Resource

Abstract

In recent years, the interest in early language learning shown by both parents and politicians has led to the introduction of a second language (L2), particularly English, to children as young as two or three years old in pre-schools and kindergartens across Europe and beyond. The demands involved in teaching this age-range require from teachers a set of specialized skills to ensure that children's first experience with a new language is as enjoyable and fruitful as possible. This article discusses the impact of learner-internal and contextual factors on children's second language learning, together with the contribution that children make to the process in terms of their language-learning abilities. In doing so, key issues such as promoting comprehension, lexical acquisition and initial language production in the second language are addressed, together with the methodological implications derived from this knowledge. Finally, an age-appropriate approach for teaching children using predictable dramatized stories is presented.

Fostering literacy: Pre-primary pre-service teachers’ reading habits and literature knowledge

“…Other researchers focus on methodologies regarding the use of literature in the pre-primary classroom. González-Martín and Querol-Julián (2016) compare methodologies regarding the use of well-known stories for English language learning in the pre-primary classroom as do Coyle and Ferrez-Moya (2018) and Guadamillas-Gómez (2015). Fleta-Guillén and García-Bermejo (2018) go one step further including the need to create and illustrate stories to foster literacy at early stages.…”

The Pedagogical Practices of an Immigrant Parent: Maintaining Heritage Language in the Home Context

“…I intentionally made it visible that books were an important and normal part of our lives and purposefully modeled reading myself. The importance of repeated story reading and storytelling in both first and second languages has been highlighted in many studies (Avalos et al, 2007;Coyle & Mora, 2018;Collins, 2005;Nunez, 2019;Roessingh, 2014;Strekalova-Hughes & Wang, 2019). Uccelli and Páez (2007) showed a striking finding in their study examining Spanish-English bilingual children, "If children hear, engage and tell stories in Spanish with friends, family, or at school, the learned set of skills required to structure a story in Spanish could positively contribute to children's English narrative quality" (p. 234).…”

Relación Entre La Exposición Informal a Una Lengua Extranjera (Inglés Y Francés) Y La Competencia Léxica

“…En el proceso de adquisición y aprendizaje de una lengua intervienen numerosos factores, por lo que su análisis es crucial para realizar propuestas didácticas encaminadas a potenciar aquellos aspectos más relevantes. Actualmente, desde edades tempranas, aprendemos idiomas en el contexto escolar (Coyle y Férez, 2018), pero también en nuestro tiempo libre, por ejemplo, al jugar a videojuegos (Thorne, 2008), leer fan fiction (Cassany y Hernández, 2012) o formar parte de comunidades que realizan subtítulos para contenido audiovisual (Zhang y Cassany, 2016).…”