Research into the teaching of English as a Foreign language in early childhood education and care

Research into multilingual issues in ECEC contexts: proposing a transdisciplinary research field

“…Despite the small number of articles in total, we note that articles concerning multilingual issues are increasing. If this is the case, then it is in line with the trend for the research field in general, where we see more publications and handbooks (Mourão 2019;Mourão and Lourenço 2015;Murphy and Evangelou 2016;Schwartz 2018; and several attempts to formalize the research forces through networks. The Research in Early Years Language Learning (REYLL) network was established in 2014 as a research strand in the Early Language Learning Research Network (ELL ReN)part of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA), and quickly gathered researchers from around the world.…”

English as a Foreign Language in Early Language Education

“…The basis of the makerspace method lies in a constructivist approach to learning that aims to enable children construct knowledge through an interaction with physical environment (Marsh 2017). Like in common spaces organized as learning areas in kindergartens, where a lot of informal learning occurs through individual or group play in interaction with materials provided by the teachers (Mourão 2019), in makerspaces children are allowed to learn through play and by making and creating something. However, the key idea of foreign language learning in makerspaces is placing a child's interest in the center by integrating a foreign language into the daily making activities (Clapp et al 2020).…”

“…Inappropriate pedagogical practice may thus hinder children's development. While specialist English language teachers are generally proficient in the foreign language, they often have little or even no training for teaching this age group, having been mainly educated to teach in secondary schools (Mourão 2019).…”

Re(thinking) Critical Language Education with Children and Teacher Education During (and After) Pandemic Times

“…Teaching children was challenging enough before COVID-19. This field has been thriving despite several issues that compromise teachers' practices and students' experiences, such as lack of laws that regulate how additional languages are offered in the early years of education in Brazil (ROCHA, 2006;ÁVILA;TONELLI, 2018) and also in some other regions of the world (MOURÃO, 2019), besides the fact that very few teacher education programs cover this context (MILLER et al, 2019).…”