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PEI 501: English as a Foreign LanguageTeaching Methodology at the Elementary

School Level

Teaching Languages to Young Learners

(by Lynne Cameron Chapter 1)

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WHA T IS DIFFERENT ABOUT TEACHING A

FOREIGN LANGUAGE TO CHILDREN IN

CONTRAST TO ADULTS OR ADOLESCENTS?

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1. They want to please their teacher

2. They get into the activity (why or how)

3. Lose interest quickly

4. Less able to keep themselves motivated on difficult tasks

5. Do not have access to metalanguage

6. Lack of inhibition

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What lies underneath as

characteristic of children as language

learners?

Over view of theory relevant to children's

language learning

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Piaget

Final stage: formal, logical thinking

Active learner

Accommodation and

adaptation

Learning takes place though

actions taken to solve

problems

Childs thinking and

intellectual skills develop

gradually

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Implications for language learning

Children --------- adapt through experiences with

objects in their environment

provides the setting fordevelopment through the

opportunities it offers the child

for action

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Transferring this idea to the abstract world of

learning and ideas, we can think of the

classroom as classroom activities as creating

and offering opportunities to learners for

learning.

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Vigotsky

The child as social

Language provides the child

with a new tool opening

new opportunities for doing

things and organizing

information

Learning and developmenttake place in a social

context

Adults mediate the world forchildren and make it

accessible to them

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With the help of adults, children can do much

more than they can do on their own.

ZPD --------Zone of proximal development

New meaning to intelligence:

What a child can do alone what a child can do

with skilled help

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Vigotsky saw the child as first doing things in a

social context, with other people andlanguage helping in various ways, and

gradually shifting away from reliance on

others to independent action and thinking.

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Implications for language learning

What can a teacher do to support learning?

1. Use the idea that the adult mediates what next it

is the child can learn.

2. This has applications in lesson planning and howteachers talk to pupils.

3. The new language is first used meaningfully by the

teacher and pupils, and later it is transformed andinternalized to become part of the individual

childs language skills of knowledge.

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Bruner (1983 )

For Bruner, language is the most important

tool for cognitive growth.

Scaffolding -----teachers can scaffold children

in various ways.

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Teacher can help children to By

Attend to what is relevant Suggesting

Praising the significant

Providing focusing activities

Adopt useful strategies Encouraging rehearsalBeing explicit about organization

Remember the whole tasks and goals Reminding

ModelingProviding part-whole activites

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Learning a second language

Age and second language learning:

Hypothesis ----- children learn a secondlanguage better than adults

Critical Period Hypothesis: young children canlearn a second language effectively before

puberty because their brains are still able touse the mechanisms that assisted 1stlanguageacquisition

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CPH holds that older learners will learn

language differently after this stage and

particularly for accent, can never achieve the

same level of proficiency.

Some studies show that there is no such cut-

off point for language learning. Lightbown and

Spada (1999) present some evidence for and

against the CPH.

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They remind us to attend to the different

needs, motivation and contexts for different

groups of learners.

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Advantages of starting young with

foreign languages

Children who have an early start develop and

maintain advantages in some, but not in all,

areas of language skills.

Listening comprehension benefits the most

and pronunciation too but this is restricted to

learning a language in a naturalistic contexts

and does not necessarily apply to school-based learning.

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Grammatical knowledge is likely to develop

more slowly for younger children.