Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
- Kategorie: Fremdsprachen
- Serie: Giessener Beiträge zur Fremdsprachendidaktik
- Sprache: Englisch
The study addresses the question of how preschool teachers who work in regular state inclusive preschools can be qualified to teach English as a foreign language. Through the longitudinal case study, which followed the principles of participatory action research, substantial insights were gained which can be transferred to other pre-primary contexts.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 768
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
Kirsten Birsak de Jersey
English in Inclusive Multilingual Preschools
Researching the Potential of a Teacher Education Model for In-Service Teachers
© 2021 • Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KGDischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen
Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetztes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.
Internet: www.narr.deeMail: [email protected]
ISSN 0175-7776
ISBN 978-3-8233-8500-4 (Print)
ISBN 978-3-8233-0301-5 (ePub)
Inhalt
Acknowledgements
When I took on the challenge of researching in the field of English preschool teacher education for this PhD work, I knew I had years of hard work in front of me. I could not have kept my motivation up had I not had the supportive environment in my family, my friends and colleges, and especially academically. “Without sufficient motivation, individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals” (Guilloteaux & Dörnyei 2008: 56). Though I am still not so convinced about having ‘remarkable abilities’, I can proudly present now the output of this long-term research. A number of people I want to sincerely thank:
My deep gratitude firstly goes to Marita Schocker for her brilliant academic guidance and emotional support. She helped me to find my path through the maze of research processes and assisted me to find the way back onto the right track when I got lost in a one-way street. She has become a true friend in rain and sunshine. At the same time, I had the luck of being advised by Michael Legutke, always at the right time. He clarified my sense of direction, kept me on track together with the encouragement that he believed in my research, that it was a new field of study and would be a worthwhile contribution to early foreign language teaching and learning, for which I extend my thanks and much appreciation. I am also thankful to Vivienne Mellor-Schwartze for her readiness to answer quick question at any time. Special thanks has to go to all the enthusiastic and devoted preschool teachers who were prepared to leave the trodden path to try something new and challenging in the ways of language teaching. Teaching cooperatively and researching together was an enriching and inspiring experience for us all and I appreciate their dedication during the project. I always admired their patience and professionalism in the care for all the children and the respect they held for each little personality. The interest and eagerness for language learning the children showed throughout the project was the best proof for all involved that we are doing the right thing. Their enthusiasm to learn English, their laughter and affection were our reward.
In my personal life, this research could not have possibly been achieved had it not been for the patience of my family and sacrifices, understanding and devotion of my husband, Rupert. My daughter Olivia deserves extra thanks for patiently giving her statistical expertise and my son Clemens for saving me ever so often with his IT abilities. Even though we live on the other side of the world from each other, my mother, Tonia, has remained my constant internet companion, brain-stormer, follower and critical reader of the trials and tribulations of this research.
Abbreviations
Abbreviation
Term
AR
Action research
BAfEP
Bildungsanstalt für Elementarpädagogik
CARPs
Classroom action research projects
CLC
Communicative language classroom
CLIL
Content and language integrated learning
CLT
Communicative language teaching
EFL
English as a foreign language
ELL
Early language learning
EP
Exploratory practice
FLL
Foreign language learning
FLTE
Foreign language teacher education
GSL
German as a second language
PAR
Participatory action research
SLTE
Second language teacher education
ST
Student teachers
TE
Teacher educator
TBLL
Task-based language learning
TBLT
Task-based language teaching
YL
Young learners
ZEKIP
Salzburger Verwaltungsakademie-Zentrum für Kindergartenpädagogik
1Introduction
1.1Disciplinary relevance of the research
The study presented here addresses an area that foreign language pedagogy research has only recently attended to. It is the question of how to qualify teachers for early language learning (ELL) contexts. As Zein (2019) argues in the introduction to a volume on international research and practice of early language learning and teacher education:
In the rapidly changing political, social and globalised economic landscapes of the 21st century, language has become cultural capital. … A significant educational policy change characterising this tendency is early language learning: the teaching of a foreign or second language to children. Early language learning policies have become a worldwide phenomenon. (p. 1)
Johnstone (2009) supports this view when he describes early language education as being “possibly the world’s biggest policy development in education” (p. 33).
This development is reflected in the European Commission’s call for further action in the field of early childhood education “to improve the mastery of basic skills, in particular by teaching at least two foreign languages from a very early age” (European Commission 2018: 2.). The term ‘early education’ comprises the two contexts of the pre- and primary school level. This study focuses on the first level of early childhood education, the preschool. The European Commission (2011a) clearly establishes the benefits of early language learning at this early level of education for various reasons (for more details see chapter 2.2.1). Referring to studies in early child development education, the European Commission (2018) concludes that “there is an overwhelming consensus that the staff working in early childhood education and care provision is a crucial factor in determining its quality” (p. 58; see also Early et al., 2007; Urban et al., 2011; Urban et al., 2012).
While this seems an obvious consequence to draw, the need for qualified early foreign language teachers has not resulted in the provision of context-appropriate teacher education programmes. Recent international and European reviews in the field of early language learning and teacher education therefore express their concerns “over the shortage of adequately trained teachers … and the inadequacy of teacher education programmes … for early language learning teachers” (Zein, 2019, p. 2). The resulting shortage of publications on early language teacher education relates both to language teachers for the primary school context (see the review of studies provided by Wilden & Porsch, 2017) and for the preschool context (see the review of studies presented by Zein & Garton, 2019; whose volume on early language teacher education covers research related to children between the ages of 3 and 12). For further discussion see chapter 4.2.
The shortage of relevant research is also due to the fact that if studies do exist, they are situated in what may be described as privileged acquisition contexts which do not represent the current population of preschool children. As Legutke et al. (2009) have already observed in their methodology for teaching English in the primary and preschool, it is one of the issues of early childhood language education that “only a very selective and privileged group of children” have access to preschool English education. Therefore, results from pilots in preschool language education in the past have been obtained from samplings which do not represent the multi-lingual profiles of today’s preschools, but instead predominantly monolingual groups of German children. (p. 141). For further discussion see chapter 2.1.
It is against this disciplinary background that I became interested to develop a teacher education research project for preschool teachers to gain the competences to implement English as a foreign language (EFL) for all children attending a regular, inclusive and multilingual state preschool. I felt that through my comprehensive personal professional background as English preschool teacher and teacher educator (TE) I would be able to draw on my expertise which I had acquired both in the field of teaching English to preschool children and of educating teachers. This professional background will be outlined in the following chapter.
1.2Personal relevance of the research: the impetus to develop a preschool teacher education research project
My professional background covers ample experiences with teaching English in various preschools in the Salzburg area. For the past twenty years I have been teaching English at state, parish and private preschools (to children aged 3 – 6) and at primary schools to small groups of children (aged 6 – 10 years) to support their transition from the preschool context to the primary school context. Since 2005, I have been employed as a class teacher in a private preschool, which subscribes to the immersion method of teaching English: this preschool is selected by the parents who wish to send their children to a preschool with a dedicated English language profile. My position in this preschool gave me the opportunity to develop and test task plans and resource materials for early language learning empirically, which included the permission to film the children throughout this time. As a result, I was able to reflect on the quality of tasks and materials as an ongoing process of my professional development: I could observe the ways in which the children responded, if the tasks managed to involve them or if the support that I had provided proved to be appropriate. I was able to integrate relevant theory in developing preschool tasks through a master course on early language learning that I had attended simultaneously (see next paragraph).
During this time as preschool teacher, I felt that I would need to widen my horizon: my practical experience which I had been able to develop would need to be supplemented by theoretical knowledge so that I could substantiate what I was doing in practice and reflect on its appropriateness in supporting the children to learn English. I also wished to be able to aptly address the needs of the increasingly heterogeneous groups of preschool children in a professional way. I was therefore motivated to take a master course that educates primary and preschool teachers in-service to teach English which I completed in 2008 (M.A. E-LINGO – Teaching English to Young Learners (YL), Pre-school and Primary School,www.e-lingo.eu). This Master’s course subscribes to a teacher education model of reflected experience and develops experienced primary and preschool teachers’ competences through research-oriented approaches of learning to teach. It involved reflecting on video-recordings of children learning English which were integrated through a comprehensive media data bank (mediated reflection of practice) and conducting classroom action research projects (CARPs) in participating students’ home classrooms (direct reflection of practice). Experiences were then exchanged and reflected in virtual teams and research results presented and shared in face-to-face meetings. Various tools to support reflection that integrated relevant theory such as journal writing and portfolio work were included (Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg et al. 2008; Benitt, 2015; Zibelius, 2015). My resulting Master’s thesis covered academic empirical research done collaboratively with a participating colleague on ‘Materials to Promote English Oral Production in a Pre-School Setting’ (2008).
The expertise that I gained through this experience provided the basis for my next step of professional development as a preschool teacher educator for in-service teachers (which means for preschool teachers who work at their preschools with experience in childhood pedagogy but with little or no skills in teaching English). In-service teacher education involved offering courses for teacher education seminars at the Salzburger Verwaltungsakademie-Zentrum für Kindergartenpädagogik (ZEKIP).
In 2012 I started teaching English once a week in an inclusive multilingual state preschool which accepts all the children of its catchment area – a context in which German is a second language for the majority of the children as they come from multicultural and therefore multilingual family backgrounds. The preschool teachers joined my lessons to gain experience in how to teach English to their groups of children. I integrated relevant theory to support informed reflection and answered questions individually at various opportunities. All this happened informally on a voluntary basis and was motivated by preschool teachers’ wish to develop in this field.
Through the expertise I developed in teaching in various preschools and educating preschool teachers at preschools and in seminar courses I was able to develop the competences that are directly relevant for the research which will be presented in the study here: I became well aware of the needs of preschool teachers and of the challenges it would involve implementing an additional English language program in this context. It is through the long-term and heterogeneous involvement with teaching young learners that I could experience the ease at which children acquire a new language – an insight that is backed through research results (see recent summary in: Nikolov & Mihaljevic Djigunovic, 2019) – and consequently I was convinced that English would be a rewarding component of a child’s preschool education. Finally, I was able to develop my teaching skills and produce materials and tasks which meet heterogeneous preschool children’s language learning needs. These materials are also the basis of a publication that is being prepared on a methodology for preschool English teaching which will provide tasks and course materials empirically tested in the various practice contexts in which I have worked (Title: ‘Teaching English in Preschool’). These tasks and materials have also been integrated on the video platform of the E-LINGO Master’s course when it was re-accredited in 2016 which is why E-LINGO was able to offer a special preschool track that addresses this context’s particular language learning needs. I have also become a regular member of the E-LINGO teaching staff and am responsible for tutoring preschool teachers’ course work since that time.
My motivation to embark on the thesis research resulted from the experiences I have outlined above: I wanted to find out if it were possible to educate experienced preschool teachers to teach English for the context of the regular inclusive, multilingual state preschool, which accepts all the children in their catchment area. This meant that I needed to be able to identify a preschool that would qualify as a representative sample case both as regards preschool teachers’ qualification and children’s backgrounds. I was aware that the contextual framework of preschools is characterized by a number of constraints which relate both to Austria’s early language learning policy (→ chapter 2.2.2) and to unfavourable working conditions at state preschools which are not provided with any extra support when they wish to introduce additional programmes for preschool children (→ chapter 3.4.4). Despite these obvious contextual constraints, I had at the same time become convinced that participating teachers would benefit from the experience. I was faced with their often-prevailing attitudes of German first in the beginning which had quite understandably resulted from their concern that introducing another language would be too demanding for their children. However, in time they were able to reassess their initial attitudes the more they were exposed to credible examples of authentic tasks, which demonstrated that the children participate with enthusiasm, benefit from the extra language on offer and develop competences in an additional language with ease.
It was during this time that I started to design a teacher development project for in-service teachers of English in the regular state preschool. It will be outlined in the following chapter.
1.3Resulting survey of the research structure and research procedure
The study has addressed the issue of the gap between recommendations for early childhood foreign language learning and the lack of provision for the education of qualified teachers in the relatively young domain of early foreign language education. It will empirically research the potential of educating pedagogically experienced preschool teachers in-service to teach English.
The study will first discuss why it is relevant to introduce English into preschool (→ chapter 2). To do so, it will draw on existing research on the benefits of early language learning (which includes the issue of language choice). It will provide a survey on the way that European and consequently Austrian early language learning education policies have considered early language learning in their recommendations and curricula (both as regards learning languages in the preschool and to preschool teacher education).
This will be followed by a detailed analysis of the contextual factors that affect the introduction of English in preschool (→ chapter 3). Providing comprehensive contextual information is required if the research uses a case study design. This seemed appropriate in view of the focus of my study: as there are only few empirical studies on early foreign language teacher education (FLTE), the research will be conducted in the form of a multiple case study “that considers unique localities in their diverse schooling contexts” (Zein, 2019, p. 5) and is, according to the survey of studies presented by Zein and Garton (2019), the dominant research design in this academic field of study at the moment. But the format of case study research is not only appropriate in the light of the limited knowledge base we have on early language teacher development. It also supports the recognition “that quality teaching is unique to the locality where the teaching is carried out, … what is needed within individual contexts, the requirements for qualifications in different locales and the cultural and normative practices of teaching [that] will always be locally specific” (p. 6). Consequently, a first step of my research involved a questionnaire survey that was sent to all state preschools in the Salzburg area (my context of work) so that I would be able to identify the features of the macro level of the case study (see chapter 5.1 and 6.1 for an overview of the case study levels) that I had in mind. It served two purposes: The first purpose was that I would need to find out if my offer to educate preschool teachers to teach English would be asked for and if the context would be generally supportive of the teacher education project. If it were, what support would I need to provide in the general set-up for the teacher education so that teachers were able to potentially develop the competences I had identified? To do so, the questionnaire addressed the following relevant topics: (a) the general contextual framework of preschool teachers’ contexts of work (including preschools’ size, features of children’s group with a focus on their languages and the availability of German as a second language (GSL) and of English as a foreign language; (b) preschool teachers’ attitudes towards introducing foreign languages in general and English in particular by focusing on their perceived benefits or disadvantages for the children; (c) preschool teachers’ attitudes towards introducing English in preschool in general and at their preschools in particular and their qualification to do so. The second purpose was that I would need to detect a sample preschool for my research project that would qualify as being representative for both teachers’ and children’s educational backgrounds and find a preschool that would be prepared to participate in my research with teachers who would need to qualify as a community of practice and be willing to commit themselves to actively participate, despite the general unfavourable contextual situation I was well aware of. Both purposes could be fulfilled, as will be demonstrated (→ chapter 6.2).
In a next step, the content of the teacher education project will be identified by presenting results of a literature research in the areas that are relevant for the design of my preschool teacher education project. They comprise the knowledge base on professional language teacher education (in general and for early language learning in particular) and the competences that are required for teaching English in preschool. Findings of these topic areas provided the basis of defining the content of my preschool teacher education project and allowed me to draw conclusions for the appropriate research approach (→ chapter 4).
On the basis of the needs-analysis of the preschool teacher context in chapter 3 and the identification of features of appropriate teacher education processes that would have the potential to develop preschool teachers’ required competences in chapter 4, a teacher education model was designed in chapter 5. This model considered the existing knowledge base on language teacher education and at the same time tailored its particular components to meet the needs of participating teachers of the preschool context in question. It emerged that it would be through an approach of participatory action research (PAR) that both the interests of research and teachers participating in the study could be aligned. It was expected that the following general research questions could be answered as a result:
What teacher education model for introducing English into preschool would develop the teachers’ competences needed to teach EFL effectively and accommodate the complexities of the preschool context at the same time?
What evidence is there that they have successfully developed the competences intended?
In an approach of participatory action research, teachers’ action and research of their professional development are closely related. While chapter 5 will focus on the design of the teacher education model, chapter 6 will focus on the research design as multiple case study. It will first describe the three levels of the case study: the macro, meso and micro level (→ diagram 1):
Diagram 1: Multiple case study design
Next, the chapter will outline the sampling strategy and present results of the analysis of the context features of the selected preschool both on the meso and micro levels of the case study. It involves both a survey on teachers’ perception of the contextual constraints and affordances as a community of practise (meso level of the case study) and of individual preschool teachers’ profiles (micro level of the case study). A survey of the action research cycles, and related data collection will conclude this chapter.
Chapter 7 will present case study results. They first include a survey of the implementation process of the research project, which will be related to the action research cycles the project involved (→ chapter 7.1). The next chapter will present individual teachers’ case studies and will summarize developments that may be generalised for participating teachers as a community of practice at the preschool (→ chapter 7.2). The case studies will demonstrate if the purposes the teacher education project had in mind could be achieved and to what extent. Presentation of case study results will be related to the following areas the research project has addressed: teachers’ reassessment of their attitudes towards introducing English in preschool; their motivation to become involved in the process of teaching English to preschool children; the teaching competences they were able to develop in the course of the project and the development of their reflective practice as professional habit. Both the process and the outcome of the research will be documented: teachers’ competence development during the process will be represented in individual teacher portraits which trace their particular individual developments; each individual case will be concluded with a summary which lists these competences in grid format to be able to provide a summative survey of each teachers’ competence development that may be compared to developments of all the teachers that participated in the survey; finally, chapter 7.3 will conclude with an evaluation of the components of the teacher education model. It will be described in what way its components have contributed to teachers’ professional development.
A concluding chapter 8 will finally discuss the results of the study and will structure it following the questions that are related to the research focus of the teacher education study. This includes: the effectiveness of the teacher education model for the sample case including the integration of reflective approaches (→ chapter 8.1); the transfer potential of the teacher education project to other preschool education contexts including a reflection of the required adaptations that a transfer would involve (→ chapter 8.2); a reflection of the research design of the teacher development as participatory action research and presentation of results in the form of a multiple case study (→ chapter 8.3). Reported experiences documented in the literature will be integrated here and future research directions outlined.
2Relevance of introducing English in preschool
2.1Research on early language learning
This chapter will argue why it is worthwhile to introduce English at the preschool level. To do so it will clarify who qualifies as a young learner, will reflect on the issue of language choice and will summarize the arguments that have been put forward in favour of an early start in language learning.
Young learners
When reviewing international publications on research related to young learners there is an enormous variation from country to country. Ellis (2014) notes that the term young learner is vague but distinguishes between pre- and post- 11- or 12-year-olds because of the enormous differences in children’s “physical, psychological, social, emotional, conceptual and cognitive development” (pp. 75,76) which result in different approaches to language teaching. Pinter (2011) remarks that it “is hard to fit ‘childhood’ into fixed age brackets. … Typically, children start preschool at around the age of 3 and then they move to primary / elementary school around the age of 5 – 7”. She defines preschool children (age 3 – 5) as follows: “No formal learning experiences, no literacy skills, large differences among children with regard to readiness for school” (p. 2). Copland and Garton (2014) in their introduction to a special issue of a journal that focuses on teaching English to young learners define young learner as follows:
The rapid and comprehensive lowering of the age at which English is introduced to children in many countries, together with the spread of preschool English, means it is timely to focus on these younger age groups. … Therefore, for the purposes of this Special Issue, YLs [young learners] are those at pre-primary and primary level, roughly from the age of 3 up to 11 or 12 years old. (p. 224)
While the study that is presented here focuses on the pre-primary level of preschool children aged 3 – 6, some of the research that is reviewed does not always clearly separate these two age groups. Whenever possible, this study will make this distinction.
Language choice
One of the simple facts of life in the present time is that the English language skills of a good proportion of its citizenry are seen as vital if a country is to participate actively in the global economy and to have access to the information and knowledge that provide the basis for both social and economic development. (Burns & Richards, 2009, p. 1)
English has become an international language, not only in the areas of research, businesses, politics, informatics, tourism or advertising but it has also developed to be the lingua franca which people of different nationalities share to communicate with each other in everyday contexts. From an early age English is a language that is also familiar to children. They are often exposed to English through electronic media, games, popular songs, English loanwords or products from the toy industry, for example. These early encounters with the English language are therefore closely associated with their interests, which in turn stimulate their natural curiosity and keenness to explore the language further.
Preschool teachers are generally reluctant to introduce a foreign language as the groups of children in their contexts of work are extremely heterogeneous due to their multicultural and multilingual background (→ chapter 3). This puts preschool teachers in a dilemma: on the one hand, they recognize that English is a lingua franca and therefore has a particular status in language education. Consequently, the teachers are generally open-minded and consider the idea of introducing English in preschool is an appropriate choice. On the other hand, they see the need for their groups of children to learn German as a second language first. This is expressed in the following quote of one of the preschool teachers who participated in the study which is presented here and may be considered to be representative of preschool teachers’ attitudes:
“It’s difficult to say, because of course children are here to learn German, because they need it for school and their lives. They also have to learn English in the [sic] school later on. So, it is also important, I think. What should I say?” (Nadia, 26.03.15: int. 2).1
This idea of the merits of consecutive language learning in preschool (first German – then English), that is also expressed in this preschool teachers’ quote, is a widely spread preconception among teachers as early language acquisition researchers have demonstrated: “Entgegen lange gehegter Vorurteile wissen wir heute, dass Kinder, die von frühester Kindheit an mit zwei (Erst-)Sprachen konfrontiert werden, dadurch nicht überfordert sind. … Offensichtlich ist die Sorge, Kinder durch potentiell widersprüchlichen Input zu verwirren, groß” (Tracy, 2008, p. 125). But the issue of language choice, that is, which potential additional language to offer in preschools if it is offered at all is yet another concern to teachers.
The European Commission (2011b) in their Policy Handbook which promotes foreign language learning (FLL) at the pre-primary level suggests that it is best to offer a foreign language in preschool education, which will be continued in primary school:
The aims of any EFL policy for children in pre-primary education should be to foster intercultural and multilingual education focused on the development of the child’s personal potential. Where appropriate, it could also be to provide an introduction to a particular language that will be taught later on in primary school. (p. 9)
This understanding is also expressed in the Language Education Policy Profile for Austria, which was published by The Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe and Austrian’s Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur (2008b). The report recognises – if with some reservation and referring to the omnipresence of the English language in society – that English is an “inescapable part of their cultural context”:
As in most other Council of Europe member states, the teaching of English dominates to the extent of sometimes seeming to be synonymous with foreign language teaching. With the exception of arrangements that have been made for autochthonous minorities and migrants, whenever discussion focuses on early-start language learning it tends to focus exclusively on English. In Austria as elsewhere the importance that is attached to developing proficiency in English makes it difficult to get a hearing for diversification, and even more difficult to imagine how it might be implemented. But English is so pervasive in international media, especially the Internet, that there is good reason to suppose that young people will learn it not only as a result of the teaching they receive at school but also because it is an inescapable part of their cultural context. (p. 8)
It has been statistically established by the Special Eurobarometer 243 that “English is perceived as the most useful language by citizens in both new and old member states” (European Commission, 2006, p. 31). According to the latest data, 97 % of all Europeans study English as a first foreign language and languages other than English, French or German are rarely studied (European Commission, 2017). Nevertheless, the European Commission in the same year “reiterated the ambition of ‘enhancing the learning of languages, so that more young people will speak at least two European languages in addition to their mother tongue’" (European Commission, 2018, p. 2; italics in original).
This development may seem at first to contradict European education policy’s aspiration of plurilingual education and the diversification of language teaching as their additional long-term goal: “Furthermore, the co-existence of many languages in Europe is a powerful symbol of the European Union's aspiration to be united in diversity, one of the cornerstones of the European project. Languages define personal identities but are also part of a shared inheritance” (p. 2). But on closer scrutiny this is not the case as it is not a question of ‘either – or’, but of ‘both – and’: while early childhood language development obviously needs to focus on the language of instruction (German), and – in the interest of equal chances for all the children – on a foreign language, children’s first language education must not be neglected:
Deutlich größeres Gewicht (als Dialekte oder Nachbarsprachen, zum Beispiel) wird auf die Wertschätzung und Berücksichtigung der Herkunftssprachen und unterschiedlichen Familienkulturen der Kinder gelegt und vielfach betont, dass andere Familiensprachen als Chance und Bereicherung, nicht als Belastung oder Risiko zu betrachten seien. Es wird nahegelegt, die verschiedenen Herkunftssprachen am besten durch Elternbeteiligung einzubinden. (Sambanis, 2016, pp. 174-175)
Considering the roles of different languages in elementary education, in my research project English was selected as the foreign language to be introduced in the inclusive state preschool for its relevance as a commonly shared European language that contributes to mutual understanding of people with diverse heritage languages. At the same time, English would be integrated in a preschool, which is characteristically multicultural and therefore multilingual. Consequently, it would support European language policy recommendations in a context where at the same time all the languages represented by the children are equally respected and important in their own right (→ chapter 6.2.2). In practice, this means that conscious attention is given to valuing the children’s many heritage languages as a principle in the state preschool, which was selected for the research project. Two examples illustrate this preschool’s language policy: when entering the preschool there is a large paper archway greeting everybody with good morning in the various languages of the children and three times a year they have story-day in which different stations are set up throughout the preschool as story-corners. Various mothers, fathers or grandparents who represent the different cultures and languages come to the preschool with their children’s storybooks and share them in one of the stations. The children are free to go from one station to the other to listen to the stories and have contact with the various languages. As I am a native speaker of English, I read English children’s books in one of the stations. During the day, at various opportunities, the preschool teachers engage the children in comparing words and trying to pronounce them, which is an experience that makes both the children and the teachers aware of the diversity of languages and the excitement of getting involved in learning them. It also values children’s language competences and contributes to a good rapport with their teachers. For example, I remember a situation when I could not manage the right pronunciation of a word in Turkish and suddenly I had about ten children around me all trying to teach me. Because of the philosophy to uphold mutual respect for all languages, the teacher education project that is the focus of the study here therefore began by the children telling everybody which other languages they spoke. During the participatory demonstration lessons (→ chapter 5.7.1) the opportunity was taken to encourage children to share their mother tongues and through this the children felt free to join in and share words in their various languages.
Relevance of an early start in English
Early language acquisition research commonly agrees that children tend to approach second or foreign language learning in a natural way showing only little or no anxiety and inhibitions as they are still in the early phases of coming to terms with their first language or languages. They have the ability to acquire languages intuitively and are “more attuned to the phonological system of the new language” (Pinter, 2006, p. 29).2 But this general statement needs to be substantiated with regard to the following specifications. Referring to Pinter (2011) Copland & Garton (2014) note that there are contradictory results of previous studies on the ‘younger is better’ hypothesis. They therefore note that “there is no conclusive evidence for the supposed benefits of early introduction of English into the curriculum” (p. 224). They argue that if early English is offered, success depends on the quality of “age-appropriate teaching” and “learners’ attitudes towards the language and their motivation to learn” (p. 225). In summarizing the state of available research findings, they note that
research-based publications into effective practices for teaching YLs continue to be quite rare. Database searches … still yield very few examples of empirical studies about the effect of pedagogies on early language learning. … It is clear that there remains a lack of classroom-based studies and ‘young learners’ in general remains an under-researched area. (pp. 226, 227)
It is for similar reasons that Piske (2017) also critically examines the reasons “why the high expectations regarding the outcomes of early foreign language programs many people appear to have had in the beginning have not always been met” (p. 45). Early foreign language education was introduced on the assumption that there is a critical or sensitive period during which children acquire languages more successfully than adolescents or adults (for a summary on research regarding the critical period hypothesis see pp. 45-47). The monocausal explanation of attainment in L2 learning has “led several researchers to ignore the potential influence of variables other than age-related variables on success in L2 Learning” (p. 46). They relate to the quality and amount of exposure to the target language, learners’ opportunities to use the language or teachers’ ability to create motivating learning environments (→ chapter 5.8. for further details). Finally, empirical studies that have been published under the heading of an early start in English have either researched children’s language competence development in primary school settings3 or in bilingual immersive elementary contexts (Piske et al., 2016; Seifert, 2016). Although results from both contexts support the introduction of an early start in English, the contexts that are represented in these empirical research studies differ from the language acquisition context of the multilingual inclusive state preschool which is the focus of the preschool teacher education study that is presented here. Results of these empirical studies can therefore not be directly transferred to this research. No studies have researched children’s English competence development in heterogeneous, non-privileged, inclusive, multi-lingual preschool classrooms to date. This has been criticized by language acquisition researchers and European education policy alike:
One consequence of training kindergarten teachers at secondary level (to date) in Austria has been that Austrian universities and research institutions (with a few exceptions) have occupied themselves little or not at all, with research referring to the kindergarten age group. The same is true, more or less, of the question of how 3 to 6 year olds relate to languages, or deal with various different languages. (Council of Europe, 2008a, p. 87)
Legutke et al. (2009) in their methodology for teaching English in the primary and preschool state that insights resulting from pilots in English language education (p. 140) are limited as research is conducted in exclusive language learning contexts:
[The results] were obtained with a predominantly monolingual group of German children. No pilots have been reported about multi-lingual groups of children, which today have become dominant in many urban and even rural areas. What is missing so far are … programs that consider all children of a given area. In conjunction with these pilots, the impact of factors such as diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, social status, and economic status of parents would have to be researched. (p. 141)
In some studies, that are situated in more privileged contexts, the issue of how to qualify teachers for preschools that “grant learning opportunities to all students, no matter what language and cultural background they have” (p. 141) is not addressed. A case in point is a recent study conducted by Seifert (2016). Her sample is a German-English bilingual elementary nursery school for one- to three-year-old children, which is attached to a university and therefore draws 90 % of its children from parents whose background is academic. As the author critically states herself, this sample hardly qualifies as representing the children currently attending elementary education (pp. 159-160). Other studies that are extensively documented on early language learning education are also located in bilingual acquisition contexts (Steinlein & Piske, 2016). The argument for introducing early English in a multilingual inclusive state preschool therefore cannot be directly derived from existing empirical research studies of documented successes of early English even though existing research in related primary and immersive elementary contexts at least implies that its introduction may be potentially worthwhile. However, a further argument strongly supports its introduction: it is the unquestionable need to provide equal learning opportunities for all the children:
Angesichts der Bildungsverantwortung des Elementarbereichs muss ernsthaft diskutiert werden, ob dem Kontakt mit einer ersten Fremdsprache … nicht selbstverständlich ein Platz zugestanden werden sollte. … Die Nachfrage nach kommerziellen Angeboten und Kindergärten mit bilingualen Programmen, deren Zahl sich in den letzten zehn Jahren verdreifacht haben soll, spiegelt den Elternwunsch. Da dieses Angebot aber nicht allen Kindern zugänglich ist, könnte in einem zentralen Entwicklungsbereich Chancenungleichheit entstehen. (Sambanis, 2016, p. 175)
Finally, yet importantly, it is with the background of my long-term experience and documented best practice examples of teaching English to all the children in the multilingual inclusive preschool that has motivated me to embark on this study (→ chapter 1.2). Its focus will be on the potential to develop preschool teachers’ competences to teach English, also because
many experts have emphasized that focusing on starting age as the key variable is misleading in foreign language contexts. The age factor is not the main issue. There is a lot more to success over time. The quality and quantity of early provision, teachers, programs, and continuity are more important. (Nikolov, 2016, p. 4; see also Nikolov, 2000; Singleton, 2014)
As the qualification of teachers, child-appropriate early language learning programs and the continuity of language programs (for example from preschool to primary education, and from primary education to secondary education) are believed to be just as important to successfully implement early language education as is the age factor, the next chapter will look more closely at the situation of foreign language learning in preschool as seen from the perspectives of education policy (both European and Austrian) and preschool teachers.
2.2Recommendations of education policy for the preschool level
2.2.1The European Commission’s recommendations
Chapter 2.2.1 looks at the official European Commission’s policy recommendations of early language teaching and learning which includes specific recommendations in its country report of the circumstances in Austria (Council of Europe, 2008a) and the Commission’s Policy Handbook on preschool in early language learning (European Commission, 2011a).
A significant break-through has come about across European membership states with the recognition that preschool is to be regarded as the first level of early childhood education, which children should attend:
Pre-school education in general has been the object of increased attention in recent years: with the aim of unlocking children’s potential, in 2009 the EU Education Ministers set a target that by 2020 at least 95 % of children aged between four and the age in which compulsory primary education starts should participate in early childhood education. (European Commission, 2011a, p. 5)
Within the move towards early childhood education, early language learning has taken a prominent position. Endorsing early language learning, the European Commission compiled the policy handbook (2011a) on language learning at the pre-primary level, in which it clearly states what early language learning entails:
‘Early Language Learning (ELL) at pre-primary level’ means systematic awareness raising or exposure to more than one language taking place in an early childhood education and care setting in a pre-primary school context. (p. 6; italics in the original)
Early language learning policies include both second language learning, which is the language of instruction (in the context of the study presented here: German), and foreign language learning (in the context of the study presented here: English) (p. 5). To avoid any confusion on what the European Commission is referring to, there are clear definitions:
‘Second language’ means the language of instruction for children with a minority background, if it is different from their first language / mother tongue. It means the language of instruction in the case of children with a migrant background. In multilingual countries, it means the language of instruction when it is different from the children’s first language / mother tongue. (p. 7; italics in original)
Language of instruction means the dominant language formally used in the pre-primary school setting. (p. 6; italics in original)
First language / mother tongue means any language first acquired by a child. (p. 6; italics in original)
Foreign language means any language used in the pre-primary school context other than the first language / mother tongue, the language of instruction or the second language. (p. 7; italics in original)
This policy handbook addresses member states, giving a set of guidelines and recommendations of “reflecting examples of good practice and academic evidence on how to ensure the quality, effectiveness and sustainability of language learning in pre-primary settings” (p. 4). As there is a continual debate about early language learning, the policy handbook clearly establishes the benefits:
ELL activities in pre-primary settings … are instrumental in enhancing competences such as comprehension, expression, communication and problem-solving, enabling children to interact successfully with peers and adults. As young children also become aware of their own identity and cultural values, early language learning can shape the way they develop their attitudes towards other languages and cultures by raising awareness of diversity and of cultural variety, hence fostering understanding and respect. …
Starting to learn a second / foreign language early can help shape children’s overall progress while they are in a highly dynamic developmental stage in their lives. Starting early also means that learning can take place over a longer period, which may support the achievement of more permanent results in language learning and in other areas of learning. When the young brain learns languages, it tends to develop an enhanced capacity to learn languages throughout life. …
Children who have access to more than one language tend to transfer into the first language / mother tongue the concepts and terms they have learnt through the second / foreign language and vice versa. Hence, language processing in a multilingual mind helps stimulate cognitive competences. …. (pp. 7, 8)
Nevertheless, as competence in the language of instruction is regarded as the key to providing children with equal learning opportunities, early language learning is predominantly associated with the language of instruction in pre-primary settings:
Pre-primary language education aims to offer all children equal opportunities for a good start to the emotional, social and cognitive development resulting from language exposure, taking into account their needs and interests and preparing them for primary school. … Pre-primary education tends to focus on the language of instruction. (p. 10).
As a result of diverse situations and needs, as well as opportunities available to offer, early language learning initiatives to include foreign language learning vary greatly throughout the member states:
With some exceptions, language activities at pre-primary level are not formally structured. There are marked differences in staff competences. Moreover, resources and opportunities are unevenly distributed, both geographically and within different socio-demographic groups. Where an early start in language learning is seen as a key to better opportunities in life but access remains limited, early language learning has become entangled with equity issues: better education often means earlier access to good quality language tuition for the advantaged. In some cases, language learning opportunities are not offered at all in public kindergartens although this does happen in privately-run settings. In others, demand exceeds the available places. Even where opportunities are there, for some children access is more difficult – for example where parents are asked to contribute additional fees for language lessons. Furthermore, early language learning is only provided in a limited number of languages. Diversifying the offer of languages is a challenge linked to local demand, to utilitarian considerations and to the availability of adequate human and financial resources. (p. 9)
While European education policy clearly supports early foreign language education at the preschool level, foreign language education for the preschool is not a priority in Austrian education policy as the following chapter will demonstrate.
2.2.2Austrian education policy for the preschool level
In Austria the European Commission’s proposal to teach a foreign language at the preschool level became eclipsed by the responsibility and immediate need to focus on the language of instruction - German. The BildungsRahmenPlan, the preschool educational plan for Austria published by the Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur (2009a), was published with an extra component dedicated to early language learning which refers entirely and exclusively to German (Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, 2009b). According to the European country report of Austria, the situation is as follows:
Austrian kindergartens further and promote children’s acquisition of the German language above all: this applies both to children with German as a first language, and to children who have a different first language. (Council of Europe, 2008a, p. 36)
Programmes designed to give children of kindergarten age a good start in primary school by ensuring that they have a sufficient level of competence in the language of schooling are high on the agenda of ministries of education and local education authorities. (Council of Europe, 2008b, p. 11)
The final version does not cater for foreign language learning in its early language learning programme. “Systematic foreign language teaching (FLT) at pre-primary level does not lie within the priorities of the Austrian education system” (European Commission, 2011b, p. 7) to the extent that foreign languages are not discussed at all within the compilation of the BildungsRahmenPlan. Foreign language learning was however included in the discussion in the draft of BildungsRahmenPlan. “Beim Fremdsprachenlernen im Kindergarten ist es häufig das vorrangige Ziel, eine Sprache kennenzulernen, die für alle Kinder neu ist. Durch Lieder, Reime, einfache Texte können Klangbild und Aussprache gefestigt werden” (Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, 2008, p. 25). The BildungsRahmenPlan is significant for the implications of foreign language learning initiatives in Austrian state preschools, because it is the legal foundation for the education plan for all Austrian preschools.
The BildungsRahmenPlan was a turning point in the organisation of preschool education. Previously, Austria had a complicated political organisation for preschools because legislation and administration lay within the responsibility and discretion of nine independent federal states. To remedy the situation, the nine federal states signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2008, which announced a “new legal basis for pre-school education to regulate responsibilities and cooperation between the Republic of Austria and its nine federal countries” (European Commission, 2011b, p. 4). This resulted in the publication of the BildungsRahmenPlan which was compiled in August 2009 (Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, 2009a; 2009b). It did not explicitly rule out that English or any other foreign language could be included in preschools but placed responsibility on the individual preschools both to cater for and to finance any initiative that may take place with no official support provided. As a result, implementation of teaching a foreign language is scarce and varies greatly from preschool to preschool as is the case in other European member states (European Commission, 2011b, p. 9). Given this situation, no support for provision of a consistent foreign language learning curriculum or teacher education programmes that qualify preschool teachers appropriately, are provided. The Country Report referring to Austria simply states that more needs to be offered in the way of other languages in addition to German (Council of Europe, 2008a, p. 86). It would seem that Lower Austria was an exception; however, the financial support of this program was stopped in 2016:
In Niederösterreich, dem größten Bundesland Österreichs, wird Englisch flächendeckend schon im Kindergarten angeboten (vgl. Boeckmann et al. 2011). Außer dem Englischen bezieht dort die sprachliche Bildung ab der Elementarstufe die jeweiligen Nachbarsprachen (Tschechisch, Slowakisch, Ungarisch, Slowenisch, Italienisch) mit ein. Ferner ist vorgesehen … durch andere Familiensprachen, … [die] in der pädagogischen Einrichtung vertreten sind, die sprachlichen Erlebnisse der Kinder zu erweitern. (Sambanis, 2016, p. 173)
My research therefore addresses this situation in early foreign language education through an empirical study that has been conducted in a state preschool. This context can be said to be representative of many state preschools in Salzburg (→ chapter 6.2). The next section will give a more detailed insight in the preschool teacher education in Austria.
2.2.3Austrian preschool teacher education curriculum
As the focus in Austrian preschools is on German as the language of instruction, the teacher education curriculum trains prospective preschool teachers how to teach and encourage the language of instruction (European Commission, 2011a, p. 8). In the context of discussing the role of early language learning in Austrian preschools, the focus is therefore on German as a second language rather than on introducing a foreign language:
The role of ELL staff is to provide an enriching, engaging environment, a structure that supports and extends learning opportunities through a scaffolding process (helping children to learn, play and solve the challenges facing them with a simple hint, question or prompt). ELL should allow them to monitor a child’s learning progress and anticipate his / her potential development through formative assessment. This will identify and build upon each child’s unique potential. There should not be any formal summative assessment of language competences involving grading. (p. 14)
The education of preschool teachers in Austria takes place over a five-year span at the BAfEP (Bildungsanstalt für Elementarpädagogik) schools. They are upper secondary level schools for students between the ages of 14 and 18 years. The state curriculum combines the regular secondary school education subjects which award the A-level certificate that qualifies the students to enter university, with the compulsory subject of Didactics and Pedagogics which additionally qualifies the students as preschool teachers. For the practical work of Didactics and Pedagogics, each school is associated with a preschool, which is responsible for providing teaching practice. The students also visit other preschools for further practical experience. Until 2016 the optional subject ‘Englisch im Kindergarten: Impulse zum Interkulturellen Lernen’ was offered in Salzburg for these students in their final year of their secondary school education. But the subject was not a compulsory part of students’ education, because teaching foreign languages, including English in Austrian preschools, is not included in the preschool educational plan, BildungsRahmenPlan (Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, 2009a, 2009b). According to a teacher of the subject ‘Didactics and Pedagogics’, the students did not enrol in the optional subject (‘Englisch im Kindergarten: Impulse zum interkulturellen Lernen’) due to the pressures of the final year A–level examinations and therefore the subject was discontinued. At the time, the A-level examinations became centralized throughout Austria (‘Zentralmatura’), which added to students’ pressure to attain their A-level certificate as the ‘Zentralmatura’ was new for both the teachers and the students.
To enable adults who already have their A-Level certificate to qualify as preschool teachers the BAfEP school in Salzburg offers an adult education evening course. It takes place in the evening to accommodate people who work during the day. The course includes the compulsory subjects: ‘Didactics and Pedagogics’, ‘German’ and ‘German as a Second Language’. The subjects, ‘English’ and ‘English as a Foreign Language’ are not included. The participants graduate with a diploma. If qualified preschool teachers wish to be educated in English teaching in Salzburg they can participate in seminars, which I offer for the Salzburger Verwaltungsakademie-Zentrum für Kindergartenpädagogik. Apart from these seminars preschool teachers are largely left to their own devices as to how they qualify for it or if, when, how and to what extent they implement English in their preschools:
