I would like to have more info on teaching English as a Foreign Language to four-year-old children:
What are the advantages and disadvantages for the child? What might be the difficulties? Since children at this age are still learning how to read and write in their own language, does the contact with a foreign language influence the learning of their mother tongue? How?
This question is from Leina, Brazil
If you have suggestions for Leina please, contact us. Please include 'Teaching very young learners' in the subject line of your message. teachingenglish@britishcouncil.org
Comments
joe
I'd like to share a tip about teaching English to very young learners, activity which I'm carrying on nowadays after a couple of years working with adults, teenagers and more grown up children. I agree with those who had written about the importance of teaching something meaningful, something that appeals to the child's emotions and reality. I'd also like to add: teach with love and have fun while doing it. Little children can feel if you're enjoying yourself and they learn a lot when they are encouraged on every little step they make towards the adquisition of the language. I always tell the parents that when a child is 3, 4 or 5 years old he or she surely won't speak in English if asked to or would refuse to utter a single word in class, but they are silently, and at their own rhytmn, understanding what English is about and maybe one day - in the close future - they will surprise everyone with words and phrases that they didn't want to say before. My case is an example in itself, as I had to learn English at 3 because my parents moved for some years to Great Britain. This was the way I learned and this is the way I teach: love and lots of fun!
Maria from Caserta, Italy
I teach English to pre-school and Kindergarten children at a private nursery school in the South of Italy. One of my groups consists of 3-4 year old kids and I would like to comment on my experience of working with them. I think there are many advantages to introducing kids to English (or another second language) at an early age. At this age their minds are very open and flexible and they learn quite naturally through playing and being introduced to vocabularly related to their interests, daily lives and immediate surroundings (animals, body parts, actions, colours, clothes, food, seasons, etc.). When teaching this age group I mainly use songs, chants, games and flash cards and some simple vocabulary / grammar based drills like: I can sing / dance / jump / run, etc. or I like apples / ice cream / orange juice, etc. and basically talk to them in English most of the time and it's really nice to see them learn so much in a natural and effortless way.
In Italy children learn to read and write in their own language starting from the age of 5 or 6, so I only teach listening and speaking skills in English to my group of 4 year old kids and I think it's good for them to start speaking English before learning to read and write in it as it helps to avoid pronunciation mistakes caused by trying to read English words according to Italian rules. At the same time, when teaching my Kindergarten class I start introducing English reading and writing after Christmas when they are already quite confident with it in Italian and I try to make it clear that reading and writing doesn't follow the same pattern in English as it does in Italian and I use the phonics approach and so far it has worked quite well for my pupils.
Tjang Kian Liong, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia
One advantage of teaching a language to a very young child is that he or she still has a very good memory. Thus he will absorb the words (vocabulary) and sounds we teach in a very natural way.
However, one of the difficulties I think will be teaching him to use the right tenses, because it will be difficult for the child to differentiate when to use the past or present forms of the verbs, and when to use the
continuous or perfect forms.
Further, a child will not know which word is from a foreign language and which word is not when he is very young, for example when he is two years old. However, as he grows bigger, for example when he is three or four years old (and this may vary depending on the child), we can tell him that certain words are English and certain words are from his own native language.
To conclude, I agree to introducing English as early as possible to children. Introduce spoken words and sounds first, and they can learn to read and write, and also learn to use correct tenses later on.
Farid Shokrieh, Iran
I don't think if it is at all necessary to teach the alphabets while the young learner does not yet know alphabets of L1! I think it is a great chance to establish an English atmosphere in which the child can "acquire" the language. If I were teaching a very young learner, I'd give him/her as much objective exposure as possible. I'd definitely teach implicitly, and I'd never use L1.
Shaunessy, Germany
There was a very good article in the July 2003 issue of English Teaching Professional by Carol Read called 'Is Younger Better?' She sites two cases where two groups of teenagers were tested on their English proficiency. One group had started learning English very young (3 or 4 years old) and the other a few years later. When they were tested as teenagers, there was no difference in the two groups! The reason is that older learners learn much faster. Nevertheless, Carol believes that teaching the tiny ones is worthwhile. Key points from her own experience are:
She says that "younger is better when...
Hope that helps you a bit. It's a bit cryptic, I know. This is a three-page article, and I think you have to be a subscriber of ETP to view it online, but maybe if you search long enough in the internet, you can find it.
I read this article at the time I was teaching English lessons at a pre-school. The research findings that very early learning makes no difference in later test scores discouraged me at first, and it matched with my own experience that my little students were truly learning at a snail's pace (here I should add that I don't consider myself a very effective teacher for little kids, and I stopped after a couple years). I adopted the philosophy that I wasn't really there to improve their English, but to give them a good feeling about it so that, later on, when they have to start it in school (at age 10 or 11 here in Germany), they'll think "Oh good! I like English!"