Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Children are developing also their first language.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: I was once singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to three year olds and one of them just lit up and went etrecita.
Because star in Spanish. She was impressed with how much language the children were speaking because they were immersed in that context because everything had a link.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: And if we think about it, that's how children learn their first language. Because you are immersed in an environment, I think it comes down to the teachers also having very good collaboration.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: You need to know what the other teachers are doing.
That's essential. It's really difficult sometimes to really know each child.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: I work a lot with parents of bilingual children who are really worried about is introducing a third language, say English going to confuse my child?
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Okay, thank you very much for, for this next episode, we're going to move a little bit beyond the classroom. We've been focusing very much about what happens in the classroom.
So this one we want to think about how we connect beyond the classroom to other teachers, to the school as a whole, and even to parents, possibly beyond to society, the whole world, the universe. How do we connect out?
So let me start with thinking about other teachers.
So have you any advice or suggestions about how your English language teacher or your pre primary teacher connects with other teachers?
What are the possibilities? What are the things they need to watch for? What can they do?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: One of the things is English needs to align with the rest of the pre primary curriculum. So you need to know what the other teachers are doing and that's essential to know what your direction is going to be.
So you do need to connect with the other educators.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: How does that connection work? So you're in a school, what do you do? You just talk to them or what?
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Well, it really depends because you get to have these different contexts again. So it really depends if you've got the time to go and talk to another teacher or not. Fortunately, nowadays you've got lots of different ways of connecting, which doesn't mean you have to be there face to face and use that time to do it. So it could even be a text message. It could be an online platform where we connect about things. It could be uploading our files onto a system that is collaborative.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: I'm trying to imagine because haven't taught at this age, so I'm trying to imagine what this means. You might have a plan. You might say, I'm going to do, I'm going to do this pretend picnic and I'm going to go out into, into the class. So are you kind of just sharing what your plan is to see what they're doing or what would you do?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: That's a start.
So you share, you share these plans or you share the curriculum or the program syllabus and you share it. But then it's really important to actually talk together to understand the direction of it. And what kinds of activities are you going to do? So what kind of activities might I be doing?
And sometimes you do the same activities but just in different languages.
That also happens. And that's fine if it's planned that way. Of course. Not just because it's a slip, because you don't know what the other teacher is doing.
So yeah, you really need to.
Ideally you would have the time.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Paid time, ideally as a teacher to connect with the other teacher. But that doesn't happen in many contexts. That would be luxury.
But yes, you would have to see what is written, you would have to talk to the teachers. And you also want to figure out the profile of the group and how each child is developing. Because if we're talking about the whole child, you're interested in knowing how the children are developing in their own language as well.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Some of these 3 year olds don't even master their first language yet and you're expecting them to be introduced to a new language. So you are really interested in knowing if these children are actually starting to use their mother tongue much more or not as well as what you can see in your English classroom and how they developing holistically. So is this child happy in your class? Because this child doesn't seem happy in my class or isn't engaging?
[00:04:54] Speaker C: It doesn't say a word in my class.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: What are they like in yours? Is it because of the language or is it because of something different? So there's lots of reflection going on when you can connect with another teacher who's teaching the same group.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: Right.
So it could be to do with the activities you're doing, what are the skills you're developing, are they ready for this?
And it could also be about the children themselves. These are areas that you might want to connect to.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: And sometimes the teacher who is responsible of introducing English is sometimes a specialist teacher who comes into the classroom only for 30 minutes a week.
So it's really difficult sometimes to really know each child and see the development of each child when you only see them 30 minutes each week. So to get a bigger view of each child, you need someone who is with them every day.
[00:05:48] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: And can actually see that development progressing and with your own views as well. And sometimes the specialist teacher has A lot to tell the mainstream educator as well. So it's teamwork, it's a partnership.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: Might you want to get the mainstream teacher, the generalist teacher, to be using
[00:06:13] Speaker B: English that is great and not always receptive to one to do that.
But I mean, if you could do cross curricular kind of work and even the music, if the music teacher could count the rhythm of a song in English, that would be great. But okay. It also depends if they know the English. Of course. Yeah, they need to feel comfortable using the language, but if they can, it's great.
And that is a way to connect the two languages.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's.
I also think it can be great. And, you know, if all these conditions that you mentioned met. But I also think it's important to highlight that point that you made earlier, that it's an age that children are developing also their first language. And so we don't really want to take time from that development to happen.
So as long as English introduction doesn't happen at, you know, the expense of the first language development and the wider skills that children are developing, then it's great because it allows children to make these very meaningful connections that I mentioned. But I would say the priority of the mainstream teacher, unless it's an immersion program, for example, where, you know, it's a different situation, shouldn't be on English itself.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And as well as thinking about this aspect of whether English can go into the mainstream session, sometimes we also think about bringing children's mother tongue into the English session, which is important too. So there's different ways of connecting the language. So if that doesn't happen in the mainstream session, it's okay because it might happen in the English session where we try to connect languages.
[00:08:13] Speaker C: So in some schools, they might have passed down from the higher levels in English. Only policy in an English session or lesson. Is that some. How do you feel about that?
[00:08:28] Speaker B: I think that is one of the big issues as well.
You need to respect the children's own language and you want to bring it in. Now. It's not really a matter of thinking that the teacher will translate into the children's home language or mother tongue. It's a matter of how much of their own language the children can bring into the classroom. Because we're thinking about the children bringing language into the classroom for the teacher, I would say yes, you need to use as much English as possible because you want to give a lot of input and exposure. That's essential.
So definitely the teacher should be using as much English as possible.
English 100% if you like. Yes, that would be great.
But we are not suggesting that children shouldn't bring their own language into the classroom because we're respecting who they are, we're respecting their identities. And that's really, really powerful for a child to know that their language is also respected and not everything is in an unfamiliar language.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: And sometimes bringing that language can actually have tremendous learning gains in English, because then you might be able to explain a concep that might be a bit too abstract, less tactile or less able to be visually or physically expressed. And by making that connection with the first language, you might be able to introduce such a notion. So I wouldn't be very happy with these policies.
No mother tongue at all. English only.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: We sometimes encourage it by saying things like, can you teach me how to say elephant, lion, monkey in your language?
So let's see if I can try that and see if I can say that in your language. And that makes them feel really, you know, powerful because they're teaching the teacher something.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:25] Speaker C: And they see you making mistakes.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: And then that's funny sometimes. And they're learning.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: I pretended one year to not know any Spanish. I did, but I pretended not to know any Spanish. And so every time I did this as a strategy, I would go like elephante, like trying to use English pronunciation to say the words or making mistakes.
And that's great too. And it makes it playful again, you know. And yeah, I was once singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to three year olds and one of them just lit up and went, etrecita.
Because Etrecita is a star in Spanish.
She knew that song in Spanishita. My teacher's singing this song that mum sings to me at home.
Yeah, yeah, that was one of her songs. Tearing up hers. That was very moving.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, I suppose that whole idea of songs or games that they already know in their first language.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:11:29] Speaker C: Is a very good kind of way.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Amazing way. Yeah. Because they know the rules or they know the lyrics or they know the story.
And then it's just a matter of kind of understanding that, oh, this story exists in a different language and sometimes the characters names are different or the lyrics are slightly different, make them, you know, rhyme and so on. So you, you can notice these differences, but they're not bad in the sense that, you know, they don't make the, the song or story less appealing. In fact, they make it more interesting to spot these differences.
So actually it's, it's amazing when you can do that.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: And also words that are similar in different languages. So piano in Spanish is Biano.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: So you already know a word in English.
Piano color is very similar. There are lots of words. Banana is very similar. So when they make these connections that oh, that's really similar to my language. That's easy. I can do this. That's a boost of confidence.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Hi, Fedra here. I just wanted to point you in the direction of the fantastic position paper that I helped to co author Pre primary.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: How to do it.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Well, by downloading the paper you can explore the topic in in more detail and discover more research on how best to introduce English to pre primary children, how to identify potential challenges in the young learner classroom and learn how to address them. Click the link in the description to get your copy as well as a toolkit to help you implement our advice. Enjoy.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: So that's one area where I'm thinking of other areas as we go out of the classroom where the management of the school where you might want them to know things that they don't know already because they're not used to language learning at a pre primary level. Are there other areas that you, if you were talking to a principal of a school that they, you know, they need to understand about language learning at pre primary ages?
[00:13:32] Speaker B: I think this podcast would be great.
I think everything we've been talking about, sometimes owners of schools or heads of schools, sometimes they don't have the background in either pre primary education. If it's a big school, they might be, you know, more familiarized with primary or secondary school or they might not be teachers of languages. So there's many times there is some kind of gap somewhere and I think all this is really important to understand that language is going to be aligned with anything, anything else that's happening in pre primary and we're looking holistically at the development of the children.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: I think very often it's done in a more tokenistic way of I'm going to have my curriculum as is and I'm going to add a bit of English or at least I've seen that in various contexts.
And I think what the position paper and the podcast also shows or showcases is the fact that it can never be done.
Well, yeah, in this way we need to, to, as you just said, take the, the context of, of development as a whole and see how English can help, you know, develop the child further rather than be an add on that, you know, the school can sell.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: Yes, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: And, and that selling point sometimes is children will become Bilingual if they start in our preschool earlier, before going into primary school. So this is sometimes a selling point quite a lot. And I don't think it's badly intentioned. I just think perhaps the goals are not really fitting into their proper place.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: I agree. Because it's sometimes, you know, it's almost like giving them a head start.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Speaker C: You know, they're going to get ahead on the vocabulary because they're going to start two years earlier and so they will know more.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And of course that's true to some extent.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: But then you, you might lose a lot of other valuable things if you just see it and practice it in this way.
And something else also related to the mother tongue. It comes from my doctoral research, which I did in bilingual and monolingual pre primary schools in Greece. So bilingual immersion Greek and English, monolingual immersion English only. And what I found there was that actually when it came to linguistic outcomes in English, obviously the monolingual immersion children were more on par with English monolinguals. So their English was developing very quickly. But what was really interesting was that the bilingual immersion pupils, they were a little bit behind when it came to English, but they were actually better than Greek monolinguals in Greek.
So I think that's really important to consider when you're thinking of what my goals are on the administration level. Because if your goal is to give them a head start with English, then okay, maybe you can have a lot of English in the curriculum and so on. But if it's to develop children's wider linguistic repertoire as a whole, maybe you need to also emphasize their development in their first language and help them make these connections. Because in bilingual programs, very often these connections that you talked about before are made through the collaboration of teachers or the coexistence of teachers in a single classroom and so on. So I think that that kind of shows how, you know, the goals can differ. And it's not a head start is a really nice thing to aim for. But there can be other goals as well that sometimes are overlooked.
[00:17:25] Speaker C: So let me just check that I understood that the children in Greek monolingual schools, the development of their Greek, of their first language skills was a little lower.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: The children who attended these bilingual immersion preschools. So the children that had. Because at the time that I was doing my doctoral research, there was no English at pre primary in Greece except for these bilingual or monolingual preschools. So actually, children in bilingual preschools that got, let's say, 50% of the school day in Greek and 50% in English. It's not as clear cut. In any case, they actually did a little bit better than the Greek monolingual children who attended a standard preschool where Greek was the only language of instruction.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: So I thought that this was fascinating.
[00:18:19] Speaker C: That's incredible.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: And I think it comes down to being able to learn that language exists, you know, in a wider sphere and making these connections and maybe learning the word for grass in Greek because you first heard it in your English class and so on. And I think it comes down to the teachers also having very good collaboration and exposure to English being substantial, but not, you know, overwhelming that age group and so on. So.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you say that that was an immersion context they were in?
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Yes, sort of. I think at later stages the school adopted a clio way, but for the preschool they, they tried to do an immersion program as much as possible.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting because I was helping a school that wanted to move from a more traditional way of teaching to an immersion program in English. And we started with two year olds, the youngest ones, which is the most complicated group to do this with. But never mind, they wanted to start from the 2 year olds and then build up. So that's what we did. I took on the challenge and to be honest, even the teacher was saying she was impressed with how much language the children were speaking because they were immersed in that context because everything had a link and she, the teacher was using all this natural language all the time and she was impressed with that difference between how she was teaching before, which was before that she was teaching in a classroom where she was doing Spanish with the children in Argentina. And for half an hour every day she would switch into English and do English activities.
So it was great because she was doing playful activities and very much child centered types of activities because she was a pre primary educator.
But she couldn't believe what the difference it made to actually speak to the children the whole morning in English and how all this natural language was cropping up with the 2 year olds saying push and pull and whose is this? And things like that that were just cropping up. Or water please. And the essential things, I think immersion is a really good way to go
[00:20:46] Speaker A: even if you can't do it fully.
And that goes back to your point before a question about, you know, should we just teach in the first language? I think, sorry, in the target language. I think that comes from, from this place of wanting to give children as much input as possible and that's why it's really important.
But the Authenticity of the input is what matters. I think more than that, just overloading them with input is not going to be as helpful as creating nice pedagogically appropriate situations in which the language is used. And if you can do that for say, half an hour, that's great.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: And I think what you're saying is very much connected to the fact that you need to be comfortable in English as a teacher to be able to do that, to use this natural language and anything that crops up according to the situations or the context or speak your thoughts out loud, you really need to be quite proficient in the language. And many times what happens is that teachers with a limited command of the language are put into the lower aged classrooms and it should be the other way around.
[00:22:00] Speaker C: Yes, right, right.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Because you consider it to be a list of words that they're going to learn. So if they're going to be learning the colors, you don't really need to know much more language.
[00:22:09] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: To teach the colors.
[00:22:10] Speaker C: But in reality you're creating interactive experiences which actually need quite a high level.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: And if we think about it, that's how children learn their first language. Because you are immersed in an environment, your parents don't tell you, you know, don't teach you the colors by showing you, you know, different flashcards. You know, you just pick up what the colors are from listening to people interact amongst themselves and also with you.
[00:22:39] Speaker C: So actually there's a game where getting the right color matters.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes. So it's about creating these situations.
Yeah. And you need to be proficient and you also need to not be afraid. Let's say when a child uses the first language in an English only context, to actually use that and be able to come back to the target language, which is English. And so basically needs confidence in, in the linguistic repertoire that, you know, you're teaching and interacting with.100.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: Yeah, can I just bring in the last few minutes parents?
So where do parents come into this?
Are parents part of the challenge? Are they part of the solution?
How pre primary English language teachers approach parents?
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Okay, so there's big connections between teachers and parents. There have to be because we're talking about their children and again, their holistic development. So we want to talk a lot to the parents. We need to know what's happening even if mum is going on a trip that might change the way the child is behaving in the classroom. So we need to know that. And the child isn't going to tell us that because they haven't got the linguistic resources to Tell us that. At least not in English, sometimes not even in their mother tongue. So we usually do have a lot of connections with the parents. Sometimes if you're a specialist, you won't have that many connections. If you just come in for half an hour, you don't have the time. But that is another reason why it's important to talk to the teacher because the mainstream teacher might have more information about what's happening with the children in their lives and that can impact their behavior and their learning a lot.
So it's, yes, definitely, really important to have a connection with the parents and, and to tell the parents the truth about what we're doing in a classroom and not be afraid to use the word play when talking to parents. Say, yes, we're going to play.
Is that what I'm paying this course for? Just to play at home? Yes, but we're playing in a meaningful way with intentionality and we're going to be using English while we play.
So we need to tell them the truth. Even if it's scary or, you know, it's frightening to come to a parent and say this is what we're going to be doing.
Yeah.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: And also not to worry. I work a lot with parents of bilingual children who are really worried about, you know, is introducing a third language, let's say English going to confuse my child?
No, it's not. You know, and we keep saying that, but, you know, I think it needs to be drilled in even more because this question keeps coming up and yeah, I think there's always this tension of wanting to have to give children the best future possible. And that's why you enroll them in the English language program or immersion program. But then at the same time you're worried about, you know, will that, you know, cause them any confusion or delay their first language. And no, it does not. And I think being able to have these conversations with them and provide this reassurance is really important.
[00:26:07] Speaker C: And the fact that their own experience of learning a language is probably very test based.
Lists of words they've learned, grammar points they've learned. Does that make it difficult for them to understand what you're doing? The play thing?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: That's true, Yes. I think so often.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Some parents are obviously really receptive to it, but yes, others, I've heard a lot of reactions of the kind you described.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Many parents, many parents ask sometimes, why don't you give them homework? Why can't I want to see what they're learning? And that's through homework or what grade are they going to get to the end of the program.
[00:26:48] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: They're not getting a grade.
There might be a report.
Teachers do look at children's progression through observations.
So they're observing the children all the time and writing notes about maybe this child greeted me at the door for the first time today. So that's. I'm going to write down so I don't forget about that, because that's a great milestone for that kid.
Maybe it's their first time saying a word in English. I'm going to write that down. Maybe they were able to sit and listen to the story for a bit longer, and that's really important achievements.
[00:27:26] Speaker C: Teachers track, in a way, noting these down as they go along.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Using just little sticky notes and writing things down. Or having a little notebook where you write quick things down with the date and then at the end, perhaps that comes into a report for parents and you can have a meeting with parents and sit down with them and talk to them about what you saw in the children's progression.
[00:27:50] Speaker C: I really liked your idea earlier of getting the child to teach the song or something to their parents.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:57] Speaker C: That's a nice way of engaging.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: Sometimes very interesting things come out from meetings with parents.
Things like there was once some parents that were kind of complaining in a jokey way that their children were only using English at home and they were laughing about it, but they were saying they just use English all the time. They're singing the song in English. They tell me the story in English. I don't know what they're talking about. Parents have no English water, please, at home and things like that.
So it's really interesting to get this information about how the children are taking the language into the real world.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: And imagine if it's a child that in class actually doesn't use English and then they go at home, they practice the language there.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Yes. And you discover so much about children just by talking to the parents.
[00:28:44] Speaker C: Yes. You almost look forward to those parent
[00:28:48] Speaker A: conversations and bring the specialist teachers into these conversations in situations where they might not be. Because we often see this disconnect between the specialist teacher and the general generalist or classroom teacher who gets to have these conversations with parents while the specialist often does not.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: So I think it's important back to the first point of communicating with other teachers to also have them integrated into the school.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:29:22] Speaker C: Thank you so much. It's been so fascinating. Lots of great ideas and nice little stories. I've really enjoyed this. Thank you very much.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Thank you very much.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: And that's a wrap on series 15 of Talking ELT. We hope this series has offered fresh perspectives, practical ideas and a deeper understanding of how language learning works in the pre primary years.
A huge thank you to our guests Sarah and Phaedra for sharing their expertise, their experiences and insights into early language learning. If you'd like to explore these ideas further, you can download the Oxford University Press position paper Pre Primary English how to do it well, using the link in the description.
And if you've enjoyed this series, don't forget to follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode of Talking elt. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
