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Children's vs. teachers’ and parents’ agency: a case of a Serbian-English bilingual preschool model / Danijela Prošić-Santovac, Danijela Radović // Language, Culture and Curriculum Volume 31, 2018 - Issue 3
2018
p. 289-302

This study investigated the agency of children, parents and teachers in a Serbian-English bilingual preschool. The focus was on uncovering the kind of agency each of these groups exercised in the process of language learning by examining the children's linguistic behaviour and the role that parents and teachers had in motivating children learning English as a foreign language. The results show that, within a model which relied on strict separation of languages, the children initiated communication with their L2 teacher mostly in their L1. Even when they faced a question in L2, the children answered both in L1 and L2, which shows the need for a different approach in teaching. On the other hand, the lack of teachers’ and parents’ agency in providing adaptations to the teaching model and promoting flexibility in the teaching process has been found to be caused by the strictly predefined applied model, with little room for modification. Thus, the needs of the learners could not be served fully, although both the teachers and the majority of parents used any opportunity to influence the language learning process by encouraging the children to learn a second language and by shaping their attitudes toward it.
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Own-language use in teaching English to preschool children / Paweł Scheffler, Anna Domińska. // ELT Journal 2018, Volume 72, No.4
2018.
p. 374–383.

This study investigated own-language use in teaching English as a foreign language to preschool children. Interviews were conducted with 20 teachers involved in preschool English instruction in a large city in Poland. Using thematic analysis, the study identified three major themes in relation to teachers’ own-language use: the children’s well-being, classroom management, and teaching the language. The same themes were identified in the case of the children’s parents, who were sometimes present in the classroom. The teachers’ descriptions of classroom interaction also revealed four functions that learners sometimes used their own language for: learning the language, managing the behaviour of others, and expressing physical needs and emotions. The main conclusions stemming from the teachers’ accounts are that the learners’ own language plays an important role in English instruction for preschool children and that decisions about its use are motivated by both linguistic and non-linguistic factors.