An Early Start: Young Learners and Modern Languages in Europe and Beyond

An Early Start: Young Learners and Modern Languages in Europe and Beyond 1 2 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Marianne Nikolov and Helena Curtain Foreign Language Education at Austrian Primary Schools: An Overview 13 Elisabeth Jantscher and Isabel Landsiedler Teaching Foreign Languages to Young Learners in Hungary 29 Marianne Nikolov Early Foreign Language Education in Croatia 41 Lidvina Stokic and Jelena Mihaljevic Djigunovic Baseline Study on FLT to Young Learners in Italy 51 Francesca Gattullo and Gabriele Pallotti Early Language Programmes in Germany 59 Angelika Kubanek-German Early Language Learning in Switzerland 71 Regine Fretz Baseline Study on FLT to Young Learners in the Czech Republic 79 Zuzana Faklova Foreign Language Teaching to Young Learners in Romania 93 Carmen-Maria Ralea Foreign Language Teaching to Children in Bulgaria 101 Nadya Berova and Lydia Dachkova Young Language Learners in Poland 117 Hanna Komorowska Foreign Language Teaching in Primary Schools in Belgium 133 Alex Housen Early Language Teaching in Estonia 147 Tuuli Oder English as a First Foreign Language for Young Learners – Sweden 151 Kerstin Sundin Modern Languages in British Primary Schools 159 Patricia Driscoll 3 Second Language Education in Canada: A Focus on Core French 173 in Elementary Schools Miles Turnbull Early Language Learning in the USA 191 Helena Curtain Teaching English to Young Learners in Hong Kong 209 David R. Carless and P. M. Jennie Wong Foreign Language Teaching in Australian Primary Schools 225 Penny McKay List of Contributors 249 4 Introduction Introduction Marianne Nikolov and Helena Curtain Young learners are in. Twenty years ago when we both started out promoting an early start our colleagues would ask, “Can’t you find some decent area of expertise?” “This is a dead topic. Those programmes don’t work.” And now, here we are editing a wonderful collection of papers to provide an overview of what is going on all over the world. It seems young learners are alive and kicking. This recent interest is indicated not only by the growing number of children studying modern languages, but also by a range of international publications on methodology (e.g. Argondizzo, 1992; Brumfit, Moon and Tongue, 1991; Curtain and Pesola, 1994; Brewster, Ellis and Girard, 1991; Scott and Ytreberg, 1990) and research (e.g. Arnsdorf, Boyle, Chaix and Charmian, 1992; Bialystok, 1991; Blondin, Candelier, Edelenbos, Johnstone, Kubanek-German and Taeschner, 1998; Dickson and Cumming, 1998; Edelenbos and Johnstone, 1996; Fink, 1998; Moys, 1998; Rixon, 1999). Besides these books, as will be seen, a number of studies investigate early language programmes in various countries. One of the aims of this volume is to give insights into research issues, and a cross section of the major achievements and advantages, as well as the problem areas in the countries under discussion. We started thinking about this edited volume in February 1997 in a workshop on Theme-based Foreign Language Teaching to Young Learners: Integrating Language, Culture and Content through Learner Involvement in the Teaching and Learning Process (for details see Nikolov 1997). This was a workshop (no. 2/97) organised by the European Centre for Modern Language in Graz, Austria with participants from 20 countries: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and USA. It is our pleasure to include nine articles coming from the countries represented at that workshop. Contributors of this volume include not only participants of the Graz event. Some of them (David Carless, Patricia Driscoll, Francesca Gattullo, Gabriele Pallotti, Alex Hausen, Angelika Kubanek-German, Penny McKay and Kerstin Sundin) were presenters at the Teaching of Foreign Languages in European Primary Schools Warwick Euroconference in Warwick, England in April 1997, whereas others (Nadia Berova, Lydia Dachkova both from Bulgaria, and Miles Turnbull from Canada) submitted their articles on an individual basis. 5 Nikolov / Curtain As for the organising principles of editing this volume, we have been hesitant how to arrange the articles so that we do justice to all authors and countries. We explored the texts for thematic threads to group them along, but we could not identify any relevant content-related criterion to weave them around. Therefore, we had a choice: either sequence articles in alphabetical order starting with Australia, then Austria, finishing with USA, or put them one after the other according to a geographical principle. As the idea of the book was born in Graz, we could arrange the articles according to how far they are from Graz, Austria. We chose the latter option. Thus, Austria comes first and Australia is the concluding chapter. The chapters reflect a wide range of contexts. They include countries with languages rarely spoken by other people as a foreign language, for example Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, and Sweden. In these countries knowing a modern language other than the mother tongue has always been a must, but these contexts differ greatly in how much emphasis has been put on international communication. In some of them foreign language teaching has been on the educational agenda for a long time and the success of these programmes is widely experienced by visitors to the country: for example, Sweden. The other extreme is represented by new Central European democracies, where the need for western languages has emerged recently. In these countries the freedom of choice is relatively new, and the level of enthusiasm and expectations are high. Some of these countries have gone through negative experiences concerning the compulsory status of Russian, which tended to be started at a relatively early age, but with low or no success. The status of modern language studies in countries whose official languages are often taught as foreign languages, for example Austria, Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland, UK and USA varies greatly. Although in some of these countries (e. g. UK and USA) traditionally modern languages were perhaps considered less important, a recent interest in language studies has reached them as well. Other contexts have been historically bilingual and multilingual (e.g. Canada and Switzerland), but the status of modern languages and attitudes towards knowing foreign languages are constantly changing, reflecting social, political and educational processes. In some of the countries the teaching of foreign languages to young learners has been in the educational tradition for a long time, like in Sweden, where the continuity of programmes has been ensured and young learners’ motivation has been kept alive. On the other hand, in countries where an early start characterised the learning of Russian, and as it was the only compulsory foreign language throughout students’ studies continuity was ensured, results were not at all reassuring: for example in Hungary and other Eastern bloc countries. Although these programmes continued through compulsory school years, and the methodology was also maintained, the vast majority of the population never acquired any useful command of the language for attitudinal reasons. 6 Introduction There are various issues emerging from these articles. The first one concerns the paradox involved in all early language teaching programmes: the intention is to ensure good language proficiency for adulthood, and starting in childhood is meant to help overcome attitudinal and learning difficulties older learners face. But pleasant early classroom experiences and initial success are later influenced by other important variables learners encounter, for example the lack of continuity, different methodology, and how useful they perceive the target language at a later stage of their studies. The first variable seems to be the most threatening for the educational contexts represented in this edited volume. As readers will see, unfortunately continuity of early programmes is often a problem both in methodology and in the lack of secondary teachers relying on what children already know. There is a danger looming head: this renaissance of starting early may fade away if expectations are not fulfilled. Therefore it is the responsibility of specialists to call attention to this serious challenge: an early start in itself will not guarantee successful language knowledge in the long run. The other issue emerging from these discussions as well as other sources relates to the role of teachers. In all contexts reviewed teachers are the most important stakeholders. The debate is ongoing: should the classroom teacher integrate the foreign language period into his / her timetable or a specialist should come in and instruct children. The evergreen question relates to teachers’ proficiency and the appropriacy of their methodology. The discussions are slightly misleading, as this is not an either or question. Both are equally important. Also, it is necessary to bear in mind that we advocate an early start because children will easily acquire the teacher’s language without any critical consideration. The teacher’s lack of proficiency may therefore negatively influence young learners’ language development. In all contexts there seems to be a consensus on the basic principles of methodology and what is considered to be good practice of teaching young learners modern languages. All authors emphasise – implicitly

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