Global Challenges Facing Early Language Teaching

Acknowledging the differing motivations between multilingual and monolingual societies in advocating for the adoption of a second language amongst (pre)primary school children, this book discusses universal challenges in implementing early language teaching in various international contexts.

Effectively teaching additional languages to young learners requires an understanding of their learning capacities, as well as their socio-linguistic backgrounds and linguistic repertoires. Demonstrating findings from global contexts such as those from Japan, Cyprus, Spain, Poland, Slovenia, Germany, South Korea, Croatia, Indonesia, Canada, and the UK, this book provides valuable means to support additional language acquisition that have garnered local success, focusing on plurilingual contexts, migrant populations, and the need for samples of ELL syllabi, outcomes and assessment. Through cross-sectional surveys, ethnographic small-scale studies and experimental empirical research reports, this book looks to foster future plurilingual individuals who can communicate successfully.

This book will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of Bilingualism/ESL, teaching and learning, early childhood education and education policy. Curriculum designers working in international language education contexts may also find this volume of use.

Joanna Rokita-Jaśkow is Associate Professor and Head of the Faculty of Linguistics at the University of the National Education Commission, Poland. She is a founder member of the Early Language Learning Research Association (ELLRA).

Melanie Ellis is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and Law, Faculty of Organization and Management, Silesian University of Technology, Poland. She is a founder member of the Early Language Learning Research Association (ELLRA).