Learning Foreign Languages in Primary School

Research Insights

Edited by Dr. María del Pilar García Mayo

Publication date:

16 June 2017

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783098101

This book presents research on the learning of foreign languages by children aged 6-12 years old in primary school settings. The collection provides a significant and important contribution to this often overlooked domain and aims to provide research-based evidence that might help to inform and develop pedagogical practice. Topics covered in the chapters include the influence of learner characteristics on word retrieval; explicit second language learning and language awareness; meaning construction; narrative oral development; conversational interaction and how it relates to individual variables; first language use; feedback on written production; intercultural awareness raising and feedback on diagnostic assessment. It will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, teachers and stakeholders who are interested in research on how children learn a second language at primary school.

María del Pilar García Mayo: Introduction

1. Ting Zhao and Victoria A. Murphy: Factors Affecting the Speed of Word Retrieval in Children Learning English as a Foreign Language

2. Angela Tellier and Karen Roehr-Brackin: Raising Children’s Metalinguistic Awareness to Enhance Classroom Second Language Learning

3. Carmen Muñoz: The Development of Language Awareness at the Transition from Primary to Secondary School

4. Ana Llinares: Learning How to Mean In Primary School CLIL Classrooms

5. Amparo Lázaro Ibarrola and María de los Ángeles Hidalgo: Benefits and Limitations of Conversational Interactions among Young Learners of English in a CLIL Context

6. Agurtzane Azkarai and Ainara Imaz Agirre: Gender and Age in Child Interaction in an EFL CLIL Context: An Exploratory Study

7. Elisabet Pladevall-Ballester and Alexandra Vraciu: Exploring Early EFL: L1 Use in Oral Narratives by CLIL and Non-CLIL Primary School Learners

8. Yuko Goto Butler, Yeting Liu and Heejin Kim: Narrative Development in L1 and FL: A Longitudinal Study among Young Chinese Learners of English

9. Anna Bret Blasco: A Two-Year Longitudinal Study of Three EFL Young Learners’ Oral Output: The Development of Syntactic Complexity and Accuracy

10. Francisco Javier García Hernández, Julio Roca de Larios and Yvette Coyle: Reformulation as a Problem-Solving Space For Young EFL Writers: A Longitudinal Study of Learning Strategies

11. Annamaria Pinter and Samaneh Zandian: A Questionnaire Study of Iranian Children’s Understanding of Intercultural Issues

12. Marianne Nikolov: Students' and Teachers' Feedback on Diagnostic Tests For Young EFL Learners: Implications for Classrooms

Rhonda Oliver: Afterword

This fascinating collection provides a wealth of research focused on foreign language learners aged 6-12. An eye-opener on what children are capable of in linguistic, social and cognitive domains of learning, instructed and unassisted. This much needed work does indeed provide important insights for educators and researchers. I found my book of the year!