Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
223
What is a young
learner?
Ellis (2014: 76)notes that the term young learner is vague and can lead
to confusion. Legally, a young learner may be anyone under the age of
18; in reality, however, using one term to cover such a diverse age range
is unhelpful. Instead, Ellis proposes that at the very least, a distinction
between pre- and post-11 or 12year olds should be made. This is because
of the huge differences in physical, psychological, social, emotional,
conceptual and cognitive development (ibid.: 75)among children in
these age groups, leading to very different approaches to teaching. The
pre- and post-11 or 12 label is also useful as the the younger the better
controversy concerns this younger age group (ibid.:76).
Children as
language learners
224
Ellis (op.cit.: 77)suggests her own list of terms for describing YLs and,
in this Special Issue, we have taken the decision to focus on the first two
levels she proposes: early years/pre-primary and primary. As well as the
younger the better debate; there are a number of reasons for this. First, as
Ellis points out, most research to date has focused on the older age group of
secondary-school learners. Moreover, the rapid and comprehensive lowering
of the age at which English is introduced to children in many countries,
together with the spread of preschool English, means it is timely to focus on
these younger age groups. Finally, given the differences in approach needed
to teach pre-/primary- and secondary-school learners, focusing on one of
these groups allows for a more in-depth look at a number of issues, such as
appropriate pedagogies and contexts of learning. Therefore, for the purposes
of this Special Issue, YLs are those at pre-primary and primary level, roughly
from the age of 3 up to 11 or 12years old.
Policy
225
Young learner
pedagogy
226
work of Carless (2008), who has investigated the use of TBLT with YLs.
However, it is clear that there remains a lack of classroom-based studies
and young learners in general remains an under-researched area. For
these reasons, studies such as those by Coyle and Gmez Gracia (p. 276
this issue) on using songs and by Mouro on child-initiated play
have an important role to play in developing our understanding of
appropriate YL pedagogy.
Doing research
with young
learners
As we have noted, more and more children are learning English from
an early age, and research in the area has begun to grow. Very often,
such research is based on methods used with adults and, as Pinter and
Zandian (2014) note, tends to be experimental. The question therefore
arises as to whether research focusing on YLs needs to develop a new
set of research tools, or indeed whole new approaches.
Learning English
and context
227
Future directions
228
teach English because local teachers feel unable to teach, either because
their English skills are too poor or because they believe their English
skills are too poor. In other places, teachers using a CLIL methodology
are less concerned about their English levels as their focus is on the
content of what they are teaching rather than on their language use.
What English proficiency do teachers need to teach effectively, in
different contexts, and with different levels of learners?
Finally, policy is hugely important in the YL context as it directly
influences the lives of millions of children. However, we know very
little about how policies are developed, or how the macro, in terms of
policy, becomes the micro, in terms of school practice. Many more
studies, therefore, are needed in this area.
Conclusion
229
The author
Fiona Copland is Senior Lecturer in TESOL in
the School of Languages and Social Sciences
at Aston University, Birmingham, UK, where
she is Course Director of distance learning MSc
programmes in TESOL. She has worked as an
English language teacher and a teacher trainer
in Nigeria, Hong Kong, and Japan and has been
a course director for both CELTA and DELTA
programmes in the UK. Fiona has a range
of research interests, including talk in postobservation feedback conferences and linguistic
ethnography. With colleagues at Aston, Sue
Garton and Anne Burns, she carried out a global
research project titled Investigating Global Practices
in Teaching English to Young Learners which led
to the production of a book of language learning
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