MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of ...

MASARYK UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
[pic]
Department of English Language and Literature Teaching English to Pre-primary Children with the Focus on English
Kindergartens in Brno
Bachelor Thesis Author: Lenka Macounová
Supervisor: Mgr. ?árka Dohnalová
Brno 2008 I declare that I worked on my thesis on my own and that I used only
the sources listed in the Bibliography and Internet sources. Prohla?uji, ?e jsem bakalá?skou práci zpracovala samostatn? a
pou?ila pouze zdroje uvedené v seznamu literatury a internetových zdrojích. .............................................
Lenka Macounová Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank Mgr. ?árka Dohnalová for her kind guidance of my
thesis and her smile that encouraged me. I appreciate her time that she
devoted to me and her consultations as well as giving me advice what could
be improved. Further, I would like to thank all the people who I contacted or
talked to, and asked for information and they were willing to help me and
filled in my questionnaires.
Content
Introduction 5
THEORETICAL PART 7 - 24
1. Teaching English to Very Young Learners 7
1.1 Language development 7
1.2 Pre-primary children - general characteristics 10
1.3 Very young learners - characteristics 12
1.4 Foreign language learning and foreign language acquisition - Krashen
14
1.5 Error correction 15 2. History of English teaching to pre-primary children in the Czech
Republic 17
2.1 Beginnings of foreign language teaching to pre-primary children in the
Czech Republic 17
2.1.1 The research of 1992 - the results (Smolíková12)) 17
2.1.2 The research of 1992 - important findings (Smolíková 12)) 18
2.2 Beginnings of English kindergartens in the Czech Republic 18
2.3 Beginnings of English kindergartens in Brno 19 3. Principles of teaching and activities in English kindergartens 19
3.1 A principle: Total immersion 19
3.2 A principle: 'Total Physical Response'- TPR 21
3.3 Activities for listening and speaking skills 22 PRACTICAL PART 25 - 44
4. English kindergartens in Brno - State of the Arts 25
4.1 English kindergartens in Brno in general 25
4.2 The Tomcat Playgroup 28
4.3 The English nursery Mate?ídou?ka 29
4.4 The English School for Little People 30
4.5 The Ponny, English nursery school 31
4.6 The International Montessori Kindergarten Little Pearl 32
4.7 The Kids Garden - English Preschool 32
4.8 Possible Continuance with English in Brno 33
5. My visits in the kindergartens - activities 34
5.1 The English nursery Mate?ídou?ka 34
5.1.1 Activities with the Czech teacher - a poem, singing and drawing
34
5.1.2 Activities with the native speaker - drawing and 'Back and
forth' 35
5.1.3 My impression 36
5.2 The Ponny, English nursery school 36
5.2.1 Activities with the special children's pedagogue - group of
kangaroos 37
5.2.2 The Circle time - the group of tigers 37
5.2.3 My impression 38
5.3 The TomCat Playgroup 38
5.3.1 The 'warming' activities 38
5.3.2 Activities with the native speaker 39
5.3.3 My impression 40
5.4 The English School for Little People 40
5.4.1 Activities - a song with pictures and a quiz 40
5.4.2 My impression 41 6. The questionnaires for parents - results 42 Conclusion 45
Summary 47
Bibliography 48
Internet Sources 48
People who I talked to, and who filled in the questionnaires in the English
kindergartens 50
Appendix 51 - 74
Introduction English has become a necessity during the recent years. English is an
official and international language in communications, science, business
etc. and is spoken in many international organisations throughout the
world. Knowledge of English at different levels is required in many
professions and probably for that reason pupils and students choose English
as their first foreign language at school and also even many adult or
middle-aged people learn English at home or in a language course or a
language school. They all know that it is not easy and how much effort they
have to make to acquire the foreign language or at least to reach
communicative level. Many parents want to help and facilitate their
children English learning as much as possible and so they want their
children to meet English at very early age so that they would not take it
as a foreign language.
Who is this work for?
This work is for parents who are considering sending their child to an
English kindergarten, above all in Brno, because the practical part
describes English kindergartens located in this city. The work is intended
also for teachers teaching English to pre-primary children or for other
people who are interested in the English teaching to very young learners -
up to the age of seven. What is this work about?
Theoretical Part
The first chapter of the theoretical part firstly attempts to explain how
the language is developing and being acquired because it is a natural
process and it can be applied to foreign language teaching. Secondly, it
describes particularities of pre-primary children and very young learners
because they have their own thinking, feeling and needs at this important
developmental stage. The particularities are essential to know when working
with, or teaching little children. It is different from teaching teenagers
or adults. The end of the first chapter is devoted to Krashen's concept of
difference between language acquisition and language learning and to
implicit and explicit error correction.
The second chapter focuses on the situation of foreign language
teaching in kindergartens in the territory of today Czech Republic in 1992,
and on the first English kindergartens there and in Brno.
In the third chapter, there are explained two basic teaching
principles on which English kindergartens are based. There are also listed
various activities for developing of children's listening and speaking
skills that are used in English kindergartens.
Practical part
The practical part is fully focused on the English kindergartens in Brno.
There is given an overview of them. Firstly, they are described generally
and then each of them separately. At the end of the fourth chapter, there
are listed elementary schools in Brno where English is taught from the
first classes.
The fifth chapter is devoted to descriptions of activities that I
could see during my visits in the English kindergartens and what I think
about that.
The sixth chapter informs what I found out from the questionnaires
that were filled in by parents whose children attend the English
kindergartens in Brno.
THEORETICAL PART
1. Teaching English to Very Young Learners 1.1 Language development According to Chomsky 1), the language acquisition is delimited genetically.
He claims that there is a so-called 'Language acquisition device' in a
human brain which "is supposed to function as a congenital device for
learning symbolic language".1) He further assumes that there is so-called
'universal grammar', which is an innate set of rules for organising
language. This theory assumes that all languages have shared principles of
grammar - 'a common structural basis'2). Universal grammar attempts to
explain language acquisition in child development. Chomsky (qtd. in
Vybíral, 2005) says that a child from the age of two up to the age of six
learns one word per hour and it is enough to hear it only once and even if
it is in the unclear context. It is not clear whether Chomsky's verb 'to
learn' in the sentence means 'to understand the meaning' or 'to be able to
pronounce it' or both 'to understand the meaning and be able to pronounce
it - to use it correctly'. However, it is quite discussible in all three
cases. Everyone who spent even a short period of time with little children
knows that you have to repeat everything many times and you have to show or
demonstrate everything several times for children to get understand and
remember it. Slattery and Willis (2001) show a situation when a mother or
carer talks to a child a lot and repeat words several times; it is called
the 'caretaker talk' and it helps to develop the child's language. The
authors (Slattery, and Willis, 2001: 10) give an example of such a talk. It
is a transcript of a mother talking to her 16 months old child:
"MOTHER: 'Now, we're nearly dressed... OK now over your head...good
boy...put in your other hand...now shoes. Where are your shoes?'
CHILD: 'Sus...'
MOTHER: 'Yes. Your shoes. Where are they?'
(Both look around for the shoes.)
MOTHER: 'Oh there. Look...your shoes...on the chair.'
CHILD: 'Sus. Sus.'
MOTHER: 'Yes shoes.'"
Slattery and Willis (2001) point out some features in the caretaker
talk that help children acquire also new language naturally and that can be
used also by teacher in the classroom. They are following: repeating
phrases said earlier, keeping children's attention by asking them
questions, reacting positively to what children say even if words are not
complete or perfectly pronounce and adding or improving what children say.
"Very young children are able to understand what is being said to
them even before they understand the individual words. Int