Policy: Primary ELT Program

 Policy : Primary ELT  Program 

Hello welcome back to my blog. So in this blog I'm going to tell you little bit about policy : primary ELT program .

Governments promote English for political and economic reasons. In a global survey for the British Council, published in 2013, Shelagh Rixon reported that English was being taught at ever younger ages, putting pressure on educational resources across the world. Many countries also introduce English to children in preprimary settings, such as in kindergartens and preschools.

The type of language programme is introduced will be dependent on the educational framework of the given country. Educational frameworks vary enormously between countries. In some contexts, there is a major divide between primary and secondary schools around the age of ten to 11, while in others primary schooling runs for eight years (from six to 14), divided into lower primary and upper primary sectors.
There are also differences in the way the curriculum is structured and delivered, and these effects may carry over to the introduction of a new language. Even if English is introduced in a given country at a particular age across the board, there might still be large differences between English provision in rural and urban areas, and there are still many contexts where rural schools struggle to employ qualified English language teachers.

Children of primary school age may not have strong opinions about other cultures or language learning in general, even though parental and teacher influences might already have made an impact. In addition, children with more favourable socioeconomic backgrounds will be progressing with their schoolwork and with English more smoothly. Children whose parents/carers speak two or more languages and move comfortably between cultures will certainly be more likely to develop positive attitudes and accept different cultures more easily. Children who are brought up in a monolingual environment may meet a new culture and come across a new
language through the experience of a primary foreign language programme. For these children this experience will be of crucial importance in establishing positive attitudes about other cultures and language learning in general.

The role of motivation :
In comparison with the first language, motivation is key in learning other languages. When we learn our first language, it is all a natural part of growing up. When children move to another country and have to learn a new language, their motivation to learn is related to wanting to fit in with children in their new community. In formal foreign language learning contexts, however, the main source of motivation for children is usually their teacher and the enjoyable activities they experience in the English classes.

Dörnyei suggests that there are four main components or stages of motivational teaching:
• The first stage is to create motivating conditions for learning. This means creating a pleasant and supportive environment in the classroom.
• The next stage is to introduce initial motivational techniques such as talking about values, showing positive attitudes to learning, creating materials that are relevant for the learners, and establishing expectations of success.
• After this initial stage, teachers need to take care to maintain and protect their learners' motivation by offering stimulating activities primary school children can benefit from foreign language learning.

The aims and objectives of primary English programmes usually include the following:
• develop children's basic communication abilities in English
• encourage enjoyment and motivation
• promote learning about other cultures
• develop children's cognitive skills
• develop children's metalinguistic awareness
• encourage learning to learn
• develop intercultural awareness and global citizenship
• develop values related to diversity.
Most countries tend to emphasize one or both of the first two aims above. The first typically involves teaching children to talk about themselves and their immediate environments, to understand and respond to basic English instructions, and to communicate about topics of interest.

Copland, and Anne Burns discuss the most frequently used activities in primary English classrooms worldwide. These are:

1 repeating after the teacher
2 listening to a tape recorder or CD
3 reading aloud 4 playing games
5 singing songs.
While it would not be possible to make definite claims based on this data, the responses from the participating teachers suggest that most activities used in the primary English classroom do not encourage learner-learner interaction in a way that would be ideal for language learning to take place. These are useful insights for language teacher education programmes to take on board.

Reference : Pinter. (2014).Teaching Young Language Learners: Second Edition.England. Oxford University Press