AILA Review - Volume 32, Issue 1, 2019

Around the world, the popularity of English has escalated, particularly at the primary school level (Butler, 2015), yet provision of sufficient qualified teacher expertise to meet demand continues to be inadequate. The OECD report on Equity and Quality in Education reports that: “The highest performing education systems are those that combine equity with quality. They give all children opportunities for a good quality education” (OECD, 2012). This paper adopts a sociohistorical perspective to critically examine the OECD criteria of achieving equity and quality through fairness and inclusiveness with reference to Uruguay, India and China – all contexts where English has been introduced at primary and kindergarten levels. The analysis draws on data from classroom observations, interviews with teachers and key stakeholders. Findings indicate that while access to the quality provision of English in primary schools and kindergartens has been substantially expanded in recent years in each jurisdiction, the challenges of ensuring universal quality provision have proved complex under conditions where the pre-existing historical and political contexts have limited progress towards equity.

There has been a rapid global expansion of English instruction in the early grades in public school curricula. Particularly in so-called developing countries, the increase of and its shift from exclusively private to public education is linked to the idea that acquiring English promotes personal, social, and economic development. The author takes one case of a recent early English program, the national program in Mexico, and argues that it is a representative case of a language education programme and policy organized around neoliberal principles. The policy’s stated goal is to address issues of access and equity for public school students; however, findings indicate that the actual processes of teaching and learning at the classroom level remain highly stratified across social class lines. An analysis of English lessons in schools at different points on the socioeconomic spectrum illustrates that instruction is preparing children with certain types of skills and dispositions congruent to their class position and revealing the hidden curriculum of work in early English education.

This paper explores headteachers’ and teachers’ perceptions of foreign languages(FL) and cultural learning in three primary schools in areas of disadvantage in England. Drawing upon a new theoretical frame for primary languages, Critical Cosmopolitanism (Delanty, 2006; Beck and Sznaider, 2006) and The Grammar of Culture (Holliday, 2018), we argue that the grand narrative of a target language inhabited by a target culture is outdated and approaches to cultural learning in primary schools could lead the way. There is substantial evidence that most learners find language lessons fun, particularly activities such as songs, stories and intercultural events (Driscoll et al., 2004, 2014; Cable et al. 2010). The discourse on conditions for inclusive practice is less commonplace and little is known about FL learning in areas of high deprivation (Nikolov & Mihaljević Djigunović, 2011). Teachers and headteachers in this study were committed to cultural learning and staff adopted creative approaches to teaching. The findings, however, also indicate that traditional notions of a mono or homogenised national culture with associated stereotypes linger in teachers’ framing of FL. There exists a need for a more personalised approach to cultural learning drawing upon children’s own cultural experiences. Data was analysed thematically following strict ethical guidelines and all names were anonymised to ensure confidentiality.

In this article we explore how primary school learners of English in Germany engage with examples of English that they were asked to locate in their local environments (their linguistic landscapes, LLs). In association with each located image, the learners completed a standardised worksheet in German that asked for brief written comments about its location, the reason why they had selected the image and why they thought that English had been used. Their written reflections demonstrate that these children are remarkably sophisticated in their analyses of linguistic, social and cultural aspects of what they found. They show that with nuanced pedagogies primary school children can benefit greatly from leaving the classroom to find language examples in the worlds around them.

There has been a long history of early Irish language learning in Ireland as a result of Government policy to promote greater use of Irish. All children learn Irish in school from age 4–18 years. The majority learn Irish as a subject, typically for 30–40 minutes per day, and the levels of competence achieved are mostly disappointing. Approximately 6.7% of primary school children learn Irish in an immersion context, however, and these children achieve a high standard of communicative competence. In this paper we examine the impact of Government policy on the transfer of linguistic competence from the classroom to wider society in the context of a minority language that is becoming increasingly marginalised. We draw on data from three studies to explore the relationship between Irish-medium school attendance and the desire and opportunity to use Irish outside of school while attending school, and later as an adult. The first study also investigated students’ attitudes towards learning and using Irish. All three studies examined parents use of Irish in the home and the influence that the language spoken in their home during childhood and the language of their schooling had on their current language practices. Overall, Irish-medium schools are very successful in educating proficient speakers of Irish who have very positive attitudes towards Irish. These positive attitudes and proficiency do not necessarily transfer to use of Irish in the home. While attendance at an Irish-medium school as a child has a positive effect on later use of Irish, when former students become parents, the effect is quite small. The perennial challenge persists in transferring competence in a minority language acquired in school to the home and community.

Cultural and linguistic diversity of kindergarten children in Iceland has been growing rapidly in recent years (Reykjavíkurborg, Skóla- og frístundasvið, 2017; Statistics Iceland, 2017), creating challenges for kindergartens. The main aim of the paper is to explore how principals, kindergarten teachers and parents in three kindergartens in Iceland experience diversity, inclusion and participation in their kindergartens and what learning spaces and educational practices seem to be instrumental for their children’s participation. The paper builds on data from the Nordic research project Learning Spaces for Inclusion and Social Justice: Success Stories from Immigrant Students and School Communities in Four Nordic countries (2013–2015), the aim of which was to draw lessons from success stories of individual immigrant students and whole school communities at different levels that have succeeded in developing learning contexts that are equitable and socially just (Ragnarsdóttir, 2015; Ragnarsdóttir & Kulbrandstad, 2018). Case studies were conducted in three kindergartens, including semi-structured interviews with kindergarten teachers, principals and parents as well as observation (Flick, 2006; Kvale, 2007). The findings indicate that the kindergartens have developed various inclusive and empowering educational practices to respond to the growing diversity. However, some challenges appear in the findings, including lack of sustainability of good practices.

This contribution presents the preliminary findings from the TEPS study (Teaching English in Primary Schools). The study is situated in Germany where primary foreign language (FL) education has been compulsory since 2004, with pupils beginning FL education – mostly English as a FL (EFL) – in either year 1 or 3. Generally, this introduction of primary FL education has not been empirically evaluated, in spite of various open research questions: (1) Does the receptive EFL proficiency of learners at the end of primary education in year 4 differ depending on their learning time (duration & age of onset)? (2) Is there a correlation between teaching quality (learners’ perspective) and learners’ receptive EFL proficiency as well as their attitudes towards learning EFL? Prior studies (e.g. Demircioglu, 2010) gave first indications that learners with an earlier start achieve better receptive skills. Yet, findings from these samples cannot be generalized and are altogether inconclusive (e.g. Jaekel, van Ackern, Schurig, & Ritter, 2017). Studies investigating correlations between teaching quality and learner achievements in primary school are mainly based in maths and science education (e.g. TIMSS-2015: see Rieser, Stahns, Walzebug, & Wendt, 2016). Thus, the TEPS study situated in both applied linguistics and educational science is addressing some of these research deficits by (a) testing pupils’ receptive EFL proficiency at the end of primary education in year 4 (n = 269) and (b) surveying teaching quality and learner attitudes towards EFL. The study has been conducted in two federal states with different ages of onset (year 1 vs. year 3). Aside from the theoretical background and context of the study this paper will present the complex research design followed by preliminary findings from the pilot study giving insights into the questions raised above (for the main study see Wilden, Porsch, & Schurig, 2020).