This document summarizes guidelines for teaching English to young children based on research in child development, language acquisition, and learning processes. It identifies three main categories for the guidelines: 1) Regarding children's emotional, cognitive, social and physical development, 2) Regarding language teaching processes, and 3) Regarding learning processes in children's minds and behaviors. Sample guidelines recommend avoiding abstract explanations, encouraging peer interaction, allowing for inaccurate but communicative language use, being aware of changes in children's behaviors to identify learning, and engaging all the senses in language activities. The conclusions state that there are no set parameters for early childhood English language teaching in Chile.

1. Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster
MACARENA DEL CARMEN BALBONTÍN PIZARRO
PRISCILLA MARÍA PROUST CARTONI
Profesor guía Patricia Irene Poblete Foncea
Viña del Mar, 2012
Universidad Andrés Bello
Facultad de Humanidades y Educación
Programa de Magíster en la Enseñanza del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera

2. PRESENTATION

3. OBJECTIVES

4. 
 To identify methodologies, teaching techniques, and
strategies to teach children, to describe relevant
information about child development, and first and
second language acquisition.
Finally our Suggested pedagogical guidelines are
based on the theoretical background information.

5. HOW DID WE ARRIVE TO OUR GUIDELINES

6. 
Three major fields categories
 1) Regarding the children emotional, cognitive, social
and physical development
 2) Regarding the language teaching processes
 3) Regarding the learning processes that take place in
children’s mind and/ or behavior

7. 
 Samples of the guidelines.
 Selection criteria
 Representative guidelines

8. FIRST CATEGORY: REGARDING THE
CHILDREN

9. 
 When working with 4 to 5 year – olds, nursery
teachers should avoid abstract explanations about
concepts or topics; and always support their work
with real and concrete things. Opportunities to
manipulate and experience with concrete things in
order to learn new concepts should be given priority.
 “the young child simply runs off reality sequences in his head just as he might do
it overt action. Thus, preoperational thought is extremely concrete” (Flavell, 1963,
159).

10. 
 Nursery teachers have to consider the fact that
interaction with peers and adults is crucial in the
language learning process. English classrooms
provide a good opportunity to establish relationships
with others and to build communicative competence
using as a tool interaction with peers and teachers.
 “developmental processes take place through participation in cultural, linguistic,
and historically formed settings such as family life and peer group interaction, and
in institutional contexts like schooling, organized sports activities, and work
places, to name only a few” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2007, 197).

11. SECOND CATEGORY: REGARDING THE
TEACHING

12. 
 Nursery teachers must offer opportunities where
students are able to interact using conversation in the
English teaching context. This social learning will
give them the chance to use the language with a
specific purpose.
 “Work in this area has concentrated largely on discourse features and has contributed
to our understanding of how the exploitation of particular patterns and interactional
opportunities can enhance the quality of language learning in the classroom”
(Richards, 2006, 51).

13. 
 It is essential that nursery teachers offer a language
learning environment where conversation is not
forced but encouraged. When this happens, it will be
not necessarily perfect. This rather inaccurate
interaction, however, must be accepted and valued.
 “acquisition is a subconscious process; language acquirers are not usually aware of
the fact that they are acquiring language, but they are only aware of the fact that
they are using the language for communication” (Krashen, 1997, 10).

14. THIRD CATEGORY: REGARDING THE
LEARNING PROCESS

15. 
 Nursery teachers should know that when learning
has occurred in children, it is obvious in their
behavior. It is advisable to be aware of any changes
that may appear since this may mean learning has
occurred.
 “To the behaviourists, learning can be studied objectively. Researchers can observe
stimuli in the environment and responses that organisms make to those stimuli”
(Taylor & MacKenney, 2008, 23).

16. 
 Nursery teachers should offer the students activities
that involve all senses, given that they perceive the
world through them. Give them the opportunity to
experience language in the best possible learning
setting.
 Keefe (1979) describes it as the interaction of "cognitive, affective and
psychological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive,
interact with, and respond to the learning environment"

17. CONCLUSIONS

18. 
 There are no parameters for early childhood education
regarding the teaching of English as a second
language, therefore we have provided a set of guidelines.
 It is advisable to teach language at an early age because
research shows that childhood has certain benefits for
learning.
 The teacher becomes an important agent in the process of
learning a foreign language.

19. 
 Teaching English is the same as teaching other
subjects, so teachers should include their nursery
teaching way in this process
 Further studies suggestions
 Unified program to teach English as a Foreign
Language in Chile

20. The End