This is a brief summary of why I think Hungary should introduce foreign language appreciation time into the kindergarten curriculum.

1. The case for increasing the short-term
efficiency of second language
education in state schools in Hungary

2. Meet Sára, aged 6.
Her parents cannot
afford private
language classes.
Until she graduates
from secondary
school, the Hungarian
State will sponspor
approx. 1000 contact
lessons for her. As a
result, her level of
English will be approx.
weak and medium
intermediate (CEFR
B2). This is not in line
with the language
skills required by her
future employers.
Meet Éva, aged 6. Her
parents can afford
private English
lessons, starting from
Preschool age. As a
result, by the age of
approx. 10 – 12 she
will develop the level
of L2 confidence that
will enable her to
build strong English
skills that meet the
requirements of
future employers.

3. Language
teaching
Transition into
Building
communication
soft skills at
work
One of the goals of language teaching in state schools is to enable
future employees to build L2 comms skills

4. School-
leaving L2
skills
Broken rung
Building L2
comms skills
required by
employers

5. State education
system output L2
skills
Language anxiety
Fear from publisc
speaking
Mistake
avoidance
L2
Communication
Skills
State eductation produces inadequate L2 output skills to be the foundation towards building
state-of-the-art L2 communication skills required by employers
Development blockers

6. There is a misalignment between the SLA teaching system’s output
design and the L2 skills needed by employers
CEFR B2 Language Competence
output of state education, in avg.
1000 contact lessons
Uptrend in employer expectations
for comms-related soft skills
Designed output: Knowledge of L2
structures
Skill in demand: confident
communication, measureable by
Willingness to Communicate

7. Tha nature of
the gap:
emerging
starter
employee
power skills
are more
based on L2
confidence
than
grammatical
competence

8. Our insight:
State sponsored
L2 education
does not target
the affective
domain of SLA

9. State-sponsored teaching programs DO NOT
factor in the concept of developing effectiveness
by increasing the level of psychological readiness
of a student to learn and apply a foreign language
in practice, overcoming language barriers and
difficulties.

10. Studies show a positive
corellation between L2
learner confidence and
communicative success
Successful L2 students
• perceive self-confidence through interactions
• Shape a successful L2 identity
• Overcome self-doubt and language anxiety by developing an
internal locus of control in high-stake scenarios

11. Communication confidence is a concept comprising of layers that
are different from the 5 language skills used as traditional L2
teaching output

12. Where is the
optimal
intervention
point?

13. We must notice the untapped potential of the role of
age and L2 confidence
Kindergarten –
Not part of L2
learning trajectory
Primary school –
L2 instruction
starts in Class 4
(concrete
operational stage)
Milestone 1:
Primary School
output - CEFR A2
Milestone 2:
Secondary school
output - CEFR B2
State Sponsored L2 Development
PTrajectory -
Naturally
confident speakers

14. Early years L2 students do not experience
language anxiety and their willingness to
communicate is naturally high.

15. Language
Exposure
3-7 yrs
Language
Learning
7 – 18 yrs
No psychological barriers and
high willingness to communicate
Teachers must tackle
psychological barriers and
willingness to communicate

16. The impact of
age on SLA
• Early starters outperform late starters in
listening, speaking and writing skills
• Additionally, early starters display
• a positive attitude towards speaking
• A high level of confidence in speaking and literacy
skills
• A mastery of sophisticated language structures in
writing

17. We can conceptualise L2 confidence by WTC
– Willingness to Communicate
• WTC is an important factor affecting communication
• WTC is situational, driven by:
• Perceived communicative competence
• motivation
• Perceived level of English
• Anxiety
• Situational factors
• High motivation does not automatically result in high WTC

18. WTC is
measured by
the WTC
Scale
Self-perceived
communication
competence questionnaire

19. Immersion into L2 in
the preoperational
stage develops WTC

20. The strategic percpective: Instead of
the highly ambitions sectoral reform
of language education, we propose to
invest into early years language
learning by integrating native speaker
and ESL teachers to state-operated
kidergartens

21. We should START developing WTC in early learning
stage
Kindergarten -
Developing Language
Learning Curiosity
with ESL or native
speaker kindergarten
teachers
Primary school – L2
instruction starts in
Class 4
Milestone 1: Primary
School output - CEFR
A2
Milestone 2:
Secondary school
output - CEFR B2

22. The best
intervention
area to develop
confidence and
self esteem on
the SLA
trajectory is in
pre-school stage
One bottom-up
intervention with
manageable cost
estimates
High cost sectoral
reform

23. • In 2014, Poland introduced
compulsory foreign language
instruction in pre-primary education
for all 5-year-olds.

24. We need to
influence
stakeholders
towards our
proposal by a
locally
conducted
research
• L2 educators have experience-based
knowledge of the effectiveness of early
learning. However, there is no solid evidence
pointing to the positive corellation between
L2 exposure in K1-K3 age and WTC in the
context of Hungarian education.

25. The call to action: education stakeholders
should conduct a research into the perceived
confidence level of early years second
language students.

26. Two inspiring books:
The case for early years
L2 education, with regard
to Dr. Tamás Vekerdy’s
views:
https://www.nyest.hu/hir
ek/erdemes-mar-
oviskent-nyelvet-tanulni