Module 1 – Approaches and Methods

As primary school teachers, you certainly know everything about children’s cognitive development and first language (L1) acquisition. Though, as primary school teachers of English, what do you know about the early acquisition of a foreign language (L2)? What are, if any, the relations between the acquisitional processes of both languages? Are they governed by the same principles? Do the early stages of L1/L2 language acquisition (LA) share common features? The present module addresses these questions by providing a brief outline of the main theoretical approaches and effective methods which are being currently adopted in teaching English as a foreign language to young learners. It will primarily focus on the distinctive features of the three major factors in the learning/teaching process: The young learner, the foreign language, and the communicative context.