Kirsten Birsak de Jersey
English in Inclusive Multilingual Preschools
Researching the Potential of a Teacher Education Model for In-Service Teachers
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Acknowledgements
When I took on the challenge of researching in the field of English preschool teacher education for this PhD work, I knew I had years of hard work in front of me. I could not have kept my motivation up had I not had the supportive environment in my family, my friends and colleges, and especially academically. “Without sufficient motivation, individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals” (Guilloteaux & Dörnyei 2008: 56). Though I am still not so convinced about having ‘remarkable abilities’, I can proudly present now the output of this long-term research. A number of people I want to sincerely thank:
My deep gratitude firstly goes to Marita Schocker for her brilliant academic guidance and emotional support. She helped me to find my path through the maze of research processes and assisted me to find the way back onto the right track when I got lost in a one-way street. She has become a true friend in rain and sunshine. At the same time, I had the luck of being advised by Michael Legutke, always at the right time. He clarified my sense of direction, kept me on track together with the encouragement that he believed in my research, that it was a new field of study and would be a worthwhile contribution to early foreign language teaching and learning, for which I extend my thanks and much appreciation. I am also thankful to Vivienne Mellor-Schwartze for her readiness to answer quick question at any time. Special thanks has to go to all the enthusiastic and devoted preschool teachers who were prepared to leave the trodden path to try something new and challenging in the ways of language teaching. Teaching cooperatively and researching together was an enriching and inspiring experience for us all and I appreciate their dedication during the project. I always admired their patience and professionalism in the care for all the children and the respect they held for each little personality. The interest and eagerness for language learning the children showed throughout the project was the best proof for all involved that we are doing the right thing. Their enthusiasm to learn English, their laughter and affection were our reward.
In my personal life, this research could not have possibly been achieved had it not been for the patience of my family and sacrifices, understanding and devotion of my husband, Rupert. My daughter Olivia deserves extra thanks for patiently giving her statistical expertise and my son Clemens for saving me ever so often with his IT abilities. Even though we live on the other side of the world from each other, my mother, Tonia, has remained my constant internet companion, brain-stormer, follower and critical reader of the trials and tribulations of this research.
1 Introduction
1.1 Disciplinary relevance of the research
The study presented here addresses an area that foreign language pedagogy research has only recently attended to. It is the question of how to qualify teachers for early language learning (ELL) contexts. As Zein (2019) argues in the introduction to a volume on international research and practice of early language learning and teacher education:
In the rapidly changing political, social and globalised economic landscapes of the 21st century, language has become cultural capital. … A significant educational policy change characterising this tendency is early language learning: the teaching of a foreign or second language to children. Early language learning policies have become a worldwide phenomenon. (p. 1)
Johnstone (2009) supports this view when he describes early language education as being “possibly the world’s biggest policy development in education” (p. 33).
This development is reflected in the European Commission’s call for further action in the field of early childhood education “to improve the mastery of basic skills, in particular by teaching at least two foreign languages from a very early age” (European Commission 2018: 2.). The term ‘early education’ comprises the two contexts of the pre- and primary school level. This study focuses on the first level of early childhood education, the preschool. The European Commission (2011a) clearly establishes the benefits of early language learning at this early level of education for various reasons (for more details see chapter 2.2.1). Referring to studies in early child development education, the European Commission (2018) concludes that “there is an overwhelming consensus that the staff working in early childhood education and care provision is a crucial factor in determining its quality” (p. 58; see also Early et al., 2007; Urban et al., 2011; Urban et al., 2012).
While this seems an obvious consequence to draw, the need for qualified early foreign language teachers has not resulted in the provision of context-appropriate teacher education programmes. Recent international and European reviews in the field of early language learning and teacher education therefore express their concerns “over the shortage of adequately trained teachers … and the inadequacy of teacher education programmes … for early language learning teachers” (Zein, 2019, p. 2). The resulting shortage of publications on early language teacher education relates both to language teachers for the primary school context (see the review of studies provided by Wilden & Porsch, 2017) and for the preschool context (see the review of studies presented by Zein & Garton, 2019; whose volume on early language teacher education covers research related to children between the ages of 3 and 12). For further discussion see chapter 4.2.
The shortage of relevant research is also due to the fact that if studies do exist, they are situated in what may be described as privileged acquisition contexts which do not represent the current population of preschool children. As Legutke et al. (2009) have already observed in their methodology for teaching English in the primary and preschool, it is one of the issues of early childhood language education that “only a very selective and privileged group of children” have access to preschool English education. Therefore, results from pilots in preschool language education in the past have been obtained from samplings which do not represent the multi-lingual profiles of today’s preschools, but instead predominantly monolingual groups of German children. (p. 141). For further discussion see chapter 2.1.
It is against this disciplinary background that I became interested to develop a teacher education research project for preschool teachers to gain the competences to implement English as a foreign language (EFL) for all children attending a regular, inclusive and multilingual state preschool. I felt that through my comprehensive personal professional background as English preschool teacher and teacher educator (TE) I would be able to draw on my expertise which I had acquired both in the field of teaching English to preschool children and of educating teachers. This professional background will be outlined in the following chapter.
1.2 Personal relevance of the research: the impetus to develop a preschool teacher education research project
My professional background covers ample experiences with teaching English in various preschools in the Salzburg area. For the past twenty years I have been teaching English at state, parish and private preschools (to children aged 3 – 6) and at primary schools to small groups of children (aged 6 – 10 years) to support their transition from the preschool context to the primary school context. Since 2005,