This book synthesises research on very early language learning in pre-primary organised instruction settings such as kindergarten, nursery or afternoon classes. Using a framework of ecological development, it investigates the nested systems in which very young learners operate, the other agents involved in each of these systems and the influence…

Rich oral language practices, including the opportunity and ability to participate in cognitively and linguistically challenging extended discourse, are foundational to early literacy development. To meet children's needs in their first exposure to the languages of schooling, educators may engage students in extended discourse multilingually. The…

The current study used sequential analysis to examine dual-language learners' (DLLs) questions and their relations to teacher responses in the context of small-group shared reading in preschool. Participants were 235 DLLs aged 3-5 years and 60 lead teachers from multiethnic preschool classrooms in Norway. Results showed that across four different…

Research Findings: Few studies address the contextual conditions for preschool staff in supporting children in preschool, especially in classrooms with high proportions of early second language learners (L2-learners). The aim of the study was to describe preschool staff's support of children's engagement in units with high proportions of…

In recent decades, refugee immigration has had significant impact on educational contexts in Sweden, with preschools the primary arenas for young children's language learning experiences. The present study examines second language and literacy training practices for immigrant children (aged 1-5) in preschools in Sweden. The empirical data consist…

This paper explores preschool children's (aged 5:6) language development in nursery and at home. The study examines how children learn a new language in nursery and practise their learning at home. The data in this study is drawn from a long ethnographic research, which included two stages of data collection. I used participant observation, audio…

The revised Swedish national curriculum stresses that preschools should, on the one hand, place emphasis on stimulating children's language development in Swedish, while on the other hand help children with a mother tongue other than Swedish develop their mother tongue. The aim of this study is to analyse preschool teachers' strategies to develop…

The demographic landscape in the United States is changing rapidly, and early childhood programs are experiencing an increase in the enrollment of Dual Language Learners (DLLs). The current study employed a mixed-methods case study design to explore the impact of creative drama on Head Start DLLs' social and emotional development. Six DLLs…

The growing manifestation of multiculturalism in Lithuania has been prompting the educational community and education policy makers to pay more attention to the issues related to quality education for bilingual and multilingual children. Due to the lack of experience in analyzing this phenomenon, certain previous studies on multilingualism have…

This study aims to examine teacher's beliefs about Syrian children's Turkish language learning and teacher's language strategies in a monolingual preschool classroom located in a multilingual city, Siirt Turkey. This ethnographic study was conducted between October 2019 and January 2020 in a multilingual city. The data included fieldnotes kept…

This mixed-methods study aimed to examine how the quality of interactions between a paraprofessional and a preschooler during playtime impacts students' language development. The data collected and analyzed included in-depth classroom observations and interviews with paraprofessionals. Data measured the paraprofessional's actions, trends,…

This study aimed to design mediated prompts as dynamic assessment (DA) intervention to enhance young students' English-speaking abilities in storytelling tasks and to explore the effects of the designed mediated prompts as DA intervention on English-speaking abilities of young students. The research was conducted in two phases. The first phase…

The role of preschool teachers in supporting children's language development is unquestionably substantial. To ensure the quality of preschool teachers' performance in this specific task, various assessing instruments have been developed and justified in recent years. This study joins such efforts by investigating a new scale based on the…

Communication is vital to life. In the United States, communication comes in all forms. In United States education, students come from all backgrounds. However, English is the language that is used for all studies. This can be quite difficult because English Language Learners (ELLs) have a difficult time in the classroom. ELLs in middle school and…

The concept of translanguaging is widely used in studies on multilingualism and language learning nowadays and it is important to distinguish between spontaneous translanguaging and pedagogical translanguaging. Spontaneous translanguaging refers to the discursive practices of multilingual speakers that have not been planned by the teacher and…