Background: The associations between the characteristics of the home literacy environment (HLE) and children's language and literacy skills have been established in first languages. This study investigated the longitudinal interplay between the father-child and mother-child HLE and children's English language skills as L2. Methods: In this study,…

To date, little attention has been paid to the impact of immersion programs on learning interests in a second language (L2). The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two types of Hakka-Chinese bilingual programs (immersion vs. non-immersion) on L2 learning interests. Four kindergarten teachers (two in each program)…

Maori and Pacific learners in Aotearoa New Zealand have been identified as 'priority learners' by the Ministry of Education. The 'Pacific picturebook project' is ongoing research focussed on picturebooks selected to support the languages, cultures, and identities of Pacific learners in keeping with our government, Teaching Council and Ministry of…

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…

"Te Whariki" promotes the use of te reo rangatira in English-medium early childhood education (ECE) settings. There is a growing body of work concerning the use of pukapuka pikitia (picturebooks) to support language learning, but there is very little, if any, research documenting how pukapuka pikitia can support te reo rangatira. This…

An important first step to globalizing and decentralizing foreign language education is to clarify current language teachers' perceptions of language varieties and how these perceptions influence their pedagogy. The present study looked at English and French language classrooms in K-12 and university settings in the United States to compare…

Early childhood education serves an increasing number of multilingual children, and teachers are challenged to create high-quality learning opportunities in the classroom for all children. The child's engagement and interactions with the teacher are important in this respect. The present study therefore examined how multilingualism relates to…

In multicultural education, empathy has been regarded as an essential teacher disposition that enables teachers to better understand culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students through perspective-taking. However, less is known about the mechanism that underlies how empathy fosters teachers' competence in supporting CLD students, i.e.,…

The study investigated how parental belief and family socio economic status (SES) were related to the home literacy environment and to early literacy-related skills in a foreign language (English). Eighty-six Chinese children in kindergarten (Mage = 5 years 5 months, 44 girls) were assessed on English phonological awareness, English receptive…

Researchers in the field of teacher knowledge have been attempting to delineate pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in different subjects and different levels of education. To date, there is a need to develop a nuanced understanding on the PCK of Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers who teach English as a foreign language (EFL). This study…

Numerous studies indicate that the language and literacy development of young children is highly contingent upon the construction of an enriching home literacy environment. Using sociocultural theory as a framework, in this article I explore how a bilingual child's language and literacy acquisition is embedded as a social practice within the home…

Learning words in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and story retelling was tested using an e-book with dictionary. One hundred and sixty-three Arabic-speaking kindergartners were randomly divided into 5 groups. The experimental groups read the e-book with a dictionary: (1) with a dynamic illustration and a request to vocalize the word; (2) with a…

The purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of L1 (i.e. Spanish) receptive vocabulary on both expressive and receptive knowledge of target vocabulary words taught through L2 (i.e. English) instruction and intervention. Participants were Bilingual US kindergarten students determined to be at-risk based on English receptive…

Purpose: This study investigated the longitudinal, cross-linguistic developmental relationships of phonological awareness (PA), letter identification (letter ID), and morphological awareness (MA) in 71 heritage Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) in kindergarten and second grade. Method: Multiple linear regression was used to test if…

This paper presents research-led responses to two central questions concerning English as a foreign language (EFL) learning in kindergartens, namely how do the teachers facilitate EFL learning? and how does the impact of certain teacher interactional resources on learning become observable in interaction? Previous research showed that classroom…