Reanna, Janet, and Jaimyka are early childhood educators who are recent graduates of the Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Diploma program in Aurora College in the Northwest Territories of Canada. They used storytelling and related follow-up activities to teach their Indigenous language, Tlicho, in their early childhood field placements in…

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,…

Background/purpose: Kindergarteners' vocabulary deficiencies are caused by a lack of high-quality textbooks. The survey results demonstrated that children's learned language might be forgotten after a few days. The researchers conducted a study to identify and assess the standard of English textbooks already in use and to create textbooks that…

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)…

Gesture recognition can create an interactive environment in which to train children to control their thoughts, gestures, and body postures when performing learning activities. This study integrated gesture recognition and a memory strategy to develop a physical learning activity for preschoolers to improve their English learning performance,…

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…

As part of a large study aiming to understand how kindergarten children in Colombia used translanguaging during independent play, Paula (the teacher) along with Dr. Moses (lead researcher) co-designed a 6-week play-based intervention that included a variety of learning experiences such as partner reading, small-group reading, and supported play,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Shared book reading is necessary for learning Chinese as a second language (L2), but its effectiveness requires further empirical exploration and support. Scholars emphasise considering parental and child characteristics alongside school-based interventions. Guided by the bioecological framework, this study included three groups: an experimental…

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…