Designing a community of young learners: Theoretical and practical lessons.

This chapter explores how children make sense of their world through the development and refinement of ‘working theories’. Working theories are a key item for young learners, and are emphasized in the New Zealand early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki. Children’s working theories develop in environments where they have opportunities to engage in complex thinking with others, observe, listen, participate, and discuss, within the context of topics and activities. It is through interactions and activities that children begin to own the ideas and beliefs of their culture and begin to make sense of their worlds. However, fostering this learning in early childhood settings is not always easy, and requires skilled adults who can respond appropriately. We explore and discuss the nature of children’s working theories and ways in which adult–child interactions can enhance or inhibit a sense of wonder and curiosity.

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Exploring which test-taker characteristics predict young L2 learners’ performance on listening and reading comprehension tests

Language Testing ◽

10.1177/0265532221991134 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026553222199113

Author(s):

Sarah Sok ◽

Hye Won Shin ◽

Juhyun Do

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Reading Comprehension ◽

Test Performance ◽

Test Taker ◽

Phonological Working Memory ◽

Young Learners ◽

L2 Learners ◽

L2 Listening ◽

Comprehension Tests ◽

Reading Comprehension Tests

Test-taker characteristics (TTCs), or individual difference variables, are known to be a systematic source of variance in language test performance. Although previous research has documented the impact of a range of TTCs on second language (L2) learners’ test performance, few of these studies have involved young learners. Given that young L2 learners undergo rapid maturational changes in their cognitive abilities, are susceptible to affective factors in unique ways, and have little autonomy with respect to the context of L2 acquisition, the relationship between their personal attributes and their test performance merit separate research attention. To fill this gap, we investigated the extent to which sixth-grade, Korean-L1, EFL learners’ ( n = 107) TTCs predicted their performance on tests of L2 listening and reading comprehension. The TTCs under investigation included three cognitive characteristics (aptitude, phonological working memory, L1 competence), one affective factor (motivation), and two demographic variables (socioeconomic status and gender). Results showed that aptitude and phonological working memory significantly predicted participants’ performance on both L2 listening and reading comprehension tests, whereas motivation predicted performance on the L2 listening comprehension test only. These findings suggest that higher aptitude, phonological working memory, and motivation contribute positively to young learners’ L2 outcomes.

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Developing Young Learners’ Metacognitive Awareness for Speaking

TESOL Quarterly ◽

10.1002/tesq.3042 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Robbie Lee Sabnani ◽

Christine C.M. Goh

Keyword(s):

Metacognitive Awareness ◽

Young Learners

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Exploring young learners’ L2 development and perceptions of mixed-age and same-age peer interactions in EFL mixed-age classrooms

European Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1515/eujal-2020-0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Tomas Kos

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Peer Interactions ◽

Language Instruction ◽

Data Sources ◽

Foreign Language Instruction ◽

Young Learners ◽

Multiple Data ◽

L2 Development ◽

Post Test ◽

Mixed Age

Abstract Although foreign language instruction in mixed-age (M-A) is gaining popularity (Heizmann and Ries and Wicki 2015; Lau and Juby-Smith and Desbiens, 2017; Shahid Kazi and Moghal and Aziz 2018; Thurn 2011), the research is scarce. Drawing from multiple data sources, this study investigated to what extent do peer interactions among M-A and same-age (S-A) pairs aid L2 development and how students perceive their interactions. In this study, the same learners (N=24) aged between 10 and 12 interacted with the same and different age partners during common classroom lessons in two EFL classrooms. The results suggest that both S-A and M-A peer interactions aided L2 development. Although S-A pairs outperformed M-A pairs on the post-test, the results are not statistically significant. The analysis of students’ perceptions revealed that the majority of students prefer working in S-A to M-A pairs. In addition to age/proficiency differences, factors such as students’ relationships and perceptions of one’s own and partner’s proficiency greatly impact how they interact with one another.

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