Page 12 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Introduction

throughout the book. As mentioned above, the main focus of the book are
children at primary level aged 6 to 12. The term ‘young learners’ is commonly
used in English to cover different age groups, from 3 to 11/12 (Pižorn, 2009)
or from 5 to 14 (Pinter, 2006) and there is general consensus to refer to chil-
dren who have not yet started compulsory schooling (3-6 years old) as ‘pre-
primary’ or ‘very young learners’ (Reilly & Ward, 1997). This distinction is im-
portant because of the differences in the physical, psychological, social, emo-
tional, conceptual and cognitive development of young learners in these age
groups, leading to very different approaches and strategies to teaching (Ellis,
2014). In the present book, the terms ‘young learners’ (YLs) and ‘young lan-
guage learners’ (YLLs) are used to refer to children at primary level, from age
6 to 11/12.
Another set of terms which needs clarifying is related to the kind of lan-
guage being taught. ‘Foreign language’ usually refers to a non-native lan-
guage formally taught and used within the school curriculum and not as a
means of communication outside school. On the other hand, the term ‘sec-
ond language’ is used to refer to a non-native language which has a special
status in a particular environment, serving as a medium of education, admin-
istration or business (Crystal, 2003). A good example of a second language is
Italian for native speakers of Slovene in the bilingual area of the Slovenian
Istria. However, as our society is becoming ever more multicultural and mul-
tilingual, it is often difficult to establish the difference between ‘foreign’ and
‘second language’, such as is often the case in bilingual areas in which a for-
eignlanguage(moreoftenthannotEnglish)becomesmorewidespreadthan
the second language. Another term, ‘additional language,’ is used to refer to
any language other than a person’s mother tongue, especially in order to re-
flect the fact that many people learn more than one language other than
their own, such as Slovene pupils in the Littoral who learn Italian as a second
language, English as the first foreign language and, for example, German as
the second foreign language. The advantage of using the term ‘additional
language’ is especially in the fact that it refers to all the languages learnt be-
sideone’snativelanguagewiththesameexpressionandthereforeavoidsthe
divisionintomoreorlessimportantlanguages(Pižorn,2009).Inourbook,the
term ‘foreign language’ (FL) is mostly used as it corresponds with the school
subject taught in school. In addition, while the focus is clearly on English as
a foreign language (EFL), we believe that the principles and strategies pre-
sented are applicable and relevant also for teaching other languages.
The book is divided into three parts. Part One first presents the key ap-
proaches which have shaped the field of teaching English and other foreign

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