Language teacher education is widely identified as one of the most important areas that needs addressing in order to improve early language instruction, yet research into teacher education for early language teachers remains relatively sparse. This volume responds to this gap by compiling studies with diverse methodological tenets from a wide range of geographical and educational contexts around the world. The volume aims to enhance understanding of early language teacher education as well as to address the need to prepare early language teachers and assist them in their professional development. The chapters focus on the complexity of teacher learning, innovations in mentoring and teacher supervision, strategies in programme development and perceptions, and knowledge and assessment in early language learning teacher education. The volume offers comprehensive coverage of the field by addressing various aspects of teacher education in different languages. The contributions highlight examples of research into current practice in the professional enhancement of early language learning teachers, but with an emphasis on the implications for practitioners.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Subhan Zein: Introduction to Early Language Learning and Teacher Education: International Research and Practice
Chapter 2. Yuko Goto Butler: How Teachers of Young Learners of English are Educated in East and Southeast Asia: Research-Based Lessons
PART ONE: THE COMPLEXITY OF TEACHER LEARNING
Chapter 3. Le Van Canh: Unpacking the Complexities of Learning to Teach English to Young Learners: A Narrative Inquiry
Chapter 4. Subhan Zein: Imagining One’s Self as a Child and Speech Modification: Implications for Teacher Education
Chapter 5. Yuefeng Zhang: Learning to Teach: Pre-service English Language Teachers’ Experience of Learning Study in Hong Kong
Chapter 6. Gee Macrory: New Orthographies in the Primary Languages Classroom: A Challenge for Teacher Education
PART TWO: INNOVATIONS IN MENTORING AND SUPERVISION
Chapter 7. Chiou-Hui Chou: Prospective EYL Teachers and Teacher Education: A Study of Teacher Supervision
Chapter 8. Yasemin Kirkgöz: Mentoring Young Learner English Teachers Working on Collaborative Action Research: Implications for Professional Development Programs
Chapter 9. Nettie Boivin: Collaboration, Construction, Reflection: 21st Century EYL Teacher Professional Development
PART THREE: STRATEGIES IN PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 10. Valentina Carbonara: Teaching Italian Language in Bilingual Kindergarten: A Framework for Teacher Training
Chapter 11. Junko Matsuzaki Carreira and Tomoko Shigyo: Developing and Evaluating a Syllabus for Pre-service Teacher Education for Japanese Primary English Teachers: Introducing Cross-Curricular Projects
PART FOUR: PERCEPTIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND ASSESSMENT
Chapter 12. Larissa Jenkins, Elisabeth Duursma and Catherine Neilsen-Hewett: Perceptions and Knowledge of Bilingualism and Bilingual Children among Early Childhood Educators in Australia: Implications for Teacher Education
Chapter 13. Katherine M. Griffin, Alison L. Bailey and Rashmita S. Mistry: What Educators of Young Dual Language Immersion Students Learn from a Bilingual Approach to Assessment
CONCLUSION
Chapter 14. Sue Garton: Early Language Learning Teacher Education: Present and Future
About the Author :
Subhan Zein (PhD, Australian National University) teaches at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is the lead editor of English Language Teacher Preparation in Asia: Policy, Research and Practice (Routledge) and editor of Teacher Education for English as a Lingua Franca: Perspectives from Indonesia (Routledge).
Sue Garton is Reader in English Language (TESOL) at the School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, UK. She is Series Editor of the Palgrave series International Perspectives on English Language Teaching and has recently edited The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners (both with Fiona Copland).
Review :
This volume is a very welcome addition to research in a much-neglected area: early language teacher education. As well as taking a truly international perspective, it includes chapters on bilingual education, TESOL, Modern Foreign Languages – areas of early language teacher education which are rarely found together, despite the synergies between them. Presenting thoughtful and innovative discussions of a range of key topics in the field, it is set to become essential reading for anyone involved in early language teacher education.
Early language learning and the policies associated with it have been introduced around the world, but there is still little known about teacher education in global contexts. This book addresses this need and brings together a group of major scholars who have done a brilliant job in each chapter. Highly recommended resource!
...this is a thought-provoking book that will be useful for researchers, teacher-educators wanting to go beyond focusing on how children learn in their training, and teachers who are interested in research.
The book is coherent, contains sound pedagogical and theoretical reflections on a number of issues in primary English, and starts to break down barriers between disciplines, such as foreign language teaching and bilingualism. This is an important step forward considering the number of multilingual children in classrooms around the world whose multilingual voices are usually silenced.
This book is a very useful resource for university educators of future teachers and also education policy makers because of the clear overview provided about the varying ways in which English and other Modern languages are taught.
[This] book is a valuable contribution to the field of pre and in service TEYL development. It will be of interest and assistance to many. A strength of the book is that it presents research on language teaching in several bilingual contexts.
