Is Early Years pronunciation teaching necessary?

By Viktor Carrasquero

Introduction

A few years ago, I heard that “Very Young Learner (VYL) teaching is not part of TEFL”. At the time, I was caught off guard by the comment and could not think of a good response. However, the trauma caused by such a declaration inspired me to get a better understanding of how VYLs learn, leading me to wonder about pronunciation teaching, in particular. I have always been tempted to question the claim that young children acquire L2 pronunciation effortlessly, organically, without much adult intervention; the assumption seems to be, if they are exposed to a foreign / second language, they will acquire it. In this post, I muse on the need for getting VYLs to focus systematically on the pronunciation of English, I suggest areas for scholarly exploration of VYL pronunciation teaching, and I also consider the response I should have given back then about VYL students.

Tradition

In my own teacher training, as I was learning the ropes of my profession, I learned all about the properties of consonants and vowels, suprasegmentals, and the intersections between these and the other layers of language. In my undergraduate teaching course, as well as in my teaching certificate and diploma, I explored practical ideas to teach these aspects of pronunciation, embedding them in my lesson plans to preempt learners’ pronunciation difficulties, as well as to react to in-class problems learners might experience. Not once were VYLs part of these training experiences, which focused mostly on adult education and which, every once in a while, had marginal allusions to what may potentially be done in the primary classroom. Fortunately, in recent years, I have been exposed to the Early Years classroom (learners ages 2-5), where learners are not just learning about the sounds of English (I teach English to Cantonese and Mandarin speakers), they are also learning how to read and write, which poses entirely new levels of complexity to our pronunciation teaching practices.

What is different about it?

The teaching of reading and writing to VYLs is called phonics. In phonics lessons, children learn about the associations between the sounds of English and the letters that represent them, as this is the basis of reading and writing. In my ESL / EFL context, however, this is not the sole task of the phonics teacher, who also needs to present sounds that do not occur in the learners’ first language. I have had students who struggle with specific sounds of English, which has led me to devise ways of introducing the physiology behind such articulations. In this sense, teaching VYLs the sound inventory of English is not much different from what we do with learners at other life stages. It is also not just about sounds, as the games and role plays our VYLs play are full of emotive language, whose vocal ups and downs have to be modelled and drilled to our learners. Therefore, stress, intonation and rhythm are also a common feature of our classroom practice (see  IATEFL PronSIG materials below, for practical ideas and suggestions).  

An appeal

IATEFL PronSIG has championed the exploration of the VYL classroom in recent years. With multiple blog posts, webinars, and conference presentations, we have made sure to include Early Years learners in our discussions on pronunciation. There is, however, so much more to research and trial. May this post serve as an invitation for more members of our community: come forward, tell us about what you do with your VYLs. Researchers, tell us about the efficacy of overt pronunciation training in the VYL class, of practical ways to embed accuracy work in the narrative thread of our lessons; tell us of how to gamify articulatory work with the little ones, of how different text types (songs, stories, plays, etc.) can help teachers operationalise pronunciation instruction (for discussions on explicit pronunciation teaching to very young learners, see Cameron, 2001; Moon, 2000; and Pinter, 2008). How would I respond to the comment I heard years ago now? I think I would reply with questions, such as, have you been in a VYL class? Have you seen how these learners take a language point and exploit it fully, as they play? Have you seen VYLs focus on grammar and lexical properties? I have, my peers have and, I am sure, many of you, our readers, have. The ball is in our court: may the research about pronunciation in Early Years TEFL research abound!

And just in case it is not yet clear…

Yes, VYL English language teaching is part of TEFL. Teaching a foreign language to young children is decidedly not an attempt to communicate with little people who know nothing about the world. Children’s inner worlds are rich, and their language-mediated construction of reality is complex and multi-layered. When teachers are willing to immerse themselves in the narratives of their VYL classes, giving them tools to unlock and empower their potential for meaning creation, children learn effortlessly and organically. Teachers do need to set the scene, provide the situational prompts, give children the space and circumstances to submerge in the world of play, and to learn about language as they focus on their games, songs and stories.

Further reading

  1. Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching languages to young learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  1. Clarke, P. (2009). Supporting Children Learning English as a Second Language in the Early Years (birth to six years). shorturl.at/pxP56

This discussion paper gives a detailed account of children’s developmental EFL stages, providing a framework teachers can follow to design all kinds of language activities.

  1. Ellis, G. and Ibrahim, Nayr. (2021). Using metaphor elicitation with pre-primary children learning English. ELT Journal, Volume 75, Issue 3, July 2021, Pages 256–266, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccab014.

This article focuses on how using conceptual metaphor unlocks VYLs’ potential to talk about their world. It also sheds light on the very complex ideas that young children are capable of communicating.

  1. European Commision (2006). The main pedagogical principles underlying the teaching of languages to very young learners. shorturl.at/ctxEU

This report by the European Commission outlines some pedagogical principles of Early Language Language. Check Section 6, for detail on these principles.

  1. Moon, J. (2000). Children learning English. Oxford: MacMillan Heinemann.
  1. Pinter, A (2008). Teaching young language learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

IATEFL PronSIG materials

Webinars

Pronunciation tips and tricks for teachers of young learners. https://pronsig.iatefl.org/younglearners/

Ideas for fostering phonological awareness in the Early Years class: Training a new generation of Pronthusiasts. https://pronsig.iatefl.org/early-years/

Using mindful pronunciation activities with VYL & YL in the ELT classroom.

https://pronsig.iatefl.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sinziana-Socol.pdf

Blog post

Training a new generation of Pronthusiasts. https://pronsig.iatefl.org/pronthusiasts/

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