Effects of Academic and Nonacademic Instructional Approaches on Preschool English Language Learners’ English Language Development

• In Event: Examining Policy and Practice for Ethnolinguistic-Minority Students

Abstract

As of school year 2010-11, nearly 25% of all students in the California public schools were English Language Learners (California Department of Education, 2013). This study investigated whether bilingual preschool children would engage more and use more of their second language (English) during teacher–structured (academic) or free play (non–academic) activities. In addition, the researcher investigated the perceptions of preschool teachers and parents of bilingual preschool children regarding these effects.
Data sources included 285 observations and teacher and parent surveys/interviews. The findings indicated that bilingual children engaged and interacted dramatically more during free play (non–academic) preschool classroom activities than during teacher–structured (academic) activities. These results imply unstructured free-play activities served as an affordance for building language, academic skills, and cultural capital.

Author

• Ivana Markova, San Francisco State University