Little Multilingual Minds: A Heritage-Language Learning Program for Early Childhood

• In Event: Supporting Multilingual Language Development at Preschool: Evaluating the Influence of Language Input from Teachers

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that heritage language (HL) use outside the home in early childhood has several positive effects, including maintaining the HL, preventing language shift to the majority language, and supporting the development of children’s language and literacy skills (Papastefanou et al., 2019). Despite these benefits, in most countries, there is insufficient support for promoting multilingualism between the crucial ages of 0 and 5.

Little Multilingual Minds (LMM) is a language exposure program that aims at extending HL skills in early childhood education and assessing learners’ overall linguistic and cognitive skills. The focus on extending HL skills is motivated by the increasing body of research suggesting that to enable bi-/multilingualism, HL support must be available outside the home from early childhood onwards. Enhancement of HL skills in early childhood will lead to a) the lifespan use of the HL alongside the majority language, truly enabling and nourishing multilingual minds, and b) the prevention of incomplete HL acquisition and early language shift to the majority language, which will result in HL attrition and the loss of the benefits of being multilingual (Gharibi & Boers, 2017; Montrul, 2016).

LMM is relevant and applicable to any HL and its sessions incorporate research-based knowledge and practices. It provides a dynamic individualized approach according to the needs of specific early childhood settings and language communities. In this talk, we will introduce the first LMM partnership with a bilingual early childhood education setting in Sydney which has incorporated LMM as part of its curriculum. In this setting, the HL is used to similar extents as the majority language, but in different domains (i.e., family-oriented versus academically-oriented domains respectively; Escudero et al., 2020). Crucially, most group activities involving early-years learning are conducted in English. Thus, for this setting, LMM seeks to promote the HL or minority language by extending its use or domain for instructional or academic topics.

An educator from the setting was put forth by the director to deliver the weekly sessions face-to-face following LMM guidelines. Interested families from the centre were recruited via email using electronic forms and surveys, and children’s linguistic and cognitive skills in their two languages were tested at home via video-chat. Program delivery by a setting’s educator and online testing has enabled the program to continue despite the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Preliminary results from the pre-test and pilot sessions suggest large individual variation in the children’s linguistic skills, with many of the 22 children using English rather than their HL and having difficulties engaging with the teaching contents. Preliminary analysis of parent surveys indicates children’s higher English compared to HL use at home and parental concerns regarding HL maintenance beyond pre-school years. We predict changes in children’s linguistic and cognitive skills, engagement, and HL use, together with more positive parental and educator attitudes toward HL maintenance after 3 and 6 months of implementing LMM. We will discuss the impact of our tailor-made approach on successfully nurturing multilingualism in early childhood education.

Authors

• Paola Escudero, Western Sydney University
  Presenting Author

• Gloria Pino Escobar, Western Sydney University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Myra Luinge, Western Sydney University
  Non-Presenting Author

• John Hajek, University of Melbourne
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gillian Wigglesworth, University of Melbourne
  Non-Presenting Author