Early Language Learning & Multilingual Education Network

ABSTRACT

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It appears that caregivers and researchers often hold theories about how children learn languages that overlook the reality of children's experiences. Therefore, they ‘read’ these experiences differently. Recently, early language learning research has highlighted two main perspectives: the traditional method, which employs large-scale quantitative studies to track children’s language development and uses experimental tasks to uncover factors that influence their learning, often treating children as passive participants; and a newer approach, which shifts the focus by recognizing children as the main agents and experts of their own learning process (Kuchah & Pinter, 2021). What is the best approach for young children to explore their agency in early language learning? It was proposed that natural non-structured talks with young children using diverse elicitation tools, such as significant objects from home or the preschool environment, e.g., dolls, drawings, and photos (Schwartz, 2024). In this talk, I will discuss how playful art activities with children can be used to engage them in research and elicit their perceptions, utilizing this approach as an ecologically valid research tool. I will demonstrate that conducting research with children enables us to gather data on their awareness of the multilingual environment, attitudes towards languages, language preferences, motives for language learning, and metacognitive beliefs.  Ultimately, I will address some limitations of conducting research with children as active agents.  Specifically, the researchers should consider that young children's perceptions are multilayered, sometimes messy, changeable in nature, and contextually embedded.​

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References

Kuchah, K., & Pinter, A. (2021). Researching Young Language Learning a School Context: Setting the Scene. In A. Pinter & K. Kuchah (Eds.), Ethical and Methodological Issues in Researching Young Language Learners in School Contexts (pp. 1–23). Multilingual Matters.

Schwartz, M. (2024). Ecological perspectives in early language education: Parent, teacher, peer and child agency in interaction. Routledge. 

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BIO

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Mila Schwartz is a Full Professor of language and education and the Head of Research Authority at Oranim Academic College of Education (Israel). Her current research focuses on theorizing the phenomenon of interactions between child language-based agency, teacher agency, and parents' agency in early language education. 

At the international level, Prof. Schwartz shows 25 years of extensive research and exemplary achievements in academia and at top-tier research organizations such as the International Symposium of Bilingualism (ISB), where she held the position of Secretary of the Steering Committee from 2015 to 2019, the European Early Childhood Education Research Association network and Multilingual Childhoods, where she acted as Convenor from 2019 to 2022. She is now a Convenor of an international network called ELLMEnet ("Future Challenges in Early Language Learning and Multilingual Education").  

Prof. Schwartz has edited seven books, recently completed editing the First Handbook of Early Language Education, and published a monography entitled Ecological Perspectives in Early Language Education: Parent, teacher, peer, and child agency in Interaction.