The optimal time/age to start a foreign language practice with pre-schoolers depens on the social/cultural context.

When living in a bilingual o pluriligual society, children can start with the other local languages at the same time they start the family one (or ones).

In Catalonia, both Catalan speaking families and Spanish speaking families bring their kids to bilingual pre-school at 3 years old (99,5% of them) and they start with English language activities about 5 years old. The social context (largely bilingual in Catalan/Spanish) and the social demand for learning foreign languages (mainly English) makes easy to have Plurilinual projects at school.

Further readings:

http://ensenyament.gencat.cat/web/.content/home/departament/publicacions/monografies/llengua-catalana-model-exit/llengua-catalana-model-exit-ANG.pdf

Article Report and evaluation of the development of CLIL Programmes ...

Thank you very much for sharng with me this curricular experience in Catalonia. Since I am doing some research on the implementation of the awakening edagogy (plurlingual approach), I am specifically looking for are the major factors that awaken/expose/introduce children at an earlier age level that form in Bourdieu's words their symbolic capital. I would like to operationalize them into a psychometric tool so that I can measure the depth of such effect on children's future decisions and attitudes towards foreign languages.

Dear Mohamed,

Since you are asking for the setting, I would say preschoolers (3-5 olds) would greatly benefit from children's songs to have them expose to the sounds of the FL. Children's rounds with stories in them where children can make movements and dance according to the songs. They will learn it quickly. The teacher also has to sing and dance with them. Then show them pics of the stories in the song. Don't show them the words yet. They need to enjoy and dance to the songs and learn the prosodics.

Jorge

Hello,

it is now accepted that developing basic foundational skills to preschoolers may have a great bearing on later success in school. However, employing pedagogically effective techniques for teaching preschoolers is very important. The following link can hopefully provide you with the related literature:

www.colorincolorado.org › ... › Early Childhood Education and ELLs › Articles

Best regards,

R. Biria

TO Jorge

I strongly believe that ludic activities are important. The setting that I want to operationalize consists of both educational and parental backrounds. Sure enough, there are some more factors which are equally consequential here

Thak you Dr. Reza for referreing me to this website. I found the Library Resources part very informative. I agree that a pedagogical platform is needed to optimize FL literacy for early years. in view of that, I have been working on the awakening approach and I managed to obtain very promising findings. Regards!

The optimal setting is language itself in the different ways it can be performed.