Project for the Global Integration of Meaningful Learning of English in Early Childhood Education

Introduction

This chapter responds to the need to ensure that students are able and competent to cope in an increasingly global, plural, and changing world. Languages are becoming increasingly relevant in aspects such as employment, where in many fields English has taken on a decisive role, becoming a fundamental requirement for access to certain jobs. For this reason, there has been growing concern in recent years, and it is clear that the demand for English language learning in schools in Spain has soared (García, 2021).

There has been a large-scale conversion to bilingualism in schools. The first bilingual programmes in public schools appeared in 1996 thanks to an agreement between the Ministry of Education and the British Council, establishing an integrated Spanish-British curriculum for children from 3 to 16 years of age. But, given the lack of uniformity in the implementation of bilingualism in schools, the number of hours to be taught, the qualifications and/or knowledge of teachers, etc., it is difficult to comment on the situation of bilingualism in a generalised way. In broad terms, at the Early Childhood Education stage, it is usually treated as a first approach to the language according to López and Rodriguez (2019). However, this proposal aims to highlight the importance of starting the teaching of English from an early age.

The main aim of the project is to turn the language into an instrument that is given greater practical applicability. The aim is to reduce the use of textbooks as the only resource in the teaching of English, encouraging the use of language to achieve a greater fixation in the mental scheme of the pupils, extrapolating it to their daily reality. We also propose to include Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as they provide very useful and motivating resources. Language training is included for all teachers, not only specialists, as well as for families, to improve their competences, the achievement of objectives and motivation.

The innovative proposal of this project seeks to promote meaningful learning and is born out of a double need: to acquire the vocabulary and structures of the language while integrating routines through activities carried out in daily practice, which fosters confidence in the students. The use of English in the child’s everyday tasks becomes an effective tool for language fixation, and once they have acquired sufficient security and confidence, the pupils will move on to a second phase of oral production.

The general objective of this chapter is to present a globalised teaching project that generates significant learning capable of achieving comprehensive training in English in Early Childhood Education pupils. The specific objectives are the following:

• 1.

  To identify the most relevant aspects that influence the learning of a language for Early Childhood Education pupils.

• 2.

  To investigate the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a resource in language teaching.

• 3.

  To analyse the participation and integration of the family in school education.

• 4.

  To describe the most appropriate methodology for language teaching.

This project complies with the legislative references of Royal Decree 95/2022, of February 1, 2022, which establishes the minimum teaching for the second cycle of Early Childhood Education. In this Decree, as an objective of the area of languages: communication and representation, we can read: “To initiate the oral use of a foreign language to communicate in activities within the classroom, and to show interest and enjoyment by participating in these communicative exchanges” (p. 481)