Teaching English to Very Young Learners: A Comparative Study of Teachers' Perceptions in Russia and Spain

Introduction

Ensuring the quality of early childhood education and care has become a policy priority in many countries (OECD, 2015, p.1), as early childhood education is a very relevant education stage for the overall development of human beings (UNESCO, 2016; Council of Europe, 2019). Likewise, learning English as an additional language in the early years has become more common in the last two decades, and it has caught the attention of the research community specialized in education (Cortina-Pérez & Otto, 2022; Schwartz, 2022). Even in countries where the teaching of a second language during early childhood education is not mandatory, it occurs frequently in pre-primary institutions (Mourão, 2015, p. 52). Spain and Russia are among such countries: students can start to learn English from early childhood even if according to the national legislation requirements a foreign language must be taught from the age of 8.

Taking previous studies on EFL teaching to young and very young learners, the present investigation will focus on two countries, Russia and Spain, where an early start in EFL learning has become common in the past decade. On the one hand, the Spanish education system has placed an increasing emphasis on the teaching of English in the last 15 years. Since 2006, autonomous communities have decided to make the learning of a foreign language compulsory for children attending pre-primary education (European Commission, 2017, p.33). On the other hand, preschool programs in Russia, especially in the last year of kindergarten, aim to prepare the children for primary school including language development. The nationwide interest in foreign languages accounts for their introduction into preschool curricula. However, even if Russia emphasizes the importance of developing multilingual citizens who possess advanced intercultural competence (Calafato, 2020, p.603), the country is still lagging behind this global linguistic unification process and there is a lack of studies that focus on the specific characteristics of non-native English teaching and learning in Russia (Abramova et al., 2013, p. 99).

In sum, in both countries, students can start to learn English from early childhood (3 years old) in pre-primary non-obligatory education. In Spain, this opportunity is provided by autonomous communities’ programs or by language academies, as well as private and semi-private schools, whereas in Russia this option is only possible in private language schools as well as most private kindergartens. The main differences between these countries are the following: the English class size (10-12 students in Russia versus 22 students in Spain), which has been proven to influence the learning process (Copland et al., 2013, p.748), a predominance of non-native English teaching in Russia, and the Russians “lagging behind” as speakers of EFL (Abramova et al. 2013).

The purpose of this research is to investigate the current perceptions of English teachers to very young learners about three aspects: i) the best methodology, ii) the use of L1 during the lesson, and iii) the main challenges the teachers experience when teaching very young learners, by comparing the opinions of teachers in Spain with those in Russia.

Teachers’ perceptions and views have an impact on English language teaching and learning: classroom principles, teachers’ accomplishments, learners’ attitudes, teaching practices, methods, and activities. More specifically, EFL teachers’ perception in this study is understood as a combination of attitudes and beliefs, which can be traced through classroom behaviour (Bell, 2005; Al-khresheh, 2022). In order to understand the choices and decisions that teachers to very young learners make it is important to know and understand their perceptions.

With this purpose, the study addresses the following research questions: