Does an Early Foreign-Language Teaching Program Applied to Kindergarten Children Lead to Successful Linguistic, Affective and Cognitive Achievements? A Case Study

Abstract

The relationships between languages coming into contact for geo-political reasons or as a result of migratory movements give rise to multilingualism which is a precious phenomenon that must be supported. In order to be effective, the approach to multilingualism must occur during early childhood. This is why the European Commission plans the Early Language Learning programs which introduce a second or foreign language in pre-primary schools. The most adopted programs are the Foreign-Language teaching and the Immersion programs. The formers concern the integration of a language different from the child's mother tongue in the pedagogical plan. The latters are typical in situations of bilingualism and aim at developing of an early, simultaneous and additive kind of bilingualism. The present study is based on an experimental research carried out in a kindergarten with Italian infants who approached to English as a foreign language for the first time. They were immersed into the new language during activities and various moments of the educational routine for 3 months. This study aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of Early Foreign Language Learning and from the analysis of the results a certain similarity between the achieved outcomes and some features of bilingualism can be observed. It follows that the support of second or foreign language acquisition at an early developmental stage is essential to enhance the growth of cognitive and linguistic benefits in young child.