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2746_PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES / «©©УШШШМ-ЛШШаИ» #35122)), 2021
УДК 374 (091)
Haydar Ate§, Gulbeniz Mammadova Baku Choreography Academy DOI: 10.24412/2520-6990-2021-35122-45-49 FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING IN PRE-SCHOOL PERIOD
Хайдар Атеш Гюльбениз Мамедова
Бакинская Хореографическая академия
ИЗУЧЕНИЕ ИНОСТРАННОГО ЯЗЫКА В ДОШКОЛЬНОМ ПЕРИОДЕ
Abstract.
This study was conducted to investigate the effect of teaching a foreign language in the preschool period on foreign language learning. The research was carried out in two stages using two methods. In the first stage, students who received and did not receive foreign language education in the pre-school period were determined. In order to achieve this aim, the "School Survey" method, one of the descriptive methods, was used. The purpose of this method is to present the existing situation as it is. In the second stage, the experimental method was used.
At this stage, it has been divided into two categories as students who receive foreign language education in the pre-school period and students who do not. A readiness test (pre-test) was administered to these student groups according to their grade level, and an achievement test (post-test) was administered one month after the subjects were explained. The study group consists ofprimary school students. Some of the results obtained in the research are given here briefly. The difference between the pre-test and post-test mean scores of the students who received and did not receive foreign language education in pre-school education was found to be significant in favor of the post-test scores. It has been found that students who receive foreign language education in the pre-school period are more successful. It was found that gender was not a factor in foreign language education. It has been found that the level of the 5 th grade students in foreign language education is higher than the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students. It has been found that students who have a positive attitude towards foreign language education are more successful than students who do not. The students whose mothers knew a foreign language were found to be more successful than the students who did not. The mother attitude perceived by the students with the highest foreign language score average is the "authoritarian" attitude. The perceived maternal attitude of the students with the lowest foreign language average score was found to be "indifferent-democratic".
Аннотация. Это исследование было проведено для изучения эффекта обучения иностранному языку в дошкольном возрасте в сфере изучение иностранного языка. Исследование проводилось в двух этапах с использованием двух методов. На первом этапе определялись учащиеся, получившие и не получившие образование в изучение иностранного языка в дошкольном периоде. Для достижения этой цели был использован метод «Опрос школы», который является одним из описываемых методов. Цель этого метода является представлением существующей ситуации такой, какая она есть. На втором этапе использовался экспериментальный метод.
На этом этапе было разделение на две категории: учащиеся, получающие образование в изучение иностранного языка в дошкольном периоде и учащиеся, не получающие образования. Тест на готовность (предварительный тест) был проведен для этих групп учащихся в соответствии с их уровнем, а тест достижений (тест после) был проведен через месяц после того, как предметы были объяснены. Учебная группа состоит из учеников начальной школы. Некоторые из результатов, полученные во время исследования кратко представлены здесь. Было обнаружено, что разница между средними баллами до и после тестирования учащихся, получивших и не получивших образование на иностранном языке в дошкольном образовании, является значительной в пользу результатов после тестирования. Установлено, что учащиеся, получающие образование в изучение иностранного языка в дошкольном периоде, более успешны. Выяснилось, что пол не имел значения при изучение иностранного языка. Было обнаружено, что уровень владения иностранным языком у учащихся 5-х классов выше, чем у учащихся 1-го, 2-го, 3-го и 4-го классов. Оказалось, что студенты, которые положительно относятся к обучению иностранных языков, более успешны, чем студенты, которые этого не делают. Студенты у которых матери знали иностранный язык, оказались более успешными, чем студенты, у которых матери не знали иностранного языка. Отношение матери, воспринимаемое студентами с наивысшим средним баллом по иностранному языку является «авторитарным» отношением. Воспринимаемое материнское отношение студентов с самым низким средним баллом по иностранному языку был «нейтральным-демократическим».
Keywords: Pre-school education, Language, Foreign Language Learning
Ключевые слова: дошкольное образование, язык, изучение иностранных языков.
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Introduction. Preschool period is the first six years of life; includes infancy and early childhood. Infancy is the initial period in acquiring habits related to basic life activities. Early childhood is defined as the process of acquiring skills in areas and stages of development. During infancy and early childhood, children are in a process of gradual and intense development in the physical, cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional areas (Oktay, 1999; Yavuzer, 1998).
Preschool education aims to provide the child with self-care skills and provides the child to acquire positive and permanent behaviors. This is related to family education and formal education. Formal education is mostly aimed at meeting the social, developmental and educational goals of children aged 2-6. With the education programs developed in line with the institutional principles regarding child development, the general objectives of pre-school education are tried to be achieved. Within the framework of educational programs, educational activities include providing living environments and stimuli to support the development of the child and arouse interest in learning (Oktay, 1999; Yavuzer, 1998). Pre-school education programs are shaped according to the country's view of non-formal education and, accordingly, the aims that are thought to be realized with pre-school education (Ok-tay, 1999:197).
The main feature of the preschool period, which is considered in two periods as infancy (0-2 years) and early childhood (or school period) (2-6 years), is that it includes developmental stages. During this period, children show an intense development physically, cogni-tively, socially and emotionally. Regarding the developmental stages mentioned above, physical development is geared towards physical growth and motor (motion) control.
Physical growth, development of the body in terms of height and weight; It includes the changes related to the volume and weight of the organs until they reach a certain level. Motor control is the acquisition of biological maturity related to body movements. Cognitive development, the child's mental growth; It includes the development of perception, memory, judgment, comprehension and thinking processes. Social and emotional development is the process by which the child socializes by adopting behavioral patterns. In this process, which starts with birth, the emotional behavior of the child is formed (Yavuzer, 1998:93). The preschool period also includes the linguistic development process, in other words, the process in which the child acquires language. In this period, "all children who have completed the age of 2, who have good mental functions and grow up in a normal socialization environment, internalize the language system they hear in the language environment in which they were born, and begin to communicate with their peers and adults in this language" (Cameron, 2001). The internalized language string here is the native language. Basic structures, usage areas and rules of mother tongue are acquired in the first five years of life, even if not completely. A 5-year-old child can use his mother tongue with the compe-
tence of an adult native speaker. However, the competence in the language field has not been completed yet, and the language acquisition period continues.
Examination. The research was carried out in two stages using two methods. In the first stage, students who received and did not receive foreign language education in the pre-school period were determined. In order to achieve this aim, the "School Survey" method, one of the descriptive methods, was used. The purpose of this method is to present the existing situation as it is. In the second stage, the experimental method was used. At this stage, it has been divided into two categories as students who receive foreign language education in the pre-school period and students who do not. To these student groups; "Colors/colors and toys/toys" for first graders, "Having/have-has got, feelings/emotions, some elephants/verbs and things/furniture" for second grades, "Food/food" for third grades, "There is" pattern for fourth graders /there is - there are", the readiness test (pre-test) was applied to the fifth graders without explaining the subjects of "Adjectives and their comparison/compare adjectives". These tests were prepared by taking the opinion of an expert. After the subjects were explained for a month (5 lesson hours per week), the achievement test (post-test), which was finalized by preparing different questions from the same subjects above and taking expert opinion, was applied.
The process of acquiring the mother tongue proceeds simultaneously with the child's ongoing physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. Therefore, the child's language development and use depends on reaching some cognitive, social-emotional and physical-motor skills. An 18-month-old child expresses his feelings and thoughts with gestures or single words; A 6-year-old child expresses his feelings and thoughts in long and complex sentences. While the vocabulary of 18-month-olds is limited to 10-12 words, 6-year-olds use thousands of words. An 18-month-old, on the other hand, uses language to ask for things from adults, while a 6-year-old uses language for a wide range of purposes and topics, including humor, fantasy, explanation and narration, and making assumptions. These developments in the language system occur in parallel and in parallel with the developments in the cognitive field (planning, remembering, conscious learning, catching various perspectives, understanding complex and simple phenomena, examining and solving questions) (Pegenek, 2002). Along with the internal development of the baby and the spinal cord, cognitive development also includes the way a child organizes, stores and recalls information. Each child perceives the world differently and is interpreted by the impulses that accompany their experiences. Therefore, receiving new impulses is not a passive process, it involves interpretation and regulation. The child regulates the impulses that come in parallel with his growth in various ways. At the same time, the child's memory expands. The weight loss of the brain is one of the reasons for this change (Charles, 1999; Kaptan, 1999; §ahin, 2004)
Social and emotional development is related to the three areas mentioned. The social and emotional development of the child depends on the coordinated physical, cognitive and linguistic development of the child.
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For example, in connection with language development, the child's egocentrism decreases and his social character increases. The child gradually develops social behavior, rules, customs and habits; teaches how to be a member of society. Parallel to this, language development is linked to the socialization of the child. The child acquires speaking skills through social activities and social interaction (Demirel, 1999; Derin, 2002; Halliwell,1992).
Language acquisition is inherently inevitable and natural. Children cannot choose not to acquire the language spoken around them. They acquire their mother tongue with a natural or innate impulse (Alisa, 1999). Another feature of language acquisition is that it is unique. Children acquire their mother tongue in a unique way (Reilly & Ward, 1997). Some supra-general conditions such as physical disabilities, personality traits, lack of sufficient language input in the environment where the language is acquired create freedom for children to acquire their mother tongue (Bacanli, 1999).
However, language is acquired in stages, in a similar and universal way. The language acquisition process includes specific stages. Although the structural features in some languages and the child's uniqueness in language acquisition cause changes in the ages at which these stages occur, it is known that every child goes through these stages (Moon, 2000; Bikcanteyev, 1999).
Language acquisition involves gradual changes in the phonological, syntactic, and scientific domains. At first, the nations are general and identical, after a while the children change and expand their classification (Se-ving, 2003). It is possible to say that the child starts with an unprocessed category (for example, the category of sound concept) and progresses through a series of changes to define and redefine models. Each subsequent area is determined by a system based on functional opposition, but this system is different from that of an adult (Badalen & Ustinov, 1989). The ever-changing redefinition process continues until the child's language approaches that of the adult (Kocaoluk & Kocaoluk, 2002).
According to the universal specifications, the child leaves the telegraphic language stage behind at the age of 3. After this stage, a process begins, which includes the acquisition of grammatical morphemes and the assimilation of simple and compound sentence rules. The child begins to produce inflected morphemes that show the linguistic function of nouns and idioms. Then the metageneralization process begins (Vale & Feunteun, 1995).
In the pre-school period, an intense development is observed in syntactic production and meaning. At the beginning of this period, children begin to understand the word order in early sentences (Bakircioglu, 2002). At the end of this period, they are able to understand and produce passive sentences, a series of sentences with connections and complex structures. However, their ability to understand and produce more complex syntactic forms continues to develop during the schoolage years (James, 1990:92). In the preschool period, children begin to become competent in semantic forms. Linking words used to refer to relationships between
events and objects; They acquire word types that indicate place, direction, time, quality and quantity. During this period, children's vocabulary is constantly developing. The vocabulary of a 5-6 year old child contains about 8000-12000 words (Scott & Ytreberg, 1990). At the end of this period, children now reach adult pronunciation, that is, correct pronunciation. Children aged 56 also know the places and names of sounds in the alphabet, as they begin to correctly evaluate words as sounds (Ertekin, 2003).
At the end of the preschool period, children have learned the basic structures of their mother tongue and have become competent in the areas of use of these structures (Demircan, 1990). In short, they can use their mother tongue at the level of adult speakers. However, it cannot be said that the acquisition process of their mother tongue is complete. This process will be completed at the end of the school age period (i§pinar, 2004).
In the pre-school period, which includes the first six years of their lives, children learn their mother tongue in a similar and universal manner under normal conditions in certain stages. Due to the structural features of some languages, although there are differences in the stages of learning their children's mother tongue, all children go through these stages (Kennedy & Jennifer, 1991). The basic language learning process is completed in the pre-school period. However, developments in language use continue in school age and adulthood. Although there is consensus that language learning is universal and incremental, there has been disagreement about how language is learned. In many studies carried out to date, many theories have been developed regarding the acquisition of mother tongue. And in the light of these theories, it has been tried to clarify the language learning process (Sonmez, 2004).
Studies to explain the phenomenon of learning or acquiring a foreign language / second language in children are mostly based on the interpretations of mother tongue acquisition and the comparison of theoretical approaches to second language learning with mother tongue second language / foreign language learning processes (Mclaughlin, 1987). The child does not reach the meanings from the language in the acquisition of the mother tongue, he reaches the language from the meanings (Govsa, 1998). The child learns the words of the language on the basis of situations he understands and previous knowledge (Ertekin, 2003). First learns the meaning, then the word. Communication between the family and the child begins before the child acquires the language. A functional communication system (from communication to word) has an important place as a prerequisite for language acquisition. However, in the corporate education environment, meanings are reached from the language (Boyraz & Dere, 2001).
Although how children learn a second language / foreign language cannot be fully clarified due to the variables related to the process, it is agreed that children have various readiness features in language learning (Larsen-Freeman, 1986). In particular, age-related second language/foreign language learning studies have been influential in determining the neural, cognitive,
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psychological and social characteristics of young children's language learning.
Conclusion and recommendations. A foreign language teaching program should be made for children of this age group, which aims to introduce children to a foreign language and acquire positive experiences in a foreign language.
The objectives of foreign language teaching related to pre-school foreign language teaching should be determined and its applicability should be investigated.
It should be considered that the pre-school pedagogical basis should guide the content of the pre-school foreign language teaching programs.
Students who receive foreign language education in pre-school should continue their foreign language learning life by repeating the subjects they learned from primary school without a break.
The primary education foreign language program is a continuation of the pre-school foreign language program, and the subjects should be expanded and repeated.
It should be aimed to make students love the foreign language especially in the 1,2 and 3rd grade students and the exams should be done without being noticed that there is an exam.
In order to ensure active participation of students in the lesson, activities such as stories, dramas, songs and poems should be included, and lessons should be taught by creating a game environment in the classroom atmosphere.
While explaining the subjects, visual materials and technological opportunities should be used frequently.
They should clearly show the positive attitudes of parents towards foreign language learning to their children, and they should help by being interested without pressure.
In order to learn the language in a natural environment, it is important to start foreign language learning at an early age and to have enough weekly lesson hours especially from the first grades. In addition, maximum effort should be made to create environments where students can apply the knowledge they have learned about language in social life.
Teachers who will give foreign language education should recognize the individual characteristics of the students and teach accordingly.
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