Adjunct lecturer in early childhood education at WSU and Early Childhood Consultant Dr Leonie Arthur led IGS Early Learning Centre and Languages staff during a professional learning day.
Teachers and educators pooled their knowledge and experience about how young children learn languages, then examined Dr Arthur’s literature reviews and research into the teaching of languages in Early Learning contexts.
The team explored principles of learning a second language in a holistic and integrated approach and the links to the national curriculum for early learning programs in Australia – the Early Years Learning Framework.
Children at IGS Early Learning Centre receive the gift of learning an additional language through a balance of focussed small group activity time in language groupings each day as well as modelling and linking languages at every opportunity during daily routines, meal times and developmental play activities where language is modelled at every opportunity.
We explored the use of digital technologies and children’s and educators’ linguistic resources to create multimodal texts; resources for integrating languages across the day; and ways of making children’s learning visible to others were also explored.
In Early Learning we look forward to continuing to embed and build upon the unique IGS Early Learning language program as a focus area in 2021.
Sarah Herbert
Head of School Early Learning