FROM EUROPE TO PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION IN GALICIA

ENGLISH IN PRESCHOOLS IN GALICIA

The Galician educational legislation specifies different aspects in relation to the foreign language. In this sense, as has already been pointed out in an earlier entry in this blog, the teaching of a foreign language implies the incorporation of a third language into a bilingual reality.

The references to the foreign language within the Infantile Education appear fundamentally in the Decree and in the Order of Evaluation specific of these educations.

DECRETO 330/2009

In its Annexed focused on Languages: Communication and representation area of the Second Cycle of Preschool Education are included:

• Goals. Beginning in the oral use of a foreign language to communicate in contextualized activities and show interest and joy when participating in these communicative exchanges.

• Contents. Interest for participating in oral interactions in a foreign language, in routines and usual communication situations, showing a positive attitude towards this language.

• Evaluation criteria.  Show a positive attitude towards learning a foreign language, interested in participating in oral interactions in routines, games and usual communication situations.

ORDEN DEL 25 DE JUNIO DE 2009

This order focuses on organizational aspects and includes a methodological guidelines to carry out the teaching of English in the classrooms of Preschool Education.

ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS
Weekly schedule. 
The teaching of a foreign language will be one hour per week for each of the courses of the second cycle of early childhood education.

The teaching of the foreign language.

• Schools will carry out activities that involve an approach to the foreign language whose methodological guidelines are those contemplated in Annex V of this order.
• Each school will specify the distribution of the foreign language hour, which in no case will be in a single weekly period.

Specialist teaching staff.

• The teachings of foreign language and religion will be taught by professors with the corresponding specialization or qualification.
• Specialized teachers who teach a foreign language will participate in the development of the programming of the language area: communication and representation in those aspects of the programming related to the foreign language.

METHODOLOGICAL GUIDELINES

• The early introduction of foreign or additional languages ​​must be understood in relation to the educational context in which it takes place. English is the third language in our multilingual education system.
• English must be taught using a globalized approach based on tasks and projects, integrating their teaching with the knowledge areas established for this educational stage, working and developing basic competences.
• English teacher must act as a mediator, creating communication dynamics in real and functional contexts, creating an environment in which students feel pleasure to listen an participate, avoiding the risk of getting tired or inhibited. 
• Strategies: experimentation and learning by doing, imitation and repetition of sounds, words and meaningful statements always with a playful intention.
• TPR (by Dr. James J. Asher, it is a language teaching built around the coordination of speech an actions; it attempts to teach language through physical -motor- activity).