What do parents expect from their children's English learning?

Abstract

Parents might think about different ways for their children to learn English from an early age because of the current importance of the English Language. Thus, the theme of this research came up: to analyze parents´ expectations about their children’s English learning. To this end, the advantages and disadvantages of teaching English to children are raised by comparing their learning process with the adult’s process and also approaching the playfulness on teaching languages to children’s methodologies. The parents’ role in their children’s education and how this affects the relationship between school and family are discussed as well as parents´ expectations about their children’s education in general. This research was done through a questionnaire with 23 parents with the objective of analyzing the parents´ expectations about their children’s English learning. The questionnaire had some distinct parts. In the first one, the participants were supposed to assign how much they agreed with 13 statements. After that, they had to assign the importance of each skill and element and the frequency with which some activities should happen in their children´s English class. Finally, they answered three questions about the importance of knowing English and reflections about the questionnaire.  It can be noticed that these parents consider all skills and elements important, search for different activities besides the textbook, and seem to agree with some of the English as a Lingua Franca postulates.