The Teaching and learning - how to teach English for non-literate children

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the importance of teaching and learning a foreign language for children, not only as an instrument of social insertion and ascension, but also as a way of access to different cultures. For these reasons, this project deals with issues of learning a foreign language and in this case, it is the English language (LI). This research analyzes the importance of the insertion of the English language for children between three to six years old and besides that it investigates the development caused by the foreign language learning and its benefits. We justify it because we consider that it intends to contribute to the studies of the importance of English language learning for children in order to investigate the cognitive development, teacher training, affection and teaching-learning approaches. The main references studies that guided this research are Celani (1996), Chaguri (2004), Dib (2004), Leffa (2001), Oliveira (2000),Rocha (2008), Schütz (2008) and Vieira (2007). This study was based on the qualitative research and it can contribute for the development of the teacher education through reflective practice, thus it can contribute for the theoretical studies that focus on the importance of studying a foreign language for children. The final considerations seem to indicate that there are more advantages than disadvantages on the English language learning for illiterate children and therefore the teacher has a great responsibility on this process. In this study it was observed that most teachers undergo teaching training to carry out their practice, which suggests that they would have a lot of difficult to exercise the reflective practice.