English in Early

Childhood / British Council

Your perspectives on early childhood
What’s your experience of children and childhood development?

 Are you a parent?

 Are you an educator or an early childhood practitioner?
 Do you work with young children?
 Do you work in a full time preschool?
 Do you work in a daycare centre, nursery or crèche?
 Do you look after young children in your home?
 If you are an early childhood practitioner or teacher, how many hours per day do you spend
with the children in your care?
 Are you an English language teacher? What’s your experience of teaching very young
children?

Share your situation with us below.

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Observation journal
An observation journal is a tool to help you record your thoughts and note down different
things about the children in your care, such as their interests and abilities.

An observation journal is also a useful place to record information, links and ideas from the course.

At the end of each week, we will ask you some questions to help you reflect on what you have learnt.
You can note these down in your observation journal as well.

Your observation journal can be recorded in digital format or on paper, such as a scrapbook.

However you choose to record your thoughts and observations, bear in mind that this is an
important part of keeping track of your own learning and development, so we encourage you
to do it regularly.
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How children learn

In this video, Sheona will outline what’s in store for you this week.

Remember you can follow the educators on this course by clicking the links to their FutureLearn
profile pages and selecting ‘follow’. That way, you’ll be able to see all the comments that they make.

After you’ve watched the video, think about this week’s topic.

 Are you a parent or a carer? Or are you an early childhood practitioner?

 How do you think children learn?

Share your ideas in the comments thread below. You can ‘like’ and reply to comments, and also
follow other learners whose comments you find interesting.

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Defining our terms

What do we mean when we say ‘the Early Years’? What is a practitioner? What is an L1?

Here are some of the key terms we’ll be using throughout the course:

 Early Years: the period from birth to 8 years old as defined by UNESCO. The Early Years are
also referred to as early childhood. They both mean the same thing.
 Child development: the changes that occur as a child grows and develops.
 Language acquisition: according to linguist and educational researcher Stephen Krashen,
‘acquisition’ is what children undergo when they acquire their first language. It requires
meaningful interaction and natural communication. It is different from ‘learning’ a language
through formal instruction.
 EAL: English as an additional language
 L1: a person’s first language, home language or mother tongue.
 L2: a person’s second language, or a language that is not the mother tongue.
 Practitioner: the general term to describe people who work with young children, such as
teacher, educator, childminder, nursery manager, classroom assistant, nursery nurse, room
leader, assistant nursery nurse, crèche worker, nanny, etc.
 Carer: the child’s parent, guardian or another important person in their life such as a
grandparent.
  Setting: the general term to describe the early years environment, such as nursery, pre-
school, crèche, classroom, child-minding facilities.
 Partnership: the relationship between education and health and social care teams working
together with families to ensure each child’s individual needs are met.
 Development statements: different stages of development in early childhood published by
the Department of Education (England)

The terms we have outlined above are to help you understand what we are referring to on the
course, so that we are all talking about the same thing.

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