The role of play in creating a language-conducive context in a bilingual preschool

ABSTRACT

The current study was part of a large project focusing on bilingual development¹ in the preschool classroom context. Its aim was to theorize free play as a social and language learning activity that provides opportunities for young learners to move towards second language production. The role of free play for language development in general, and its unique contribution to L2 learning inspired our work. We applied a qualitative approach to perform close observations of eight children, four L1 Arabic-speakers and four L1 Hebrew-speakers and provided numerical data about the frequency of L2 use. The analysis revealed that free play created a fruitful language-conducive context for daring to use L2 (even with mistakes), peer language mediation, creative repetition, self-talk, focus on language form, and corrective feedback for others’ incorrect usage. Theorization of the role of free play in L2 production is followed by some suggestions for field applications in preschool classrooms, engaging children coming from diverse linguistic backgrounds.

KEYWORDS:

• Free play
• preschool
• second language
• language-conducive context

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Broadly, a child’s bilingual development can be defined as growing up in a home or being engaged in an educational environment where two different languages are spoken or taught

2 Generally, second language (L2) can be defined as a language that has been acquired after the acquisition of one's first language (L1).

3 All names of children and teachers have been changes.

4 Note, that the counted and summed up cases of phases in each of the two types of activity, separately, add up to 100%.