The effect of foreign language acquisition on preschool children’s self-regulation and social skills

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have revealed that the development of self-regulation and social skills in preschool children is important for later academic success, social acceptance and psychological wellbeing. Children who lack these skills are at risk for not being able to socialize and may face rejection behaviors among peers, show aggressive behaviors, or suffer from other personal issues which prevent them from being successful in life. The present experimental study was conducted to examine the effects of foreign language acquisition on preschool children’s self-regulation and social skills. In this respect, although there are studies examining the effect of social and/or self-regulation skills on foreign language learning, the field is lacking studies which examine the inverse relationship: the effect that foreign language learning has upon these skills. The present study endeavors to contribute to the literature in this sense. According to the results of the present study, it is seen that foreign language acquisition has a positive effect on preschool children’s self-regulation and social skills. Considering the results, it can be said that more foreign language programs should be designed with specific consideration for developing children’s self-regulation and social skills. Additional research studying different age groups, larger sample groups or with different language programs is recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• Preschool children
• self-regulation
• social skills
• English
• foreign language

Acknowledgements

I would like to say thank you to my soul-sister Mia Baki for proofreading. I appreciate the support of all the preschool staff who made me feel welcome during the application process. Thanks to my experiment group children’s parents for their enjoyable participation during our WhatsApp communications. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the journal who gave their time and helped me improve it via their precious comments.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.