| Preface | p. xi |
| Acknowledgements | p. xvi |
| Children learning a foreign language | p. 1 |
| Taking a learning-centred perspective | p. 1 |
| Piaget | p. 2 |
| Vygotsky | p. 5 |
| Bruner | p. 8 |
| From learning to language learning | p. 11 |
| Advantages to starting young with foreign languages | p. 16 |
| The foreign language: describing the indivisible | p. 17 |
| Summary of key learning principles | p. 19 |
| Learning language through tasks and activities | p. 21 |
| The task as an environment for learning | p. 21 |
| Task demands | p. 22 |
| Task support | p. 25 |
| Balancing demands and support | p. 26 |
| The importance of language learning goals | p. 28 |
| Defining 'task' for young learner classrooms | p. 29 |
| Stages in a classroom task | p. 31 |
| Hani's Weekend: Possible preparation and follow-up activities | p. 32 |
| Task-as-plan and task-in-action | p. 35 |
| Learning the spoken language | p. 36 |
| Learning the spoken language: guiding principles | p. 36 |
| Discourse and discourse events | p. 37 |
| Meaning first | p. 38 |
| Analysis of a task-in-action | p. 42 |
| Discourse skills development in childhood | p. 51 |
| Effective support for children's foreign language discourse skills | p. 58 |
| Short activities for learning the spoken language | p. 60 |
| Supporting the spoken language with written language | p. 66 |
| Using dialogues | p. 68 |
| Summary | p. 70 |
| Learning words | p. 72 |
| Introduction | p. 72 |
| Vocabulary development in children's language learning | p. 73 |
| Organisation of words in a language | p. 81 |
| Learning and teaching vocabulary | p. 83 |
| Children's vocabulary learning strategies | p. 92 |
| Summary | p. 94 |
| Learning grammar | p. 96 |
| A place for grammar? | p. 96 |
| Different meanings of 'grammar' | p. 98 |
| Development of the internal grammar | p. 101 |
| A learning-centred approach to teaching grammar: background | p. 105 |
| Principles for learning-centred grammar teaching | p. 110 |
| Teaching techniques for supporting grammar learning | p. 111 |
| Summary | p. 121 |
| Learning literacy skills | p. 123 |
| Introduction | p. 123 |
| Literacy skills in English | p. 124 |
| Factors affecting learning to read in English as a foreign language | p. 134 |
| Starting to read and write in English as a foreign language | p. 139 |
| Continuing to learn to read | p. 150 |
| Developing reading and writing as discourse skills | p. 154 |
| Summary and conclusion | p. 157 |
| Learning through stories | p. 159 |
| Stories and themes as holistic approaches to language teaching and learning | p. 159 |
| The discourse organisation of stories | p. 160 |
| Language use in stories | p. 163 |
| Quality in stories | p. 166 |
| Choosing stories to promote language learning | p. 167 |
| Ways of using a story | p. 169 |
| Developing tasks around a story | p. 175 |
| Summary | p. 179 |
| Theme-based teaching and learning | p. 180 |
| Issues around theme-based teaching | p. 180 |
| Theme-based teaching of a foreign language | p. 181 |
| Planning theme-based teaching | p. 184 |
| Learning language through theme-based teaching | p. 191 |
| Increasing target language use in theme-based teaching | p. 195 |
| Summary | p. 197 |
| Language choice and language learning | p. 199 |
| Introduction | p. 199 |
| Patterns of first language use in foreign language classrooms | p. 200 |
| Dynamics of language choice and use | p. 205 |
| Taking responsibility, making choices | p. 209 |
| Summary | p. 213 |
| Assessment and language learning | p. 214 |
| Issues in assessing children's language learning | p. 214 |
| Principles for assessing children's language learning | p. 218 |
| Key concepts in assessment | p. 222 |
| Teacher assessment of language learning | p. 228 |
| Self-assessment and learner autonomy | p. 233 |
| Use of assessment information | p. 238 |
| Messages from assessment | p. 240 |
| Issues around teaching children a foreign language | p. 241 |
| Review of ideas | p. 241 |
| The need for research | p. 242 |
| The need to develop pedagogy | p. 243 |
| Teaching foreign languages to children | p. 246 |
| References | p. 247 |
| Index | p. 256 |
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