The Latest The 100 Most Popular Courses During the Pandemic

Class Central is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Online Course

English in Early Childhood: Language Learning and Development

All-Time Top 100

British Council via FutureLearn

(836)
Found in ESL Courses, Humanities Courses
Go to class
  • Provider FutureLearn
  • Cost Free Online Course (Audit)
  • Session In progress
  • Language English
  • Certificate $54 Certificate Available
  • Effort 2 hours a week
  • Duration 6 weeks long
  • Learn more about MOOCs

Taken this course? Share your experience with other students. Write review

Overview

##

Teaching English to children while they’re still learning their mother tongue is a challenging but rewarding prospect. In this online course, you’ll learn how and why children learn best through play. What can parents and practitioners do to enable children to get the most out of a learning experience?

This course for parents and practitioners will explore how young children learn English and investigate many more aspects of early childhood learning and development.

British Council educators will share their insights and experiences, so that you can learn how to best talk to young children; how to create the best environment for them to learn English as an additional language; and how to monitor their progress.

Through articles, videos and live events you will hear from early childhood experts and parents, and see for yourself how young children learn inside the early years classroom. At every stage, you will be offered tips, advice and downloadable resources that will help you at teaching english as a foreign language to children.

You will join discussions and have the opportunity to interact live with our experienced educators.

This course will be of interest to you if you are: a parent of young children who wishes to support their child learning an additional language; an English teacher or an early childhood practitioner; or someone who is interested in the area of child development and language acquisition.

If English is not your first language please be reassured that this course is suitable for those who have learnt English to around intermediate level (approximately B1 on the CEFR).

The principles of learning an additional language during early childhood apply to all languages, so if you are a parent, teacher or practitioner interested in teaching languages other than English, you will find plenty of relevant methods in the course.

Taught by

Sheona Gilmour

Class Central Charts

Help Center

Most commonly asked questions about FutureLearn

Browse More FutureLearn Articles

Reviews for FutureLearn's English in Early Childhood: Language Learning and Development Based on 836 reviews

  • 5 stars 85%
  • 4 stars 14%
  • 3 stars 1%
  • 2 stars 0%
  • 1 stars 0%

Did you take this course? Share your experience with other students.

Write a review
  • 1
  • …
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
1. The curriculum is designed very well, apt, short, appropriate.

2. The sections are well planned.

3. The views from teachers, experts helped to understand the concept so we'll.

4. The quiz helped so much which also was so non judgemental, void of labelling and not competitive!

5. The downloads are so so important notes. Thank you for all the notes!

6. The comments section is what I will miss as I made new friends and followed few!

7. Overall, I have found a purpose to why English should be at our home!

Thank you!!
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous is taking this course right now.
Along this week, we reviewed about how to talk to young children, and how their social and emotional well-being is so closely linked to their ability to communicate. There was a video conversation on this week in which educators answered some of the questions that we have been asking about the discussion...
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
This is my first online training that I have participated in learning with FutureLearn. I enrolled due to the lockdown as the school nursery where I work is obviously closed. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with other students and reading their comments and sharing knowledge with others and hearing...
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
At the beginning of this course, I was wary about what I would learn that would be "new" to me. Having worked with 2-3 year old's for around 7 years and now working in a very multi-cultural setting in England where I would say at least 70% of our children do not have English as a first language, I was...
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous is taking this course right now.
The course is well organised and structured in a very simple manner in such a way that even the learning content is intensive most of the participants can understand and able to do the activities as required. Apart from the administration of the course, the content itself is very relevant and helpful...
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Alla L
Alla completed this course.
The course "English in Early Childhood: Language Learning and Development" covers essential issues of young children learning: the importance of playing in learning; the ways of motivating, involving, praizing children; developing language in context; the ways of providing friendly invironment and opportunities...
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
I've been teaching children aged 2- 6 for the past 5 years in Hong Kong and Beijing, and I think this course was very informative and I definitely learned a few new things. However, I would have liked more about how to discipline students. Some tips and ideas about how to deal with a student that is continuously unruly and disruptive in the class. In a case where explaining that the student is not bad and that rather their behaviour is wrong doesn't work so well, or isn't that effective. I also understand that these students are young and that in time they will learn the correct behaviours. I would've liked a section on discipline or techniques to adjust unwanted behaviour in a classroom setting.

Thanks for your videos and time you took to make this course.

I learned about schema's in children and how specific toys can help development in more detail.

Bradley Green
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
Teaching English as an additional or foreign language is challenging. The course "English in Early Childhood: Language Learning and Development" lasts for 6 week with focus on : 1- development stages 2- playing in childhood 3- interaction 4- learning in meaningful context 5- safety and trust 6- observation and assessment. Three main theories in learning " interaction" , " exposure", and "ZPD" are discussed and their relationship with learning in childhood is elaborated. I think this is an absolutely essential course for whom want to enter teaching additional language to children in early ages. I liked the course, the ideas, the videos, and the whole material prepared here. I appreciate all the staff's support. Thank you very much , Good job.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
I enjoy this course a lot because it teaches me many other ways to encorage child's grow and developement in language acquisition, what children undergo when they acquire their first and language and how they learn a second language. "A child who is not speaking may be actevily listening and may need...
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
Interesting course . Learnt some things as have 22 years experience teching infants. There are things one overlooks or do instinctively for example complementing children on their work especially those who rarely receive praise. Imrpove their self esteem is more imprtant than reading and writing at times. Especially if are not receiving support from home.

Make the activity child centred . even though my methods are not in all text books as using big books and getting kids to dress up and repeat the phrases in the stories. Even if don´t understand 100% the text. It´s an excellent way to improve pronunciation. Repeated roleplays is good too as at first don´t succeed , repeat and repeat and in a play.

Be positive and have fun.

MichAEL
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
great course lots of information on praising children ,labelling children also affects of being labelled.

it was good to hear other peoples experiences and it confirms we as a nursery are doing things right.

the covered appropriate age to teach English.

best criteria, language acquisition ,

Early childhood development and statements ,commendations and advice ,learn through play and much more.

learning through play is the way our children in our setting best learn

setting out activities and letting them just explore will then bring questions

for example playing with block ,counting sorting ,how many are there/? also positional language in on under

Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
I have really enjoyed the course very much,,i have discovered lots of new things through this course..I have got to learn how to teach a very young child through playing,doing many thing with them..now i am able to learn a child with right way..they definately can learn new things,,i can practice with them,can share all what i learned from this course,,it helps me more than i wanted..i shared many ideas about children in our care,,,i read lots of comments of many perticipants,,they are amazing..got to know from them..i will miss the course..the teachers are good ,i love their ideas and teaching style,i will follow their ideas ..
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous is taking this course right now.
Excellent course for both parents , carers & professionals. Everything is in bite sized chunks, so you can complete one small piece when you have time, or get a large amount done. There are no strict time limits to complete, the course will be open for a little longer than the time announced. You could complete it all in a week if you wanted to.

Futurelearn is excellent with a wide variety of courses to suit all interests. There are some interesting autism courses which are run from time to time which are excellent and may also be of interest.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
I was hesitant to join the course in the beginning,as I thought this to be as same as other online courses.But after 1 week I couldn't resist myself to continue with the course. Being an early year teacher for almost 25 years,I thought I knew most of the things related to Early Years.But this course has really helped me to get new ideas,change my view points and enrich myself with great knowledge.Thank you so much for sharing and putting everything in the very best way.I would be surely recommending this course to my other early years teachers too.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Diana V
Diana completed this course, spending 2 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be hard.
This course can really track our knowledge and even how to add more limits to our understandings in handling the learners for communications. There are a lot of ways and means to know them through their trusts in us and through meaningful activities at school that could help us communicate with them the English language. It will not matter if your country is a speaking English country or not but through learnings and through this courseI learned a lot of strategies of teaching the English language.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anju A
Anju completed this course.
It had been a wonderful experience while doing this course and I have learnt about many new approaches and ideas to inculcate in my classroom while dealing with the children in my care. It was good to know to what are challenges of developing language in early years and what does assessment actually means , it was amazing to know that it means observation and even the small steps taken by our learners need to be celebrated.Thank you so much .

Warm Regards
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous is taking this course right now.
I am extremely happy to say that I got the opportunity to attend a fantastic course. It has given me great insight into early childhood learning and language development. The videos and articles provided ample information related to the subject. I can say that the quiz at the end of every week was helping us to refresh our memory and evaluate our findings. This course is really beneficial for kindergarten teachers like me. THANKYOU.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Dorquis R
Dorquis completed this course.
I want to thank all the educators and specialists responsible for this course. It has been for me a lot of reflection and learning. I am also an English student and mother of a 4-year-old child and having taken this course has helped me better understand how to teach. I am putting it into practice and I have the personal commitment to continue applying each recommendation. Thanks again! and Greetings Venezuela, South America
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous is taking this course right now.
Having this free online course, it would help a lot to me and to evrybody who wants to learn and acquired knowledge regarding how to deal with the young learners. I learn a lot in this course,in video sharing and most of all the clear explanation and example given comes from the teacher, parents and from the expertise of this course. Iwish there will be given more free learning onlines related to teaching learners.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Anonymous
Anonymous completed this course.
I thoroughly enjoyed this course - thanks to the British Council for bringing up a course like this and the informative talks by various educators ..... I feel so confident, happy and proud to have learnt the importance of English in early childhood, the various methods and activities and use of better resources, which will help me understand and change the life of every child and make me a better practitioner.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
Mckyla F
Mckyla completed this course.
I had the idea of early childhood in my head but I've never been exposed to this kind of information. This course is a game changer for me and my students. They are going to eat English up! The questions and answers are very valuable.

I now have pointers and ideas I've never had before, thanks to this course my intelligence has widened. I've noted all your advice and guidelines and going to make the most of it
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
  • 1
  • …

Class Central

Get personalized course recommendations, track subjects and courses with reminders, and more.

Sign up for free

Never stop learning Never Stop Learning!

Get personalized course recommendations, track subjects and courses with reminders, and more.

Sign up for free