Language-Conducive Strategies in Early Language Education

This chapter provides a theorization of language-conducive strategies (Schwartz M, Preschool bilingual education: agency in interactions between children, teachers, and parents. Springer, Dordrecht, 2018) as a pedagogical concept, combining several types of teacher support in early language education. A twofold classification of language-conducive strategies is proposed: didactic and management strategies. These strategies are designed to induce preschool children’s novel language production. To ground the language-conducive strategies in theory, the chapter presents a formulation of the two phenomena observed in preschools regarding novel language learning in different countries: children’s overuse of socially dominant language and their fixation of receptive bilingual skills. The chapter begins with a theorization of language-conducive strategies. It then goes on to propose and illustrate the classification of these strategies, addresses some issues in assessing the effectiveness of LCSs, and suggests directions for future research. The chapter concludes by summarizing the educational implications of the empirical evidence presented and highlights the proposed classification schema as a facilitative tool for teachers’ curriculum planning, language instruction process, and classroom management.