Languages in Nursery and Pre-school
Roberta Nepi
This sociolinguistic survey is a check of needs in the field of language education, linguistic habits and an analysis of linguistic and educational strategies adopted during everyday teaching in multilingual classes. (Step 1: The Educational Staff Profile; step 2: Relationships with Families and Foreign Children; step 3: Teachers’ Attitudes and Strategies; step 4: Concerns about Early and Simultaneous Bilingualism). It is possible to identify two different approaches regarding the language issue and bilingualism. If most of the staff considers intercultural education as fundamental both in the school, it is not the same in regard to language learning, even if the axiom language/culture is broadly shared. Hence it is necessary to spread the word about the benefits that early and simultaneous bilingualism involves in the child's cognitive development, in the maintenance of linguistic diversity of minority languages and in building a multilingual society as a result.
Keywords
Foreign language, Intercultural, Plurilingualism.
