Background and Goals - part 3
There can be no doubt that there is a huge difference between the immersion students, who study every day for at least five hours in the target language, and the student who learns the target language once a week for 3/4 hour. The difference is not only in the amount of exposure to the foreign language, but also to the type of exposure. In the case of immersion, the children talk and learn in English in a wide variety of situations and subjects. In the case of the students / subjects in this paper, they were exposed to English once a week in the environment of learning English - through fun and activities, but the purpose being English learning. It is true that in the case of the EFL students that took part in the tests described in this paper, the children were meant to be hearing an audiocassette every day at home, while playing, dressing, going to bed and other such situations. The goal of this daily hearing was extra exposure to the language in a controlled, specific way, so that when the children came to the classes, they would already be familiar with the material they were to learn so would learn in an effortless way and be further motivated. However, as to whether the children heard the cassette or not was not taken into account - some children did have this extra exposure, and other children did not.
In short, if we examine the goals stated by Carpenter, Fuji and Kataoka, we see that they wish the test to be
- pragmatically appropriate both linguistically and extralinguistically. We wished to create a situation in which it was appropriate for the child to take conversational initiative, to hold the floor and to produce a variety of long and complex utterances.
- global. [...] to determine as accurately as possible a complete picture of the child's overall capabilities, rather than just arbitrarily designed milestones;
- comparable across children and programmes. [...] We wanted a test that could be used both with the very youngest children in elementary school, as well as with children in the older grades, without being too difficult or too easy at either end. We also wished that the test be amenable to repeating testing with the same child [ .....].
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 1
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 2
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 3
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 4
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 5
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 6
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 7
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 8
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 9
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 10
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 11
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 12
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 13
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 14
- English for Children - Background and Goals - Part 15