Attention to Diversity in Bilingual Early Childhood Education

Introduction

The following chapter arises because of the interest aroused through the knowledge acquired where we have been able to know and deepen how to implement the bilingual methodology Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the classroom. CLIL is a term coined by David Marsh as “a language pedagogy focusing on meaning that contrasts with those which focus on form” (2002, p.49). This approach teaches meaningful content that students acquire, paying attention to the whole learning process, as opposed to what happens in classrooms where a second language is learned by artificially recreating the practice and consolidation of vocabulary and linguistic structures.

The European Commission indicated in its report that “just over half of Europeans (54%) are able to hold a conversation in at least one additional language, a quarter (25%) are able to speak at least two additional languages and one in ten (10%) are conversant in at least three” (2012, p. 7). A statement that results in the need to implement this new educational approach with the aim of promoting foreign language learning in Europe. The need to improve the level of a foreign language in the classroom has led to different educational administrations encouraging schools to implement the CLIL approach.

The increasing incorporation of this methodological approach within Spanish classrooms has increased interest in the culture of the language they are learning (usually English) and has developed students’ multilingual attitudes (Maza, 2012). Therefore, the potential of CLIL benefits students through a higher quality of teaching and the meaningful and comprehensible input they receive. Consequently, studies by Lasagabaster and Doiz (2015) and García Fernández and Ruiz-Gallardo (2016) showed that students who learn science through CLIL are more motivated to learn and perceive the experience as positive.

Due to the rise of CLIL and bilingual teaching in classrooms, the main objective of this chapter is to analyse how current legislation addresses attention to diversity through bilingual teaching in Early Childhood Education. The specific objectives were to evaluate the different techniques presented through CLIL as a resource for the inclusion of pupils in bilingual teaching and to determine the perception of Early Childhood Education teachers in relation to the integration of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in bilingual teaching.

We should not forget to mention that the implementation of CLIL in Spanish classrooms has not been easy, as we do not have an up-to-date education system to implement multicultural methodologies in schools. In this sense, Coll (2017) expressed that it would take several years for a country to achieve good results, considering that a country could not promote the CLIL approach efficiently in only two or three years.

At the beginning of its rapid implementation in classrooms, the implementation was put in the hands of educational professionals who did not have the competencies to teach content through a second language and had not received pedagogical training to make this educational programme a success, according to Gervilla (2016).