With or without Parents? Language Learning in Early Childhood (Age of 4–6 Years)

Abstract

“Children tend to enjoy learning and to do better when they are more intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated to achieve.” (APA 2019) To find out how the presence of parents affects the progress of children in foreign language learning classes was launched a small sample of field research with the participation of two groups of 4–6-year-old children. In the case of the first group, only children; in the case of the second group, their parents also were present in their children’s language lessons. During the research, the learning process of the two groups, the behaviour and motivation of group members to participate in various activities was observed and measured the increase in knowledge of the two groups. Both groups had the possibility of acquiring the same vocabulary during the same period (one school year), the same activities and using the same methods. Nonetheless, it showed a significant difference of 15.6 % between the results favoring those who attended the course without their parents.