Wczesny start językowy w perspektywie diachronicznej

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to outline the state of the art of research on early foreign language education from the diachronic perspective. It aims to answer the question of how much language very young children of L2 can acquire in an instructional setting, i.e. in minimal input situations. The article starts with a diachronic overview of SLA theories from innatist to socio-cultural one. Within the framework of the former the role of the age factor in a formal classroom is discussed, and the discussion of the latter is seen as a springboard to the presentation of the Bronfennbrenner’s (1993) model of human development and its application to foreign language learning in the early years, which is seen as an interplay of different social subsystems the child is involved in, i.e. the family, the school, the relations between parents and the outside world, the wider educational world as determined by the educational policy and the key transitions in the child’s life. The article finishes with an overview of cognitive, affective and social factors that differentiate between the learners’ FL achievement.