The diploma thesis presents the learning of English in the preschool period with kamishibai and how it encourages and influences the acquisition of a foreign language. The research includes 19 children, from a kindergarten in central Slovenia, aged 3 and 4 years.
The aim of the diploma thesis is to determine whether kamishibaitheater motivates and encourages preschool children to learn a foreign language and whether childrencan successfully learn English vocabulary of certain animals, colours and numbers up to ten through kamishibai.
The theoretical part presents early foreign language learning and positive effects, as well as critical years for foreign language acquisition and a way to successfully teach a foreign language. Greater emphasis is placed on the importance of stories in foreign language learning, kamishibai in general and as well as in foreign language learning. At the end it isalso described how we can create kamishibai to teach English in kindergarten.
The empirical part presents the results of the learned vocabulary of certain animals, colours and numbers up to ten, which the children learned through kamishibai of the fairytale by Anja Štefan, Bobek in barčica (Bobek and the Boat). The results can be seen from the pre-test and final testing after a two-week period of activity. We can see great progress, as the values of recognition and naming of English vocabulary increased by more than half. Most children learned to recognize and to name the English word for mouse, blue and green colour, and numbers up to five.
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