Our master's thesis discusses the teaching of English as a foreign language to young learners, precisely to first grade students of Slovenian nine-year elementary school. The characteristics of foreign language learning in very young learners are presented, with an emphasis on vocabulary development. As (very) young learners learn a foreign
language very similarly to learning their mother tongue, it is reasonable to enable them to acquire (i.e. subconsciously learn) the language by preparing an appropriate learning environment. The teacher has to choose appropriate teaching approaches as well as appropriate classroom activities, keeping in mind the level of the learners' development. The emphasis in teaching very young learners is on listening
comprehension and oral production, which are developed through age-appropriate activities, such as fairy tales, songs, chants and different language games, which
encourage learners to participate actively in class. Teachers should plan a lot of physical activities to include in the lessons as well, since the need for movement is
very high in young learners. The empirical part presents a qualitative research with which we investigated how
English vocabulary is being developed in 1st grade of Slovenian elementary schools. In a semi-structured interview, 16 teachers who teach English in 1st grade in different parts of Slovenia were asked pre-prepared questions. We were interested in the methods and forms of teaching teachers use in developing vocabulary, in the ways
they present and develop vocabulary, and in didactic materials they use for that purpose. We also wanted to find out how important they find vocabulary consolidation,
in what way they consolidate it with young learners and how they assess their vocabulary knowledge. We found out that the teachers participating in our research, teach English to young learners in different ways, but all of them take into acount the principles of teaching a foreign language to young learners recomended by experts and presented in the theoretical background of this master's thesis. All learners of the participating teachers get quality and age-appropriate foreign language teaching which will have a positive impact on their future attitude to learning foreign languages. In addition, examples of activities that are appropriate and effective for vocabulary development in 1st graders according to participating teachers are presented.
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