A lockdown occurred in Spain in 2019-20 arising from COVID-19. This implied an adaptation from face-to-face to virtual teaching. Parents had to cope with their children's needs as for many learning areas (e.g., foreign languages). Taking into consideration children's English as a foreign language (EFL) learning, this work examines parents' (n=80) involvement by determining their familiarity with EFL, finding out whether they use tools for that purpose, and identifying their preferences about the features video tutorials should have. This is an exploratory mixed-methods research in which data were collected through a questionnaire. The results reveal that parents have a lower intermediate level of EFL and use it infrequently; they prefer videos to other tools like books, for example, and they opt for the features of video tutorials to be aesthetically appealing to kids and not related directly to language acquisition. So, parents do not get much involved in their children's EFL by using technological tools. Moreover, they have little knowledge of EFL and early language acquisition.
TopIntroduction
The transformation of education in recent decades is somehow linked to the rapid development of technology (Huang et al., 2019). In this context, information, and communication technologies (ICT) for educational purposes, as described by UNESCO (Anderson et al., 2002), opened up not only to science subjects, but also to foreign language teaching (Bax, 2000). Thanks to ICT, teachers can now provide learners with samples of authentic use of the target language (Warschauer & Meskill, 2000; Gilmore, 2007) or have access to a wide repertoire of materials (Trujillo et al., 2014), among others. Moreover, ICT are not limited to secondary or higher education, but can also be applied to primary education or even to very young learners (3-6 years olds) (Bland, 2015). This is due to the easy accessibility and, consequently, familiarity of users with ICT from an early age, so it seeks to influence their motivation (Teo, 2011). However, the use of ICT in foreign language teaching is not only applied in the classroom: learning support can be provided by parents too, mainly when the target language is English, which is perceived as a global language (Crystal, 2003) or lingua franca (Crystal, 2008). Thus, families now can get involved in their children's language development at home using ICT (Estrada-Chichón, 2020).
Taking Spain as an example, foreign language learning in early childhood education (ECE) has progressively improved through the different educational laws since the 90s (Cortina-Pérez & Andúgar, 2021). Thus, for example, the Programa Educativo Bilingüe (PEB) or Bilingual Educational Program (Eurydice, 2021) has developed since 1996 because of the collaboration among the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, the Delegation in Spain of the British Council Foundation, and ten Autonomous Communities. Currently, PEB begins in the second cycle of ECE (children aged 3-6) and is being applied to 90 public schools of preschool and primary education (BEP Program, n.d.). However, despite education projects like PEB, there exists also a lack of common pedagogical criteria and information on specific contents for ECE. So, the education departments of the 17 Spain autonomous communities began to make decisions about language teaching regulation with uneven results (Andúgar et al., 2019). Nonetheless, Cortina-Pérez and Andúgar (2021) figure out a few common characteristics among the Spain autonomous communities. The following three characteristics stand out in terms of foreign language teaching in ECE: English is the most popular foreign language; it must be constructed on a communicative approach to increase learners' motivation towards the target language; and preprimary practitioners could be also responsible for teaching.
Taking the above into consideration, the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) in ECE implies an initial contact with authentic target language input by encouraging learners’ motivation (routines, songs, games…), where agents other than EFL teachers themselves are expected and encouraged to participate. Given the extensive use of technological devices (i.e., ICT), it would be probable to apply them to educational purposes to support children's motivation towards EFL, considering that “many children today start school being technologically literate” (Korosidou & Griva, 2021, p. 124). In this connection, the Order 26/08/20081 regarding the preprimary curriculum in Andalusia, the southernmost autonomous community in peninsular Spain, emphasizes that “in the last year […] the initiation of children in a foreign language and the use of information and communication technologies will be expected” (p. 18). Perhaps, the first approach to technology takes place at home, where parents use Web 2.0 technologies, mainly through cell phones and tablets, to listen to songs, watch videos, or play interactive games with their children, for example. Thus, the present research study reports an exploratory study on parental involvement in preprimary children’s EFL development, collecting their perceptions on the features that video tutorials should have for that specific purpose.