TY - JOUR
T1 - Attitudes of Omani early childhood preservice teachers toward bilingual early childhood education
T2 - Benefits, challenges, and solutions
AU - Tekin, Ali Kemal
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2016/1/2
Y1 - 2016/1/2
N2 - Compared to earlier times, many Omani parents have become more enthusiastic about bilingual education for their young children. To fully understand and improve early bilingual education, it is critical to start with an inquiry into prospective practitioners' attitudes toward bilingualism in early education as they are the ones who will work in bilingual education programs. Therefore, this research investigated the attitudes of early childhood pre-service teachers in Oman, toward bilingual education during children's early years. The data were gathered using qualitative survey methods with a focus group and analyzed using thematic analysis. Hence, essential themes and sub-themes were extracted from the data and an exhaustive analysis of pre-service teachers' attitudes toward bilingual education in the early years was conducted. The findings revealed that participants tend to favor such programs. Although they believe there are a few challenges in the field, they reported possible solutions that are presented in this study. Implications are discussed and recommendations are made.
AB - Compared to earlier times, many Omani parents have become more enthusiastic about bilingual education for their young children. To fully understand and improve early bilingual education, it is critical to start with an inquiry into prospective practitioners' attitudes toward bilingualism in early education as they are the ones who will work in bilingual education programs. Therefore, this research investigated the attitudes of early childhood pre-service teachers in Oman, toward bilingual education during children's early years. The data were gathered using qualitative survey methods with a focus group and analyzed using thematic analysis. Hence, essential themes and sub-themes were extracted from the data and an exhaustive analysis of pre-service teachers' attitudes toward bilingual education in the early years was conducted. The findings revealed that participants tend to favor such programs. Although they believe there are a few challenges in the field, they reported possible solutions that are presented in this study. Implications are discussed and recommendations are made.
KW - Oman
KW - bilingual education
KW - early childhood
KW - language and literacy development
KW - young children
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U2 - 10.1080/0145935X.2015.1052137
DO - 10.1080/0145935X.2015.1052137
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84958042554
SN - 0145-935X
VL - 37
SP - 78
EP - 91
JO - Child and Youth Services
JF - Child and Youth Services
IS - 1
ER -