An early sequential bilingual methodology for three to five-year-old children from public early childhood development centers

This research emerged from the need of consolidating a meaningful bilingual methodology for children from three- to five-years-of-age from low socioeconomic backgrounds belonging to the public education system, where they could start learning English and Spanish by means of a bilingual methodology that provides them with the same opportunities as middle to high class children. Its aim is to implement an Early Sequential Bilingual Methodology Model in a public Early Childhood Development Center - ECDC (Centro de Desarrollo Infantil - CDI), collect data from class observations, student’s responses, teachers and English teachers’ views as well as parents’ perceptions, to consolidate the model, contributing to the modification of the actual Colombian bilingual policy so to include early childhood. Likewise, it will provide children with new opportunities to develop higher cognitive and neuronal skills that can maximize their academic performance throughout their school years. This present Early Sequential Bilingual Model is a descriptive case study funded by the Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira and was implemented in a public ECDC (CDI) in Pereira (Risaralda-Colombia) based on the bilingual methodological proposals portrayed by Rodao (2011) and Arias et al. (2015). This research project depicts and systematizes the most predominant methodological techniques used when teaching English at public ECDCs (CDIs) and interprets their effectiveness based on the data collected from surveys, interviews, observations and field notes, as well as early childhood teachers, researchers, English teachers and parents’ perceptions towards the methodology and implementation.