To have another language is to possess a Second Soul. ‒Charlemagne The “Second Soul” project has developed a new way of teaching languages to children in Kindergartens and Preschools. Five partners with experience in bilingual education in preschool age from Spain, Greece, Poland, North Macedonia and Portugal have been working on this project for over two years. The aim of this project has been to create a theoretical guide about bilingual education at an early age (how children learn a second language, the benefits of learning a second language, how to introduce a second language to children, methodologies, good practices in Europe, misconceptions, tips…) and a practical guide with activities, resources and tools for offering quality bilingual education to preschool students. One of the methodologies suggested in this project is “flipped classroom”. This methodology involves the parents and other relatives in the bilingual education of the children and increases the interest and motivation of the children to learn. Usually, it is difficult for teachers to teach a second language because they have just a few hours a week to work in this language or because it is not attractive to the children. But children will need hours of immersion in the second language, to have fun while they learn it and to learn it from the teachers (the professional language) but also from their families (the emotional Language). If the children feel that the second language is important for their families and they receive a reward (a word, a hug, a smile, a clap...) every time they try to learn or they improve it the motivation of the children for learning will increase exponentially. Learning a second language contributes also to the social inclusion and integration of thousands of immigrants and refugees who come to live in Europe looking for a better future. Most of these families do not speak the language of the country where they are going to live but their small children will have to go to the kindergartens/preschools without knowing the language of the country. Second Soul took this situation into account and the project results are valid for teaching the mother tongue of the European countries to foreigners. Indeed, the project results are translated into six European languages (English, Spanish, Greece, Portuguese, Polish and North Macedonian). The methodologies and resources offered in this project increase the knowledge and skills of European teachers in teaching a second language to preschool children, promote the social inclusion of immigrants and refugees through the learning of the language/culture of the country and educate European citizens more open to other languages and cultures. The resources proposed in the “Second Soul” project have been tested in different kindergartens around Europe and all the preschool children increased their vocabulary and competencies in the second language. At the same time, the feedback from teachers and parents involved in the project has been very positive.
Our project "Second Soul" try to offer information about bilingual education at an early age, practical examples, methodologies, activities, and misconceptions... related to bilingual education in order to encourage teachers and parents to start teaching a second language to European children as soon as possible. In addition, learning a second language will give the opportunity to the children to better connect with other European citizens and to be more tolerant. Also, learning a second language at an early age has many benefits described in the Intellectual Outputs.
We applied for this project because we wanted to improve the learning of a second language at an early age in European kindergartens in collaboration with families. Even if Europe recommends to countries learn at least two languages in addition to the mother tongue of the citizens, usually the educational systems start too late teaching a second language. The early age (0-6 years) is when the children have more capacities for learning language and it is at this age when the children should start learning the second language in a natural way and not studying.