Key words: principles, pedagogical principles, young learners, language teaching, teachers, pupils Annatatsiya

Outcomes to Chapter 2
Pedagogical principles are the fundamental points of orientation for professionals in educational contexts. They are maxims for action, which, in a defined scope, claim permanent validity for every concrete situation, be it in pedagogical practice or in educational science as one type of societal practice (Handbook on Educational Science. They are more general than didactical principles which are oriented towards an action and exclusively refer to teaching / learning. Didactic principles seem to provide a feasible number of orientation points for the very complex field in which practising teachers work. According to Castillow (2004) an important characteristic of pedagogical principles is that they are pure, pristine, and packed with pedagogical power. With their generic nature, they can be applied to a wide variety of circumstances. For example, learning is facilitated when the instruction demonstrates what is to be learned rather than merely telling what is to be learned. Pedagogical principles are also very pragmatic, in that they synthesize a rich set of practical, instructional experiences and can be used to deal with new practical problems. Grimmitt (2000) takes the concept of pedagogical principles to a very abstract level, defining them as substantive hypotheses or statements about teaching and learning. Pedagogical principles facilitate the process of devising pedagogical strategies which, in turn, determine how pupils will experience, engage with and respond to content. Ideally, pedagogical principles should first be expressed in generic terms and then in terms specific to the actual learning environment. ¹⁴Thus, pedagogical ‘strategies’ are the more concrete actions designed to implement pedagogical principles and thereby fulfil or contribute to stated aims. Pedagogical principles are more important than the pedagogical strategies, because the principles are transferable and invite teachers to invent their own pedagogical strategies for implementing them.
Practical description, with examples, of good practice in a) organisation, b) classroom practice and c) teacher training This specification is aimed at collecting, categorising and presenting examples of what is considered by professionals to be ‘good practice’, even when these have not been investigated by research. They may include a country’s official recommendations for good practice, i.e. suggestions teachers may feel obligated to comply with.
Description of Pedagogical Principles.Description of specific pedagogical principles that underlie the teaching of languages to very young learners. This activity aims to identify as clearly as possible the pedagogical principles underlying the foreign-or-additional language teaching of children and to develop an understanding of their relative importance. Principles are mentioned briefly or extensively in European curricula and often implicitly guide teacher behaviour. Therefore, once a certain number of years of implementation have passed, it is necessary to discover which principles are actually adhered to. Also, their meaning needs to be interpreted with reference to societal factors, provision factors, individual -group factors and to their consequences. Once identified, these principles must be presented to a broad audience, and their existence and importance must be validated. Ultimately the process should garner insight into what may be called ‘the main underlying pedagogical principles for early language learning and teaching’. Key pedagogical principles can be identified based on empirical research and professional judgements about ‘good practice’, and should be annotated with descriptions of relevant contextual factors.
Assessment of Consequences.Assessment of the consequences of the principles for a) organisation, b) classroom practice and c) teacher training. After the core principles are identified, this section should outline the implications for key stakeholders such as national authorities, schools and teacher training colleges. These can be categorized as implications specific to organisations, classroom practice and teacher training.
Basic Facts on Early Language Learning.In 2005 the new Eurydice report on foreign-language learning was published, bringing together data from 30 countries. (Key Data) Eurydice provides a wealth of detailed and comparable information on language learning, especially early foreign language learning, in all member states of the European Union. Here, a synopsis of the report is provided in order to generate a coherent image of early language learning throughout Europe. Details about education in the mother tongue, other official languages and indigenous minority languages are not included in this chapter. These important descriptions can be found in the Eurydice report on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at School in the world.
The most important statistic is that approximately 50% of primary pupils learn at least one foreign language, an increase since the end of the 1990’s. To explain this increase, the report points to educational reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Iceland. A second foreign language in primary education is now compulsory in four countries (Luxembourg, Estonia, Sweden and Iceland). In 2003/04, the year most data was retrieved, most member states expected that all pupils would have to learn at least one foreign language. All learners in that year were obliged to start in primary school, with the exceptions of Belgium (the Flemish speaking community outside Brussels), the United Kingdom and Bulgaria. Both Bulgaria and the Flemish community in Belgium
recently made a primary foreign language obligatory; in June 2005, Portugal’s legislation still stated that English is extracurricular, but as of 2006 is becoming compulsory.
Official Starting Age.In some countries the first foreign language is compulsory from Year 1, as is the case in Luxemburg, Malta, and Norway, Belgium (German-speaking community), Germany (Baden-Württemberg), Italy and Austria. In some Spanish Autonomous Provinces the starting age is even lower. Schools can choose the starting age in some Spanish Autonomous Provinces, Estonia, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden. In Estonia this is limited to between 7 and 9, in Sweden between 7 and 10. Pre-Primary A survey in the key statistics, 2005, about the situation in the school year 2002/03 Identified Spain as the country making the most effort to start a foreign language at the kindergarten stage (age 3). In the German-speaking part of Belgium, a regulation introduced in September 2004 requires early language learning activities to begin at age 3.