earticle

영어

In this global era, many Korean parents want to educate their children in an L2 school to acquire communicative competence. In order to give parents and educators educated understanding of what early childhood English education in an L2 preschool involves, this paper makes a detailed description of a Korean preschool child's L2 socialization process. The data were collected through participant observation, interviews, and field-notes, and analyzed qualitatively. The findings briefly illustrate daily routine activities at home and school became a rich source of linguistic input. In particular, daily interactive activities at school helped the child learn many linguistic and sociocultural rules of American society. Yet, given that most nonnative children - including the informant - displayed some emotional distance toward native speakers and thereby did not actively participate in classroom activities, the findings suggest a need for more structured L2 curriculum. The study also indicates that, for young learners, parental assistance can play a key role in their L2 socialization, and in this sense, parents should be able to understand their children's needs at school and provide necessary assistance.