Colleges gear up to train English teachers for preschoolers

Pressure from parents is prodding schools to begin language instruction at a much younger age than is currently practiced

While the Israeli educational system currently begins teaching children English in the fourth grade, the desire of many parents to initiate that instruction earlier is to be heeded, according to a report in Maariv.

Studies have shown that children learn languages more fluently at a younger age, and in Israel some teachers’ colleges have begun training their students to teach English to children as young as kindergarten-age.

English is widely regarded as the most important international language, and parents, particularly in the country’s middle- and upper-class areas, have been pushing to ensure that their children finish high school speaking the language fluently.

Beit Berl College, one of Israel’s leading teacher-training colleges, will offer for the first time in the new academic year a course for English instruction for first grade students, both on the Jewish and the Arab educational tracks. The college said that 50 students would be in the course this year.

“Today, children are exposed to English from a very early age, from the Internet, television, and extracurricular activities,” Dr. Orly Haim, the head of the Beit Berl English department, told Maariv.