English Language Teacher Competencies

• A competent foreign language teacher is crucial for ensuring a stimulating environment, positive classroom experiences, and age-appropriate methodology in early foreign language learning.

Defining Competence

• Competencies are defined as a combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that lead to being effective in a domain.
• Competence includes cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components, going beyond subject matter knowledge.
• Knowledge: Theoretical understanding of a subject.
• Skills: The practical ability to apply knowledge.
• Attitudes: A person's mindset in a situation.
• Cognitive components: The ability to think, analyze, and solve problems.
• Emotional components: The ability to manage emotions and relationships.
• Behavioral components: Actions that demonstrate competence in practice.

Importance of English Language Teachers

• As English becomes more globally dominant, English language teachers impact the quality of instruction, learners’ proficiency, and their ability to communicate internationally.
• Defining competencies provides stability in a changing world and a foundation for quality study programs.
• Foreign language teacher competencies should consider European recommendations and the socio-educational context.

Croatian Context

• "Competences of Primary School Foreign Language Teachers in the Republic of Croatia" is the first attempt to define FLT competencies in the Croatian context.
• The aim is to define areas in which foreign language teachers should professionally evolve, considering age-dependent descriptions of competencies.
• Met defined common and unique characteristics/competencies of primary school foreign language teachers (1989).

Common Core Competencies

• Common competencies should be possessed by all teachers, regardless of the level they teach.
• These include general knowledge, interpersonal skills, subject-specific knowledge, knowledge of research, and respect for individual differences.
• Also included is knowledge related to the curriculum and assessment methods, as well as expert knowledge in language and culture.

Specific Competencies for Young Learners

• Foreign language teaching methods should be adjusted to the students’ cognitive level.
• Important to have knowledge of L1 acquisition and its relationship to L2 acquisition.
• Knowledge of the primary school curriculum and correlation between subjects is needed.
• Assessment knowledge is a must.

Perspectives on Competencies

• Teachers typically emphasize knowledge of language, pedagogy, and teaching methodology.
• Students emphasize teachers’ personal characteristics.

Students' Perceptions

• Students' perceptions should be investigated because they have valuable opinions and are participants in the learning/teaching process.
• Students’ perceptions often form ‘objective’ perceptions of teacher effectiveness.
• Every student has a perception of their ‘ideal’ FL teacher, which is formed based on their experiences.

Impact of Perceptions

• It’s important to compare students’ perceptions of an ideal teacher with their real teacher.
• Differences between expectations and reality impact students’ attitudes and success.
• Students’ perceptions represent their attitudes; greater differences lead to more negative attitudes.
• For young learners, a teacher’s personality is of utmost importance.
• Young learners are not mature enough to differentiate between personal characteristics and teaching competencies.
• Longitudinal research suggests that teachers and play-based activities are the main source of motivation in early language learning.

Emotions and Learning

• Success and efficiency in learning is closely connected with emotions.
• Younger learners can not separate the emotional part of learning from the cognitive.
• The creation of a positive and stimulating learning environment satisfies the child's emotional and motivational aspects.
• Emotional safety is an important part of learning and growth.
• Children that feel loved, cared for, and valued are better able to process information and voice their opinions.
• At the beginning of first grade, learners find themself in a new situation where they struggle for self-realization and to keep their self-concept positive.
• Young learners initially have overly positive perceptions of their abilities; this changes to match teacher's grades and peer perceptions.
• After a phase, a child's self-concept becomes more realistic, as they compare their abilities to those of their peers.
• Interesting activities in an emotionally safe environment will boost interest, which is crucial for success in learning.

Language Learning Beliefs

• Learners start to shape their beliefs about foreign language learning from the beginning.
• Beliefs are the general assumptions that students hold about themselves as learners.
• Beliefs concern factors influencing language learning, and about the nature of language learning and teaching.
• Beliefs belong to the cognitive aspect of attitude and represent students’ personal viewpoints about foreign language learning.
• Beliefs may have a strong impact on many aspects of learning.
  • Facilitative beliefs: positive effect on learning.
  • Debilitative beliefs: negative effect on learning.
• Early language learning experiences must eliminate negative beliefs.
• Young learners acquire their first beliefs from teachers and parents, since they have limited experience.

Attribution Style

• Attribution style is the way in which a student explains the reasons behind their success and failure.
• Attributions do not necessarily reflect ‘real’ reasons of somebody’s success and failure, but rather the individual’s own reasoning of potential causes.
• Students’ attributions determine their activities such as the selection of tasks, persistence in conducting a task, invested effort, motivation etc.
• Successful students explain their success as a result of their own ability and invested effort, while failure is interpreted as a result of the lack of effort they invested.
• Failure does not represent a threat but rather as a motivator to try harder.
• Unsuccessful students attribute success to external reasons such as luck, teacher’s leniency etc., and failure is ascribed to factors out of their control, such as luck or test difficulty.
• Students that do not see the connection between effort and success tend to be demotivated and exhibit low effort.
• This often leads to learned helplessness, which causes students to give up with no attempts made to avoid failure.

Explore the crucial role of competent foreign language teachers in early language learning. Competence includes a blend of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Focusing on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components beyond just subject matter expertise, teachers significantly impact instruction quality and learner proficiency.