I was born in Poland, where after completing Medical School I worked for three years as a nurse. At twenty four I came to London without any English apart from a few everyday words. I struggled to learn English but managed in the end. In 2000 – 2002 I completed NVQs Level 2 and 3 in Child Care and Education and started to work as a Nursery Nurse. Working with children from different cultural backgrounds learning English as Additional Language developed my fascination and interest in bilingualism.
Since 2004 I have worked as an Early Years Educator at one of London's Nursery Schools. The Nursery is very well equipped in dual language resources such as books.
Action research
In 2005 – 2007 I completed a Foundation Degree in Early Years at Kingston University. I carried out an action research project called – Can dual language story sacks help children learn English? The action research was carried out over an academic year in two countries: England and Poland. There were six Polish children (two in my setting and four in Poland) which I observed with the help of a Polish teacher. I visited the Polish setting twice and introduced dual language story sacks. I gave a presentation to the staff and another one to the parents. I truly enjoyed the experience. As a result the setting in Poland made some more story sacks (I supported them with dual language books) and used them to teach children English.
Through the research project I found out that dual language story sacks help children learn English. Well selected dual language books and resources support children's home language and English. The impact of the project is that I always use dual language resources when working with children with English as additional language. I made bilingual resources before going to work as volunteer in India, Tanzania and Uganda. ( I went to above countries during my school Christmas and Easter breaks and taught English). Bilingual resourcesenhance children's learning.
At the moment I am studying in the final year to obtain a BA (Hons) in Early Years Teaching from Kingston University. During my work on bilingual story sacks I noticed a shortage of dual language non- fiction children’s books. Since my Foundation Degree I have self published two dual language (English/Polish) non- fiction children’s books. These are reviewed at: (http://www.uel.ac.uk/education/research/duallanguagebooks/bookreviews.htm ) and are available from (http://www.willesdenbookshop.co.uk/ ).
Current Research
My current action research project is called Non-fiction dual language books – do we need them in Early Years?
Three Libraries, 3 Early Years settings and 2 Libraries in Poland, 4 Early Years Settings in London, and 1 Weekend Community school in London are taking part in the research (could you specify how many of each?).
AIMS:
I would like to find out
If you interested in the subject and would like to take part or share your opinion please contact me at iwona,macalka@yahoo.com
A summary of my research findings is available here.
April 2012
© 2012
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