Abstract:

The multicultural and multilingual development of an individual is a matter of national and global security. The system of education in the Russian Federation functions within the all-European trend: multilingual educational institutions design curriculum for children of different nationalities speaking different languages. This paper outlines the educational model which places digital learning resources in the center of bilingual and multilingual education integrated of preschool and primary school age children who learn Russian as a state language, second language or heritage language.

The construct is based on the empirical data collected in 2018 for the research study funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. The study was conducted in four state-funded and one private kindergartens, as well as in homeschooling environment, and involved bilingual young learners aged 4-6 and their educators. The experiment was carried out within the framework of Vygotskian sociocultural theory, particularly the ideas of mediated learning and stimuli-tools [Vygotsky, 1984], and applied the triadic scaffold protocol [Meskill, 2005] as a major data collection instrument.

While the World Wide Web provides access to myriads of digital learning objects (DLOs) for language learners, only a minor part of digital content could be integrated into the educational curriculum of preschool institutions and into homeschooling [Vafina, Sadykova, Kayumova, 2018]. As such, educators and developers of DLOs for young language learners should have well-defined and scientifically proven conceptual dominants that serve as landmarks for selecting and integrating digital resources into the curriculum of young language learners.

The authors propose an educational model for multilingual education of young Russian language learners based on four interconnected and interdependent conceptual dominants:
1) the trinity of “child-educator-DLO” where child’s interests play the leading role,
2) an educator as a subject of the learning process and an object of learning,
3) digital learning resources as medium of knowledge, ‘learning buddies’, and motivators (stimuli-tool), and
4) Russian language and culture as consolidators of the Russian society and Russian community abroad.

Designing digital language resources that implement these conceptual dominants requires consolidated efforts of child psychologies, language educators, experts in the fields of multimodal information technologies, and most importantly, educators and parents.

References:
[1] Meskill C. Triadic scaffolds: Tools for teaching English language learners with computers. 2005. V. 8. №. 4. Pages: 46-59.
[2] Sadykova G., Kayumova A. & Vafina A. (2018). Living up to users’ expectations: Designing multimodal digital resources for young Russian learners // EDULEARN18 Proceedings 10th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies Palma, Spain. 2-4 July, 2018. Pages: 4769-4773.
[3] Vygotsky L.S. The collection of works: in 6 volumes. Moscow: Pedagogy, 1984. V. 4.

Keywords:

Bilingual education, multilingual education, early childhood education, language acquisition, digital resources, educational model.