Language teacher education is widely identified as one of the most important areas that needs addressing in order to improve early language instruction, yet research into teacher education for early language teachers remains relatively sparse. This volume responds to this gap by compiling studies with diverse methodological tenets from a wide…

Around the world, school districts and institutions are exploring ways to provide quality education to their students. With this, there is a deeper need for multiculturalism in classrooms, as many students are from varying cultures and speak different languages. "Early Childhood Education from an Intercultural and Bilingual Perspective"…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate instruction in individually mentored piano classes in nursery and kindergarten teacher training programmes. Questionnaires were developed and administered to piano class students; using the resulting data, relationships among the variables that affect student's satisfaction with piano classes and their…

This study explores educators' reflections on professional childcare practice in different national contexts. The data were collected by showing video clips of classroom activities in Japanese, Dutch and German pre-schools to experienced German and Dutch pre-school teachers. The clips were used to elicit their opinions on playing and learning in…

This paper discusses the organization of early childhood education and preschool education in Japan and describes how teachers are trained for positions in these schools. It is noted that the organization of such education in Japan has undergone considerable change since the first kindergarten was established in 1877. At that time the curriculum…

Several topics related to the provision of preschool education in Japan are discussed. First detailed are the history and present situation of the preschool education system; both kindergartens as well as nursery schools are described. The second section focuses on the teaching content of kindergartens and nursery schools, specifying goals related…

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of an article on preschool education. The author's first point is that early childhood education should be run separately from elementary education. It is true that the education of five year olds forms part of elementary education and is so practiced in the USA and the UK,…