Technology-Enhanced-Gadgets in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language to Very Young Learners. Ideas on Implementation

This research 1 is based on sociocultural authentic inquiry research (Konstatinos, 2015) and action research methodology. An early years teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) explores technology-enhanced-gadgets that can be of use to teach meaningful lessons to very young children. The paper aims to outline theoretical uses of technology-enhanced-gadgets in the teaching of EFL to very young learners. It describes possible uses of technology grounded on the importance given to media competence and new literacies (The New London Group, 1996) in 21st century societies, in which children are digital natives (Prensky, 2001). As such, children show a multimedial and multimodal preference for learning. Given such preference and the envisioning of a technology mediated prosumer society (Kotler, 1986) learning content, including in ESL, has to be adapted to new dynamics. The findings show a variety of uses for technology-enhanced-gadgets (e.g. ipads, robots...) (Burnet, 2010; Guth & Helm, 2012; Hill, 2010; Lynch & Redpath, 2014) that are appropriate for very young children and that promise to engage students in the learning of EFL while creating an interactive environment and developing autonomy. The conclusions suggest that the use of technology-enhanced gadgets can aid in the creation of attractive and cooperative lessons that promote meaningful learning. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.