Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-255) and index.

Children learning a foreign language -- Taking a learning-centred perspective -- Piaget -- Vygotsky -- Bruner -- From learning to language learning -- Advantages to starting young with foreign languages -- The foreign language: describing the indivisible -- Summary of key learning principles -- Learning language through tasks and activities -- The task as an environment for learning -- Task demands -- Task support -- Balancing demands and support -- The importance of language learning goals -- Defining 'task' for young learner classrooms -- Stages in a classroom task -- Hani's Weekend: Possible preparation and follow-up activities -- Task-as-plan and task-in-action -- Learning the spoken language -- Learning the spoken language: guiding principles -- Discourse and discourse events -- Meaning first -- Analysis of a task-in-action -- Discourse skills development in childhood -- Effective support for children's foreign language discourse skills -- Short activities for learning the spoken language -- Supporting the spoken language with written language -- Using dialogues -- Learning words -- Vocabulary development in children's language learning -- Organisation of words in a language -- Learning and teaching vocabulary -- Children's vocabulary learning strategies -- Learning grammar -- A place for grammar? -- Different meanings of 'grammar' -- Development of the internal grammar -- A learning-centred approach to teaching grammar: background -- Principles for learning-centred grammar teaching.

This book develops readers' understanding of what happens in classrooms where children are being taught a foreign language. It will offer readers a framework to structure thinking about children's language training. The book gives practical advice on how to analyze and evaluate classroom activities, language use and language development.