Pixel International Conferences

The Project-Based Approach (PBA) in young foreign language learning has been introduced to primary teaching (children aged 5-11) to support the neurology of learning, which is the basis for later academic learning. Since children up to the age 12 cannot yet comprehend abstract thinking, the PBA approach introduces visual and tactile sentences, stories and grammar that are taken from the project’s context. To execute the activities, visual-motor integration and hand-eye coordination are employed. In so doing, the activities enable better procedural thinking and understanding, as well as enhancing imagination and divergent thinking. Moreover, in order to comprehend the time concept, specific rhythmic and movement games are integrated and tailored to the context covered. Not only do children find it highly motivating (as a change from everyday screen-watching and finger-sliding), they also enjoy the challenge of being able to understand abstract knowledge, such as the plural of nouns, the time concept, grammar tenses, sentence structure, the relation between question words and parts of speech, the use of auxiliaries, the forms of verbs in relation to tenses, and the use of prepositions; all of this through visual-motor integration and hand-eye coordination, and by the age of 11.

Keywords: Primary school learners, hand-eye coordination, visual-motor integration, language learning.

References:

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