Innovation in Isolation Preschool Children Learn English during Quarantine: Activity-based Crash Course for Parents in EFL Contexts

Abstract

This paper describes a short-term case study that explains, for parents, specifically Arab ones, how to exploit time and help their preschool children learn English during the quarantine period of COVID-19 crisis, which can be applied during any other crisis periods e.g. war. This study was conducted by the researcher herself who implemented different teaching approaches and various techniques to teach English to a four-year-old child. It explicates how early learning of EFL took place in different situations at home, and in contextualized contexts. A home-education model was adopted. The child learnt EFL in a very relaxed environment, viz. home, through natural activities, e.g. playing, singing, moving, drawing, coloring, and serving food. A sessional crash course was suggested and then used to teach English to the study's single case. Bilingual and activity-based approaches were used to teach this course. Data were collected from the steps of the child's learning within the five months of the quarantine period, i.e. the observation period. Processes and outcomes of early EFL learning were analyzed considering the child's learning of English at home, the natural activities done by the child, her use of English words in different situations, and her interaction with family members. It was concluded that parents can successfully teach English to their preschool children at home through using natural activities and can consequently motivate them for schools. Moreover, the suggested course really helped the child learn English, e.g. the alphabets, ten numbers, colors, food items, and performing a few functions, and thus it offers a deeper insight into early EFL learning.