Over the past three decades, there has been a huge expansion across the world in school programmes for the teaching of English to young learners. Much of this growth is due to global forces which currently demand ever-increasing levels of communication in English across continents. This publication, resulting from the conference The Way Forward: Learning from International Experience of TEYL held in Bangalore, India, in 2008, seeks to address these issues, responding to concerns that there is often insufficient guidance available to decision-makers at ministry level regarding the policy and practical implications of an early start for English. Young Learner English Language Policy and Implementation: International Perspectives is a collection of 28 papers which reflect the insights of a group of academics, policy makers, senior educationalists and practitioners who have been important contributors internationally, regionally or in their own countries, to debates about YL policy and implementation. These papers represent a significant contribution to current thinking on effective YL language policy formulation, the design of appropriate programmes for implementation and the sustainable implementation of policy at local and national levels. Three themes were evident in many of the conference presentations and are also reflected in these papers: the specific impact of global factors on policy decisions and classroom practices; the challenges of policy and its implementation; broader and more local language issues and their impact on policy. The first section of this book contains country-specific case studies which provide analyses of a range of policy issues in state school provision for TEYL, including some recommendations for policy makers in planning and shaping their future national provision. The second section includes accounts of innovations, experiments or small-scale projects in the YL field from the state and private sectors, across a range of countries. This volume will be of considerable interest to a wide range of policy makers in ministries and educational institutions, researchers, teacher educators and anyone concerned with YL English language policy and implementation.

1. New global contexts for teaching Primary ELT: Change and challenge
2. Teaching English to young learners: The influence of global and local factors
3. An early start: What are the key conditions for generalized success?
4. Teaching English to young learners: The promise and the threat
5. Introduction of English from Grade 1 in Maharashtra, India
6. English at Primary school level in Brazil: Challenges and perspectives
7. Teaching English in Primary schools in Bangladesh: Competencies and achievements
8. 'The early bird catches the worm': The Turkish case
9. Teaching English at the Primary level in India: An overview
10. Early bilingualism in Cameroon: Where politics and education meet
11. Primary English Language Teaching (ELT) in Korea: Bold risks on the national foundation
12. 'When I wanna be cool ...': English for young learners in Iceland
13. Issues in the implementation of Teaching English for Young Learners (TEYL): A case study of two states in India
14. The dream and the reality or early programmes in Hungary
15. Primary EFL in China: From policy to classroom practice
16. Early Language Learning in Europe (ELLiE): A multinational, longitudinal study
17. Literacy development through the Integrated Curriculum Project: The Omani experience
18. Trainer training innovation: The trainer training programs in Taiwan
19. Beyond English: Primary plurilingual schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina
20. Curricular innovation: The Karnataka experiment
21. Teaching techniques: From listening to music to storytelling
22. English Language Teaching in Turkish Primary education
23. The Teacher Development by Radio project in Nigeria
24. An EFL project for communication between Arab and Jewish children
25. The EYL publishers panel: Supporting innovation and best practice in EYL: The role of publishing

26: Applying multiple intelligences for teaching ESL to young learners

27: An impact study of a TEYL innovation in Beijing, China

28: Interactive teaching styles with CD-ROMs: Malaysian perspectives