A Guide to the Assessment Task:  

The following are my responses to some of the student questions that have arisen in the past about  this assessment. You are welcome to ask additional questions if your query has not been answered  by you checking the task description in the subject outline, this additional information sheet, others' 

questions on the Main Subject Discussion Board. An Assessment 2 thread has been posted for this  purpose. 

First, please read the assessment task thoroughly. The requirements are very clearly set out. 

Your assessment instructions state that the summary and critical evaluation questions are based on  questions adapted from McMillan & Wergin (2010). You can look at this publication via e-reserve for  any clarification or further information you need about the questions.  

There are two articles listed in the task description of the subject outline, to complete this task you  need to read both and complete Parts A and B for each article.

For the purpose of this paper, the articles analysed are: 'Preparing young dual language learners for school success: early childhood teacher beliefs regarding school readiness' (Piker and Kimmel, 2018) and 'Parents don't want their children to speak their home language': how do educators negotiate partnerships with Chinese parents regarding their children's use of home language and English in early childhood settings?' (Hu, Torr and Whiteman, 2014).

Part A: Summary 

What is the research topic or problem, being studied by the author(s)?

Most students with English as a second language (ESL) face some socio-emotional challenges in the early years of their life in an English-speaking classroom. This challenge is attributed to the fact that children with this background are unable to express themselves effectively in English learning lessons (ELL) (Mustafa et al., 2018). It is the ethical responsibility of the educator to ensure that the child express freely in the classroom, and is socially adept yet also confident. In a bilingual household, parents often realize this challenge and focus on developing English speaking skills, however, in the absence of the use of their native language, many children in the early age can face a cultural identity crisis (Hu et al. 2014). However, there remains cases where the children are more likely to face barriers in learning, as the views of the parents and the teachers do not align, with respect to the language proficiency and acquisition. 

Through the present research this challenge is addressed, where the researchers Piker and Kimmel (2018) focused on answering, 'what characteristics early childhood teachers view as essential in preparing for kindergarten'. The other research focused on the concept of 'partnership' in the context of the use of native language in early childhood settings between the parents and the educator' (Hu et al. 2014). Through these studies the level of readiness of the students in the ELL settings is studied, and the parameters guiding the language development and their association to the language readiness are assessed.

(Some parts of the solution has been blurred due to privacy protection policy)