A Look at the AUA Pre-school English Program through the Lens of Montessori Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the pedagogy of the AUA Pre-school English program from the perspective of Montessori Method. To reach the aim of the study the convergences and divergences between the Montessori and foreign language pedagogies were investigated in terms of teacher and student roles, materials and environment, sensory development and language use by both the teachers and learners. The mixed methods type of research was chosen for the study, where the qualitative analysis was done through classroom observation checklists and interviews with the program teacher, and the quantitative analysis was done with audio-video recordings. The findings of the research showed that the implementation of the Montessori Pedagogy in the “AUA Pre-school” English program is quite possible as the convergences outweighed the divergences. Besides, the research revealed that bringing the general development of kids and English language instruction into a balance is sometimes a challenging task, but again, it is possible in the context of the “AUA Pre-school English Program”.