English as a second language, the interdependence of L2 and L1 for young learners: a research synthesis.

Abstract: As future elementary school teacher with English as my specialization, I believe that English should be taught to children at an early age. The current Swedish curriculum for elementary school in grades one to three, allows each school the freedom to choose when to start their English education and English is often seen as a secondary subject. As a result, some children start learning English in the first grade and some start in the third grade of elementary school. The purpose of this research synthesis is to find out how an early second language learning affects the first language and uncover whether the acquisition of a second language facilitates the development of the mother tongue.