ABSTRACT
In 2002, the local authorities of Lillesand decided to give children in two of the town’s daycare centres the possibility of receiving a head start in English by employing a native speaker for two 20-minute teaching sessions per week. Their primary reason for doing this was to take advantage of the fact that young children easily adapt to a foreign language, especially in the area of pronunciation, a belief supported by research (e.g. Singleton 1989, 1999). However, during the development of the project, we realised that cultural and relational aspects ought to play an important role in the instruction, and these aspects were therefore included in the list of main objectives:
• broadening children’s cultural knowledge by presenting English songs, rhymes, tales, stories and riddles;
• increasing children’s linguistic skills, which are important for communication and understanding in an increasingly globalised world (Maagerø and Simonsen 2006).
