Making sense of language competence: English CEFR levels of young learners in the Netherlands

The perceived increasing importance of English for success in education and career in the Netherlands has come with increased concerns for the quality of English language teaching at school. Combined with the observation that learning young is learning fair, this has led to a tendency to start early with English instruction at school. However, since language learning can be regarded as a largely individually owned process (Lowie, Van Dijk, Chan, & Verspoor, 2017), the question is to what extend an early start (leading to more hours of instruction) is a strong predictor of English language competence at the end of primary school. In this paper we will report on the results of a relatively large scale study (2100 participants) of the CEFR competence levels of young learners of English in the Netherlands at the end of primary school. CEFR competence levels were determined for reading, listening, vocabulary, and spoken interaction. The results of the study show that although the majority of learners performed at least at the A1 level, there were large individual differences among the learners. The contribution of a variety of factors like the amount of L2 instruction, the SES, extramural language contact and personal data were analyzed in a multifactor analysis. The results show a complex of interacting factors affecting the learner’s performance. Extramural use of English, attitude and linguistic self-confidence were among the strongest predictors of the CEFR competences, while differences between the schools turned out to be weaker predictors. This paper presents the most striking results of the study with a special focus on teachers’ characteristics and factors related to the learning of English for early learners in the Netherlands, and discusses possible implications for second language learning and second language teaching for young learners.