Languages in an Australian preschool: A case study of Vietnamese

This paper reports findings on perspectives of multiple stakeholders on a 2017 case study of teaching Vietnamese to Tasmanian pre-schoolers (3-5 years of age), managed by a research group at the University of Tasmania and the Australian National University. Using a thematic approach to analyse 13 semi-structured interviews, five main themes on the benefits of the program for the children identified were language development, cultural and global awareness, numeracy enhancement, reading engagement, and personal development. Although, this project focused on the Vietnamese language particularly, these findings are applicable to all languages and will benefit multiple stakeholders working with various languages.