Parents can boost children’s motivation towards early language learning, through establishing positive relationships with teachers, showing interest in children’s EFL experiences, interacting with children at home with relative materials and participating in school activities. The present study, which is part of a bigger research design about family role in promoting children’s participation rights in the ECE setting, investigates parents’ perceptions regarding early EFL, a year after the generalization of this innovative educational reform in Greece. Twenty-two parents, three fathers and nineteen mothers from Northern Greece, took part in the interviews. Half of them had a minority status, due to their diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Language mediators helped during the interview process in cases of parents with restricted knowledge of Greek. Content analysis was used to identify categories and themes about challenges and benefits of the early EFL and parents’ experiences and suggestions regarding collaboration with the school. Majority and minority parents’ reports are discussed, highlighting points of convergence and divergence with an aim to better understand diverse groups’ subjective experience and meaning making about children’s early EFL educational experiences in the ECE to inform teachers’ pedagogical practices.
Key words: early EFL, parents’ reports, challenges and benefits, family-school collaboration, culturally and linguistically diverse families