Second language education of young children

There are a number of children in New Zealand who, during their pre-school years regularly use a language other than English. They use it at home with their parents, and at play with their siblings and with many of their friends. When these children enter school at the age of five, they must use as a language for playing, for learning and for finding their way about their new school, a language in which they are both less familiar and less proficient than are their peers who are native speakers of English. Moreover English is for them a second best.