"What Are You Going To Play?/What Did You Play Today?... Early Language Learning By Planning & Reviewing

Author(s):

Anna Römstedt(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

31. LEd – Network on Language and Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

31 SES 13 B, Planning and Policies in Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-26

13:30-15:00

Room:

OB-H1.12

Chair:

Hanne Brandt

Contribution

Followed by the constructivistic Language Acquisition Model of Tomasello (2000) and the Emergentist Coalition Model of Hollich, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (2000), Language Acquisition is influenced by both environmental/social factors and genetic predispositions. Due to that the Bioecological Model of Human Development by Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2006) indicates a connection between (linguistic) interactions and Early Childhood (language) Development, which underlines the use of well targeted supportive measures for the Early Childhood Language Acquisition. In addition to that recent studies in the field of Early Childhood Education and Language Acquisition (e. g. Sylva et al. 2003, Siraj-Blatchford et al. 2002) have heightened the need to develop and test effective methods for nursery teachers, to increase the initiation of qualitative and cognitive highly demanding interactions, which are not often seen within everyday nursery-life yet. Furthermore Schöler & Roos (2012) have confirmed that most of the program based language learning concepts for young children in Germany, had no significant effects on their Language Acquisition, which is probably because these program based concepts are in terms of teaching and content too far away from the daily nursery-life and the child´s interests. In comparison to that `Planning & Reviewing´ is closely linked to the child´s personal interests and everyday experiences (Epstein 2007). Consequently the child has a higher motivation to sustain the dialogue with the nursery teacher, as well as other children have a higher motivation to listen and to take part in the dialogue, too.

Related to these findings the purpose of this study is to examine the method `Planning & Reviewing´, known from the High/Scope preschool curriculum, with regard to its impact on Early Childhood Language Acquisition, specially pertaining to linguistic skills in the areas of grammar, vocabulary and academic register (e.g. Schleppegrell 2001, 2004, Cummins 1979) just as the ability to retell (own) experiences. Apart from that it will also be assessed if `Planning & Reviewing´ supports the increase of initiation of high quality cognitive and linguistic interactions, with a special view to `naturally´ (through the method itself) provided scaffolding (e.g. Gibbons 2002).

Method

During the main study, which started in mid-January 2014, a quasi-experimental design with three different intervention groups was conducted. Our sample was heterogeneous related to the acquired linguistic abilities of the children. That means that children with low linguistic abilities (whose who need special language learning support) and with high linguistic abilities (whose who can operate as linguistic peer models) formed small groups of four children. All our small groups were supervised by a specially trained person, and allocated randomly to the two different interventions. The first intervention was a language learning training supported by the method of `Planning & Reviewing´, the second intervention was a language learning training support by the method of `dialogic reading´, and we also had a control group, which has regular additive special language learning training. The two interventions of the experimental groups were integrated into the nurseries daily routine and carried out through the free-play time, in the group room. The intervention had last 6 weeks and the language level of all children was tested beforehand and afterwards. The language level was assessed by the TROG-D, and DELFIN4/5-EF. Besides that, the educational quality in the nursery groups was measured and the interventions were videotaped each week during the project.

Expected Outcomes

The process of the data analysis isn´t finished yet. A first multi-factorial variance analysis could show the superiority of the method Planning & Reviewing in connection with the reception of grammar and the avility to retell stories/experiences of the participating children. The analaysis showed significant better results for the language development of the children which were taught by Planning & Reviewing in comparison to the two other settings (dialogic reading and additive language training). We are still analysing the recorded sessions (Videos) to gain more information about the difference between the three methods, and the way children are talking and getting supported by them (e.g use of academic language, use of language learning strategies,scaffolding, ...).

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. & Morris, A. P. (2006). The bioecological model of human development. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1 (6th Ed.)(pp. 793-828). New York: Wiley. Cummins, J. (1979). Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism Toronto, (19), 197-202. Epstein, A. (2007). Essentials of active learning in Preschool. Getting to know the High/Scope Curriculum. Ypsilanti: High/Scope Press. Gibbons, P. (2002). Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: teaching English language learners in the mainstream classroom. Portsmouth: Heinemann Hollich, G. J., Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Golinkoff, R. M. (2000). Breaking the Language Barrier: An Emergent Coalition Model for the Origins of Word Learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development: Series 262, Ed. 65, Nr, 3. Schöler, H. & Ross, J. (2011). Die Ergebnisse des Projekts EVAS. In Baden-Württemberg-Stiftung (Hrsg.): Sag` mal was – Sprach-förderung für Vorschulkinder. Tübingen: Francke. Schleppegrell, Mary. J. (2001): Linguistic features of the language of schooling. In Linguistics and Education, 12 (4), 431 – 459. Siraj-Blatchford, I., Sylva, K., Muttock, S., Gilden, R. und Bell, D.: Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years. Research Report No. 356. Norwich: Queen's Printer 2002. Sylva, K., Melhuish, E., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I., Taggart, B. und Elliott, K.: The Effective Provision of Pre- School Education (EPPE) project: Findings from the pre-school period (2003). Tomasello, M (2000). Do young children have adult syntactic competence? In Cognition,74 p. 209 – 253.

Author Information

Anna Römstedt (presenting / submitting)

University of Koblenz-Landau

Educational Sience/ Early Childhood Education, Graduate School Upgrade

Landau

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