Eight educators and one educator from municipal daycare centers have successfully completed their qualification as language support staff. For this purpose, strategies for language education in the team were developed and anchored in a state curriculum comprising nine modules.
Language education begins at birth in the family and is supported and promoted when children enter daycare. In daycare centers, language development is integrated into everyday life and serves to improve children's educational opportunities and achieve greater equality of opportunity. Language education and support is therefore a permanent, central task of daycare centers. Educational professionals are trusted caregivers and support language development in many everyday situations. Educators should listen to the children and pay attention to what they say in order to value the children's linguistic achievements. Everyday integrated language education means that children should be encouraged to speak and to communicate.
In order to meet this requirement, the nine educators from the municipal daycare centers Barbararing, Göttschied, Regulshausen, Waldkita and Weierbach were trained in various discussion strategies from February to November last year in a qualification series offered by the Institut für Lehrerfort- und -weiterbildung (ILF). The group was accompanied by instructors Dr. Ute Nieschalk and Anja Bambach. Among other things, they learned questioning and modeling strategies, strategies for concept development and feedback strategies. They practiced reading and routine situations, planned targeted activities, discussed symbol and role-playing games and how to create spontaneous opportunities to speak. All with a focus on everyday integrated language education and support. Participation in the modules was not only compulsory, but also the completion of practical tasks such as the videography of conversational situations in the daycare center, which were then evaluated in the seminar. At the end, the educators received their certificate of qualification in the state curriculum for daycare centers "Talking to Children".