Early Language Learning & Multilingual Education Network

Developing metalinguistic awareness in early childhood education through pedagogical translanguaging

Translanguaging is nowadays an umbrella term that embraces a wide variety of theoretical and practical proposals. Pedagogical translanguaging is a theoretical and instructional approach that aims at improving language and content competences in school contexts by using resources from the learner’s whole linguistic repertoire. The multilingual repertoire can be a rich resource for language and content learning in early childhood language learning. However, prior knowledge often needs to be activated so as to develop metalinguistic awareness. Pedagogical translanguaging can make learners aware of their own multilingual resources so that they can use them more effectively. The focus of this presentation will be on the role of pedagogical translanguaging to enhance metalinguistic awareness when learning  languages in pre-primary and primary school.  This presentation will show how activating the use of resources from the whole linguistic repertoire can stimulate the development of metalinguistic awareness and contribute to benefitting to a greater extent from the advantages associated with multilingualism in early childhood.

“Teaching is more than imparting knowledge: it is inspiring change”: Teacher’s agency in linguistic and culturally diverse classroom

Mother Teresa shares with us her wisdom: “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” This quote reminds us of our responsibility as educators and agents to initiate change in early language teaching, motivating us to take action. A key question in contemporary social theory concerns the empirical conditions of agency; namely, how agency becomes possible or what enables individuals to engage with the situation at hand in an agentic way. Recent years of research have called for an effort to synthesise findings about teacher agency (Cong-Lem, 2021). Regarding language teaching and learning, over the last two decades, there has been a growing consensus that teachers are potential and significant agents in creating, interpreting, and appropriating language education policy (Menken & García, 2010). However, the need to examine and conceptualise teacher agency in early language education has been only recently recognised (Schwartz & Yagmur, 2018). This research focus is especially critical in light of the growing interest in early language education and teachers’ work (e.g., Cortina-Pérez et al., 2022; Schwartz, 2022).

In this talk, I will present emerging fields in the study of teacher agency in early language education. This will include the still limited data about influential factors on teacher agency and its enactment in (1) shaping or modifying language education policy, (2) teacher-child-family interaction strategies implemented in early education, and (3) teachers’ initiatives. Several implications for educational stakeholders and future research will be discussed.

Engaging children in dialogue with picturebook aesthetic elements

Traditionally, books have been essential tools for teaching across subjects and disciplines. With books, teachers can have communication and dialogue with students to make learning meaningful.

While technology and digital resources have become increasingly prevalent in education, yet the simple book design of printed separate sheets of paper bound together at one side with a cover continues to play a vital role in teaching.

Picturebooks are a relatively new form of children’s literature. They are art objects that blend pictures and words harmoniously. The aim of this presentation is to explore the rich potential of picturebooks for engaging children in dialogue. In the first part of the presentation, I very briefly overview the history of modern picturebooks. In the second part,  I discuss the potential of this genre for dialogic teaching. I will try to provide an answer to a few questions:

• Why reading picturebooks with children?

• What to look at during readalouds?

• Why every design element of a picturebook matters?

After close looking at one element always present in picturebooks,  I will describe a mediating approach to encourage children to talk during interactive storytimes.

Research-based early childhood teacher education? Roles, trends and challenges in using language education research in preparing teachers for multilingual contexts

Worldwide, there are huge variations in how to prepare teachers for the complexity of language education in early childhood education and care contexts (Alstad, 2020). However, the expectations to teachers in general are increasing, both related to their professional role and to their knowledge base (Cochran-Smith, 2013). Research is expected to play a prominent role in building the knowledge base in both preservice and in-service teacher education, and research-based and research-informed teacher education have been a focal concern in educational policies during the past few decades (Mayer & Oancea, 2021).

Research on multilingual early childhood education contexts is growing, including the number of doctoral theses, which represent new and original work in the research field. In this presentation, I discuss research trends in early childhood teacher education, using analysis of recent doctoral dissertations as a starting point. The presentation draws partly on previous review studies of doctoral dissertations (Smith, 2015; Østern, 2016) and partly an ongoing study of dissertations defended at Norwegian teacher education institutions in the years 2020-2022 (Kulbrandstad, Kulbrandstad & Alstad, in progress). The dissertations have in common that they are professionally oriented and practice-based and often written by candidates with experience from language teaching. Based on an analysis of research topics, research design and methodologies in these doctoral studies, I will discuss these studies’ contribution to language education research in light of current trends and challenges in the international teacher education research landscape (Alstad, 2020, Cochran-Smith, 2013; Tatto, 2015; Mayer & Oancea, 2021).