Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 679
Part of Session 146: Language at school in urban European settings (Other abstracts in this session)
Competencies of preschool teachers in the Netherlands: Language proficiency, language knowledge and didactic skills
Authors: Kuiken, Folkert
Submitted by: Kuiken, Folkert (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, The)
In the last few years the Netherlands have invested much money and energy in the early education of 2½- to 6-year old children in an effort improve the quality of this type of education. Great care is taken that the conditions for a successful preschool education are fulfilled. With respect to the preschool teachers these conditons concern their language proficiency level, their knowledge about language and language acquisition, and their didactic skills. Reports of the schools inspectorate indicate that in many cases these competencies leave to be desired. Measures have been taken in order to improve these competencies. In this paper the contents of these measures and their results will be reported. We will focus on the city with the largest amount of preschools and preschool teachers: Amsterdam.
In 2009-10 the language proficiency level of 657 preschool teachers was tested. It turned out that only half of the teachers had reached the required level (CEF level B2 for speaking and reading, and B1 for writing). Those who failed the test were offered free language lessons. By the end of 2011 more than 1100 teachers have been tested of whom almost 85% have now obtained the required level.
It has also become apparent that teachers often lack knowledge about the desired language level of a child at a particular age. Therefore language goals have been formulated for children at the age of four and six. These goals may help teachers to structure their language input and to evaluate whether a child uses language in a way that may be expected from a child of similar age. Nevertheless concerns remain if the teachers are prepared well enough for this task during their vocational training.
These worries also concern the didactic skills of the teachers. Therefore observations schemes have been developed in order to be able to judge the didactic competencies of the teachers during their daily practice. The implementation of these observation schemes is now evaluated.
The actions undertaken in Amsterdam have contributed to new insights with regard to the language policy in preschools and in teacher training colleges. Possibly they will also lead to changes in the teacher training curriculum. An interesting subject for future research is the question if these measures will lead in the end to a better language proficiency of the children. These and other challenging issues will be discussed in the paper.