ESIA Teacher Training for Interactive Language Stimulation

“ESIA Teacher Training for Interactive Language Stimulation” was a scientific project that evaluated the short-term and long-term effectivity of a systematic intervention for promoting child language development in everyday situations.

The project had three phases:

• ESIA 1: Teaching educators to increase the quantity and quality of their language input to better stimulate language development in pre-schools, daycares and kindergartens (2004-2006)
• ESIA 2: Deploying a systematic method for stimulating language development in everyday situations in pre-schools, nurseries, daycares and kindergartens in order to improve educational opportunities of poor children and children from non-German-speaking migrant families. A collaborative study (2007-2009) conducted by the
  
  was led by Prof. Dr. E. Kuno Beller, Prof. Dr. Hans Merkens, and Dr. Christa Preissing, and was funded by the Stiftung Deutsche Jugendmarke e.V.
  
  

• ESIA Follow-up: This was a longitudinal study on the effects of the intervention model, which aimed to increase educators’ ability to stimulate language development and to help them adopt a more democratic teaching style. Specifically, the study analyzed the effects this program had on educators and children between the ages of one and three from migrant and non-migrant backgrounds (2006-2012). It was led by Simone Beller and funded by Beller Research and Training in Childhood Education.

Aim of the Study

In the project phases ESIA 1 and ESIA 2, we tested the short-term effects of a systematic intervention that aimed to improve the ability of educators to stimulate child language development in everyday situations in pre-schools, nurseries, daycares and kindergartens. In designing the training program, we compiled behaviors demonstrated by international research to be conducive to language development and attempted to translate these behaviors into everyday practice. We analyzed the program’s effects on the quantity and quality of educators’ language input and on the linguistic and cognitive development of one- to three-year-old children (ESIA 1) and four- and five-year-old children (ESIA 2) from migrant and non-migrant families.

ESIA Follow-up tested whether educators and children still showed positive effects of the intervention two years after the conclusion of ESIA 1 and ESIA 2.

The Intervention Model

The pedagogical intervention was conducted with educators in natural situations at their places of work. It was comprised of 20 weekly three-hour sessions in which a trained staff member demonstrated to others ways to better stimulate language development and how to practice a more democratic teaching style in their interactions with children. The aim of the intervention was not to offer educators a fixed set of behaviors and methods, but to teach them principles that might then guide their actions in everyday situations.

During the 20-week intervention, trained project members (interveners) undertook targeted interventions in everyday situations, such as free play, meal times, changing diapers, and guided activites. The intervener first demonstrated behaviors conducive to language development and modelled interactions with children in line with a democratic teaching style. In order to bolster the effects of the intervention and to encourage educators to reflect on and talk about their ability to stimulate language development, the intervener and the educator made video recordings of each other’s work in everyday situations at regular intervals. They then analyzed and discussed these 5- to 10-minute video sequences with the help of the micro-teaching method. For their part, the staff members conducting the training program attended weekly group meetings and regular one-on-one meetings with the project leader in order to evaluate their own work. By evaluating videos of their own interactions with children, they increased the quality of model behaviors and approaches and were able to take a critical perspective on their interactions with teachers. Along with training at their places of work, participating educators also took part in three external group training sessions.

Evaluation of the Model for Better Stimulating Language Development

The evaluation of the training program was conducted using a quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-intervention data collection and random assignment of educators and their children to the experimental group and the control group. The evaluation sought to answer the following key questions:

1. Can a six-month training program help educators alter their communicative behavior and teaching style in the desired fashion?
2. Does a higher level of language stimulation and a democratic teaching style in everyday situations have a positive effect on the linguistic and cognitive development of children?
3. Are there differences in effectivity depending on the age or native language of the child?
4. Are the effects on both educators and children stable over the long-term?

The study was conducted in pre-schools and daycare centers in Berlin neighborhoods in which the city board of education had identified a large number of children with a need for more language stimulation. Both before and after the training program was conducted, the ability of educators to stimulate language development and their teaching style were assessed in order to compare changes over time in both the intervention and control group. The children’s linguistic and cognitive development before and after the program were also assessed. A final assessment was conducted as a follow-up two years after the training program.

Table Sample in the Three Phases of the ESIA-Project

Results

The results of ESIA 1 and ESIA 2 showed that, in comparison to the control group, educators who had participated in the training program both improved their ability to stimulate language development and demonstrated a more democratic teaching style. This demonstrates that educators’ ability to stimulate language development can be raised through our systematic intervention and its use of video analysis.

The one-, two- and three-year-old children in the experimental group showed significant positive effects in language and cognition, independent of ethnic background and age (ESIA 1). In ESIA 2 as well, four-year-olds showed significant improvement in linguistic skills independent of whether they came from a migrant family or not; however, the five-year-olds showed no significant improvement.

Thus, the project empirically demonstrated that increasing educators’ ability to stimulate language development and training them to practice a more democratic teaching style can have a positive impact on children’s language development.

The ESIA follow-up has thus far only been conducted with the ESIA 1 group. Two years after the completion of ESIA 1, the educators of the experimental group showed a significantly higher ability to stimulate language development and a more democratic teaching style. Interesting is the observation that the differences between the experimental group and control group actually grew larger over time rather than the opposite. Significant long-term effects on the children could not be proven; however, methodical issues like small, non-homogeneous samples and differing forms of testing played a role in this.

Further data analysis, including the follow-up to ESIA 2, is currently being conducted.