Textbook on ESIA teacher training

Textbook on ESIA teacher training

ESIA Teacher Training for Language-Development Stimulation: Evaluation of Long-Term Effects on Educators and Children

Stimulating the development of language skills before enrollment in school is one of the central tasks of educators at daycares, nurseries and pre-schools. This study evaluates the extent to which a training course aimed at increasing educators’ ability to stimulate language development showed long-term effects on the behavior of educators in their workplaces and on the linguistic and cognitive development of one- to three-year-old children from both migrant and non-migrant families. The author offers a nuanced treatment of the aims, contents and methods of the six-month teacher training course and its video analysis component. The book also offers a comprehensive overview of different theories of first-language and second-language acquisition and a review of research on child language development. It marks an important contribution to research on language stimulation before school enrollment, especially as there have been few quantitative longitudinal studies conducted on this subject. Moreover, the book outlines relevant conditions for conducting training courses for educators. The ESIA project and its method of microteachings succeeded in developing a system for translating techniques conducive to stimulating language development into everyday pedagogical practice. Together with a project team member, teachers used transparent, objective criteria to analyze small segments of video recordings of themselves in various everyday situations in order to reflect on how they might better stimulate language development and exhibit a more democratic teaching style. Empirical testing demonstrated that the method had positive effects on participating educators and on the language development of children in participating groups (E. K. Beller, et al., 2006; S. Beller, et al., 2009; S. Beller, 2014). 

S. Beller: ESIA- Erzieherfortbildung zur sprachlich-interaktiven Anregung. Evaluation langfristiger Effekte bei pädagogischen Fachkräften und Kindern,
Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften, Saarbrücken, 2014.
Paperback: 252 pages 

Currently only available in German