Transcript Document

Preschool teacher’s evaluation on non-native
children’s coping in Estonian-speaking
kindergarten and preschool teacher evaluation of
their own overall preparedness to handle
language teaching.
Lehte Tuuling
Tallinn University Rakvere College
Riga 31st of July 2008
General information
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Official language
Estonian
Capital
Tallinn
Area 45 226 km²
Population 1 342 409 (01.01.2007)
Government parliamentary republic
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves
Prime minister Andrus Ansip
Currency
crown (EEK)
Time zone EET (UTC +2)
National anthem Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm
Administrative regions
The Republic of Estonia is divided into fifteen counties
(Maakonnad) which are the administrative subdivisions of the
country. The first documented mentioning of Estonian political
and administrative subdivisions comes from the Chronicle of
Henry of Livonia, written in the 13th century during the
Northern Crusades.
Some facts
 There are currently 33 cities and several town-parish
towns in the county. More than 70% of the entire
population lives in the towns.
 Estonia has been a member of the United Nations
since 17 September 1991, of the European Union
since 1 May 2004, and of NATO since 29 March 2004.
 With only 1.3 million inhabitants, it comprises one of
the smallest populations of the European Union
countries.
Some facts
 Estonia is a culturally diverse society, more than
120 different ethnicities are represented here.
 One third of our population is made up of people
of ethnicity other than Estonian.
The Estonian school system
Estonian children must go to school from
the age of 7 to 17.
Most children go to a nursery school or
preschool before they start school.
Population of Estonia
Estonians
921,062
68.8%
Russians
344,280
25.6%
Ukrainians
28,158
2.1%
Belarussians
16,134
1.2%
Finns
11,035
0.8%
Tatars
2,487
0.2%
Latvians
2,216
0.2%
Poles
2,216
0.2%
Lithuanians
2,077
0.1%
Jews
1,900
0.1%
Germans
1,900
0.1%
Others
9,084
0.7%
Non natives make up nearly 30% of the
population of Estonia.
 10% communicate in Estonian only,
 48% communicate in several languages
 40% communicate in Russian only
In recent years more and more people who do
not speak Estonian as a native language
have considered it important to learn
Estonian. (84% of adults).
National integration policy
Since the year 2000 the basis for the integration
policy has been:
1. The State Programme "Integration in
Estonian Society 2000-2007“
2. Estonian Integration Strategy 2008-2013
Integration in Estonian society is shaped by
two processes:
 the social harmonization of society around
a strong common national core based on
knowledge of the Estonian language and
Estonian citizenship
 the opportunity to maintain ethnic
differences based on the recognition of the
cultural rights of ethnic minorities
The following aims was long-term in nature
- fully achievable later than 2007:
 Linguistic-communicative integration, i.e. a
common sphere of information and the re-creation of
an Estonian-language environment in Estonia under
conditions of cultural diversity and tolerance
 Legal-political integration, i.e. the formation of a
population loyal to the Estonian state and the
 reduction of the number of persons without Estonian
citizenship
 Socio-economic integration, i.e. the increased
competitiveness and social mobility of every member
of Estonian society
Estonian Integration Strategy 20082013
The Integration Strategy is aimed at reaching a situation by the year
2013, in which:
 Estonian-language proficiency has improved at all levels among
people whose native language is not Estonian (In 2005 22% of 15to 74-year-olds consider their language skills to be good, 25% regarded
it average, 29% poor and 24% could not at all speak Estonian)
 The share of people with undetermined citizenship among
Estonia’s population has consistently decreased (In 2007 they
made up 9% of Estonia’s population) The majority of people
whose native language is not Estonian regularly get information
from Estonian-language media and trust it (In 2005 26% of people
of other nationalities regularly consumed Estonian-language media)
 Differences in the employment rate and incomes of employees of
different nationalities have decreased (In 2007 31% of Estonians
and 19% other nationalities held senior and managerial positions; 35%
of Estonians and 53% of other nationalities were employed as skilled or
unskilled )
Pre-school education
Goals of the field for the year 2013:
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90% of children whose native language is
other than Estonian have the opportunity
to participate in Estonian-language studies
in kindergarten, pre-school and other
children’s institutions (In 2007 75% of
children has access to Estonian language
training)
A few important activities:
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teachers and principles of Estonian and Russian
medium schools will participate in training in
multicultural education;
some 3-5 new kindergartens and schools will join
the language immersion programme every year,
all teachers and heads of schools Russian medium
school will pass courses in the Estonian language,
the annual support of about 150 cultural societies
of ethnic minorities and 15 Sunday schools will
continue,
Things done on a national level
 In 2002, a research was conducted to chart the
situation in teaching Estonian for pre-school
children. The report pinpoints shortcomings in
the methods, resources and available study
materials. 2005/2006 a new research was
conducted to compare the results.
 2003 – 2005 within the framework of the public
procurement contract, “Creating the Bases for
the Teaching of Estonian as a Second Language
in Pre-schools and the Training of Instructors”,
was prepared training models and compiled the
materials for teachers and children.
Materials
 The teaching programme for Estonian as a
second language for pre-school children
 The teaching module of the curriculum for
the basic training of pre-school teachers
of Estonian as a second language
 The curriculum for supplementary training
of teachers of Estonian for pre-schools
Materials
 The description of an environment that promote
the study and teaching of Estonian as a second
language in pre-schools and the description of
support materials of its creation
 The description of a model regional language
training centre
 Study materials for pre-school children for
learning Estonian as a second language and the
accompanying teacher’s book
 The study materials for conducting the basic and
supplemental training of teachers of Estonian as
a second language for pre-school children.
An inadequate integration of numerous nonnative speakers is the most complicated
political and cultural problem that is affecting
the independent Republic of Estonia. The
process of integration has been researched a
lot; the most important question is how the
language environment affects children’s
integration and the acquisition of the Estonian
language .
A big responsibility in making the integration
policy work falls on the pre-school teachers.
They are the first ones who introduce
Estonian as a second language and also the
Estonian culture.
In our College we have done several studies to
find out how preschool teachers perceive
their overall preparedness to handle
language teaching.
Kindergartens
2006
Nursery
Child
10
446
510
52574
3
135
Kindergarten –
primary school
21
536
Kindergarten –
elementary
school
58
2416
523
56107
Kindergarten
Private
kindergarten
County
State owned
Private
Work language
Work language
Estonian
EstonianRussian
Russian
Estonian
Russian
Harju County
127
33
21
16
2
Hiiu County
6
1
Ida-Viru County
11
Jõgeva County
20
Järva County
21
Lääne County
19
Lääne-Viru
County
26
Põlva County
17
Pärnu County
41
Rapla County
32
Saare County
17
Tartu County
47
Valga County
17
Viljandi County
34
Võru County
18
TOTAL
453
33
14
1
2
1
1
1
3
2
2
7
4
2
1
1
68
50
27
3
Estonian is being thought as a second
language in kindergartens by:
 Regular teaching – The teaching programme for
Estonian as a second language for pre-school
children (2–5) times a week, which, if possible is
integrated with other learning.
 Teaching Estonian in class of immersion
language – more than half of teaching is done in
Estonia. 5 year old children start learning Estonian
during every day activities and games. The teacher
speaks only Estonian.
 Bilingual teaching – One teacher communicates
with the children in their native language and another
in Estonian.
Several forms of teaching are often used in
the same kindergarten. For example some
groups use the immersion technique while
others follow the regular teaching
programme.
Also kindergartens that have bilingual
groups use the regular teaching
programme.
Pre-school teachers readiness to teach non
Estonian speakers
10,0%
36,7%
ja
ei
mõningal määral
muu
50,0%
3,3%
Estonian speaking teachers readiness to teach
Estonian as a second language.
yes
20%
yes
to some extent
65%
no
15%
no
to some extent
Training teachers have received for teaching
Estonian as a second language in Rakvere.
1,7%
16,7%
21,7%
ja
ei
mõningal määral
muu
60,0%
Training teachers have received for teaching
Estonian as a second language in Valga
to some extent
0%
yes
8%
yes
no
to some extent
no
92%
Pre-school teachers self evaluation on
teaching Estonian as a second language
28
30
25
I manage well
20
I manage well, but I need
additional training
15
10
I could not handle it very well
10
5
2
0
1
2
3
4
5
Conclusion
The research results show that:
 kindergarten teachers are ready for working with
children with other native language;
 kindergarten teachers do a lot of individual work with;
 teachers decorate kindergarten walls with labels,
names, sentence, etc and they also apply many aids
for teaching the foreign language;
 teachers use materials and teaching aids meant both
for teaching Estonian as a native language and a
second language.
Conclusion
 Teachers cooperate with parents and
evaluate their support as satisfactory;
 In the teachers opinion the optimal number of
non native speakers in a group is 3;
 Teachers expect that their workload will
increase when teaching non native speakers
but not by a lot.
Conclusion
 There are only few kindergarten teachers
who have received special education on
language teaching. However, they try to get
more useful information from their colleagues,
from libraries or media.
 Many kindergarten teachers claim that they
need more education and new knowledge.
Thank You!
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