TALK – Preschool Teachers Apply Language-rich Teaching Skills and Knowledge

School leaders and teachers have the competencies to lead and create language-rich learning environments for preschool children in ethnically diverse and disadvantaged districts, contributing to their language development and learning readiness. Language-rich learning environments and improved teaching practices in preschools will help children to develop behavioural and language skills that will better prepare them to enter primary school, ready for learning. When preschool teachers acquire the foundational skill to observe children’s wellbeing and involvement in class, they will be able to reflect on the effect of their teaching approaches. This has been proven in Vietnam during the BAMI programme to positively impact the socio-emotional and cognitive development of preschool children. Adding a comprehensive understanding of how a child develops his/her language skills and honing the teacher’s skills to create a language-rich learning environment, each child will be stimulated to enjoy and playfully interact with language, taking his/her first steps in literacy. This will particularly benefit the most vulnerable children who are (with few exceptions) members of ethnic minority communities where Vietnamese is not spoken at home. If school leaders have the competencies to create an enabling, collaborative and reflective professional environment for all teachers, in which each teacher’s professional development needs are identified and addressed as part of a continuous growth process, teachers will be able to learn and apply new skills, improving their teaching practice. If school leaders further have a basic understanding of how language is developed at the ages 3 to 5 and how teachers can be supported to create a language-rich learning environment in which a child’s language development will flourish, they will be able to lead, motivate and capacitate their teaching staff to turn the classrooms and schools into language-rich learning environments.