Preschool teacher

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Preschool teachers evaluation on non-native
childrens 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

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General information

• 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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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• 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).

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National integration policy

• Since the year 2000 the basis for the integration
  policy has been
• The State Programme "Integration in Estonian
  Society 2000-2007
• Estonian Integration Strategy 2008-2013

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• 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

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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

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Estonian Integration Strategy 2008-2013

• 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 15- to 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 Estonias population has consistently
  decreased (In 2007 they made up 9 of Estonias
  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 )

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Pre-school education

• Goals of the field for the year 2013
• 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 childrens institutions (In
  2007 75 of children has access to Estonian
  language training)

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A few important activities

• 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,

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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.

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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

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(No Transcript)
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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 teachers book
• The study materials for conducting the basic and
  supplemental training of teachers of Estonian as
  a second language for pre-school children.

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• An inadequate integration of numerous non-native
  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 childrens integration and
  the acquisition of the Estonian language .

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• 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.

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    Kindergartens Child
2006 Nursery 10 446
  Kindergarten 510 52574
  Private kindergarten 3 135
  Kindergarten primary school 21 536
  Kindergarten elementary school 58 2416
    523 56107
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County State owned     Private  
  Work language     Work language  
  Estonian Russian Estonian-Russian Estonian Russian
Harju County 127 33 21 16 2
Hiiu County 6     1  
Ida-Viru County 11 33 14   1
Jõgeva County 20   2    
Järva County 21        
Lääne County 19        
Lääne-Viru County 26   1 1  
Põlva County 17     1  
Pärnu County 41   3    
Rapla County 32        
Saare County 17     2  
Tartu County 47 2 7 4  
Valga County 17   2 1  
Viljandi County 34     1  
Võru County 18        
TOTAL 453 68 50 27 3
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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 (25) 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.

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• 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.

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Pre-school teachers readiness to teach non
Estonian speakers
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Estonian speaking teachers readiness to teach
Estonian as a second language.
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Training teachers have received for teaching
Estonian as a second language in Rakvere.

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Training teachers have received for teaching
Estonian as a second language in Valga
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Pre-school teachers self evaluation on teaching
Estonian as a second language
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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.

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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.

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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.

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• Thank You!
• lehte_at_tlu.ee