ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

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ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

• Talk to Your Baby
• Janet David Townend

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Improving early language development leads to

• Bigger vocabulary
• Better sentence construction
• Earlier reading and writing readiness
• Readiness for learning other languages
• Enhanced cognitive potential
• but, are babies in Tanzania getting a good
  enough early language experience?

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Encouragements and Challenges

• Are you sure Tanzanian mothers dont talk to
  their babies?
• Of course mothers interact with their babies
• That makes complete sense to me
• Go for it!
• and finally, from MoEVT Lets do it
• Many meetings followed.....

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We went to the field

• We piloted the attitude questionnaire
• We taught a lesson to Standard 5, about the
  importance of talking to babies
• We talked to groups of mothers in village
  churches

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Now the project looks like this

• Key activities (to be completed)
• Community-based research
• Focus on community reach for intervention
• Incorporation of learning into existing early
  childhood development (ECD) provision
• Incorporation in curricula (primary, adult
  training of relevant professionals)
• Training of trainers
• Learning packs for self-study
• Information campaign

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Partner organisations (so far)

• Inter-ministerial Task Force (3 ministries)
• UDOM
• WAMA
• Children in Crossfire
• VSO
• TECDEN
• Monduli Pastoralist Development Initiative
• UDSM, UWEZO, World Bank, Save the Children,
  TAWREF, CSWD (Mafia) are getting involved

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What the stakeholders are doing now

• Shifting ownership from volunteers to Tanzanian
  stakeholders.
• Expressing their strong desire to bring about
  behaviour change, starting now.
• Distributing responsibilities between
  stakeholders.
• Following up their commitment to using existing
  routes
• Focusing on rural poor, as the most needy group
• Making progress on the key activities

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ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

• Research evidence

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• Nobel prize winning economist and child
  development expert, James Heckman, wrote
  recently
• Skill formation starts in the womb. The early
  years of a childs life before the child enters
  school lay the foundations for all that follows

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Neural connections for language (Harvard
University)

• Are established mostly in the first year
• Depend upon a good language environment
• Question How many words do you think an infant
  in Tanzania typically hears at home in one hour?

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Number of words heard
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Literacy acquisition depends on language levels
at 24 months (Blanden, 2006) Academic success
correlates very highly with size of vocabulary at
age 5 (Roulstone et al., 2011)
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International researchers agree that

• Language skill is central to intellectual and
  social development in children (Cain Oakhill,
  2007)
• Some say it is the most important factor (Harvard
  University)
• Language development is most active in the first
  year of life (Ryan Deci, 2000)
• Early language experience is the most important
  experience for children to achieve their
  potential (Sylva et al., 2008)

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Why start early?
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Cost to benefit ratio of interventions in early
education

• Is highest in the first three years (Doyle et
  al., 2007)
• This is before the start of formal education
  (Heckman, 2011)

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What affects ECD?
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What affects ECD?

• Home environment is even more important than
  length of time at preschool

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Conclusion

• Parents must be their childs first teachers
• Education starts at birth

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Effects of socio-economic status
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The rich win on

• Better school readiness
• Larger vocabulary
• Fewer behaviour problems
• This is why Zungumza na Mtoto Mchanga must target
  the disadvantaged. In Tanzania, that means the
  rural poor.

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What do we already know in Tanzania?

• Anecdotal observation evidence so far
• Little verbal interaction between parents and
  babies
• Parents do not expect babies to need / understand
  language
• Hardly anyone knows of the importance of early
  language

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There is now a need for

• Baseline research to establish present language
  experience of babies
• Attitude survey to establish current beliefs
  practice about language babies
• Investigation of the effectiveness of capacity
  building among families
• Reporting of the findings

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References

• Harvard University Centre on the Developing
  Child. In Brief the science of early childhood
  development. www.developingchild.harvard.edu .
  2007.
• Blanden, J. Bucking the trend what enables
  those who are disadvantaged in childhood to
  succeed later in life?. 2006. Cited in DfE/DoH
  Supporting families in the foundation years.
  London, UK HMSO, 2011. 
• Roulstone, S.et al. The role of language in
  childrens early educational outcomes. London,
  UK DfE, 2011.
• Cain, K. And Oakhill, J. Childrens
  comprehension problems in oral and written
  language. Guilford Press, 2007.
• Harvard University Centre on the Developing
  Child. In Brief the science of early childhood
  development. www.developingchild.harvard.edu .
  2007. 
• Ryan, R. and Deci, E. Intrinsic and extrinsic
  motivations classic definitions and new
  directions. Journal of Contemporary Educational
  Psychology, vol. 25, pp. 54-67. 2000.
• Sylva, K. et al. Effective pre-school and
  primary education 3-11 project pre-school,
  school and family influences on childrens
  development during Key Stage 2 (age 7-11).
  2008. Cited in DfE/DoH Supporting families in
  the foundation years. London, UK HMSO, 2011.
• Taylor, M. The politics of parenting. In Brack,
  D. et al. Re-inventing the state social
  liberalism for the 21st Century. 2007.  
• Doyle, O. et al. Early childhood intervention
  rationale, timing and efficacy. 2007.
• Heckman, J. The American family in black and
  white a post-racial strategy for improving
  skills to promote equality, 2011.

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