Support second language learners and put them on the path to school success: that's what every early childhood educator will learn to do with this DVD companion to the bestselling
One Child, Two Languages. A rare chance to learn directly from Patton Tabors--one of today's most respected experts on early childhood education and second language acquisition--this DVD is the accessible training tool teachers need to work successfully with the growing number of children learning English as a second language in their classrooms.
Preservice and inservice early childhood educators will get a front-row seat at an engaging, highly informative presentation by Dr. Tabors and fellow language development experts Mariela M. Pàez and Cornelia Heise-Baigorria. Viewers will learn from the tips and anecdotes of fellow teachers attending the presentation, and they'll go inside real classrooms for vivid demonstrations of the suggested strategies. Teachers will come away knowing how to
- collect information from parents about children's home language skills
- communicate effectively with second language learners using strategies such as repetition and word/gesture combinations
- support second language learning during every part of the classroom routine, including book reading, circle time, snack time, and outdoor games
- choose activities that foster the primary language and literacy skills children need
- organize the physical classroom environment to minimize stress and facilitate learning
- honor and include children's home language so skills are built upon, not replaced
- answer parents' questions and encourage their participation during classroom visits
- use assessment tools* to evaluate first and second language development and measure children's progress
Ideal for in-service professional development and college or university courses, this invaluable DVD will help early childhood educators understand the complex process of second language development and ensure better social and academic outcomes for English language learners.
The Bilingual Early Language Assessment featured in the DVD can be accessed here.
Prior to beginning her doctoral studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1981, Patton O. Tabors was an elementary school teacher and a childbirth educator. During her doctoral studies she focused on first and second language acquisition in young children. Her qualifying paper and dissertation research, based on 2 years of ethnographic investigation in a nursery school classroom, described the developmental pathway of a group of young children learning English as a second language. She was able to use this information as the basis for the material in
One Child, Two Languages: A Guide for Preschool Educators of Children Learning English as a Second Language (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1997). Since 1987, Dr. Tabors has been the research coordinator of the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development in collaboration with Catherine Snow and David Dickinson. During this time she has also directed research related to low-education and low-income mothers reading to their preschool-age children as part of the Manpower Development Research Corporation evaluations of two welfare-to-work projects, New Chance and JOBS, and for the Harvard Language Diversity Project, a subproject of the New England Research Center on Head Start Quality, directed by David Dickinson. Dr. Tabors's latest research, a longitudinal project that is following the language and literacy development of Spanish-speaking children from preschool to second grade, combines her interests in early language and literacy development and second language acquisition in young children.
