Transitioning into day care – the potential of translanguaging for families and early childhood educators

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Sunday 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Childhoods, Materials, and Critical Learning Encounters

Abstract

Many research findings emphasize the effectiveness of early childhood education of high quality for future academic outcomes (Anders, 2013). However, transitioning into day care can be challenging when there is no common language for day-to-day communication. The ethnographic case studies seek to understand the transition into center-based childcare for children and their caregivers, who do not speak the local language, and to identify practices of early childhood educators supporting the process. Participant observations of transition processes of four children and their caregivers with the early childhood educators reveal the importance of adapting to the individual needs as well as the potential of translanguaging: Transition processes benefited from educator’s translanguaging practices as well as from engagement of interpreters.

Author

• Franziska C. Vogt, St.Gallen University of Teacher Education