conversation within the groups, they recognized missed opportunities to develop descriptive language connected to these experiences.
While other settings may not have the same roles or resources as this district, administrators can encourage teachers to create informal learning communities that provide a space for open communication, such as after-school pláticas. Another option is for leaders, coaches, or mentors to set aside time during existing meetings with preschool educators, perhaps once a week or once a month, to invite them to share their experiences and ideas. We recommend 30- to 60-minute sessions, but the group can determine what works best for their context. Creating a space of trust, exchange, and openness for all participants will benefit educators and their multilingual learners in the long run.
Use a Strengths-Based Perspective
Just as teachers are called to focus on children’ s strengths, those who support educators can do the same. By highlighting what educators are already doing right, they can then position inconsistencies less as mistakes and more as opportunities for continued growth. For example, an educator may already include labels in their classroom environment in children’ s home language( s) and in English. Building upon that, a mentor could suggest planning times throughout the day in which children look around the room for words in different languages related to a theme( reading the room). As teachers continue to reinforce their strengths and refine their practices, their implementation will become more consistent, and their confidence will grow.
After identifying what teachers have done well, mentors can guide them to see how it influenced multilingual children’ s learning by using specific language, like“ I noticed you were expanding and recasting what children were saying. This supports children’ s learning by providing the language we want them to adopt in a natural conversation.” Explaining why the technique works is equally as important as addressing what it is and how to do it.
Putting Professional Development into Practice
Once the foundation has been laid, professional development can focus on promoting targeted discussions and individualizing classroom support for teaching multilingual learners.
Facilitate Targeted Discussions
Too often, professional development consists of blocks of time in which information is directed at teachers, with little time to process it. Creating targeted moments of learning helps teachers reflect on the new information and how it connects to their current practices. Progressing slowly gives teachers time to build confidence and deepen their understanding step by step. This is especially crucial for educators who are new to teaching multilingual learners.
In our partnership, we developed three 90-minute after-school sessions with the collective group of bilingual preschool teachers. These were spaced out over the school year in December, February, and April. Educator feedback from previous experiences informed
54 Educating Young Children
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