Supporting Oral Language Development

词汇量小的孩子在学习的各个方面都处于不利地位。除非有针对性的支持，否则起步缓慢的孩子将继续落后于语言丰富的同龄人。确保所有儿童都准备好学习，特别是在学校学习的一个强有力的方法，是在儿童早期提供高质量的口语教育。早期语言干预的力量得到了大量证据的支持，这些证据表明，强大的口语和听力理解能力与阅读和写作技能密切相关。然而，人们对口语干预在低收入和中等收入国家的效果知之甚少，因为这些国家的社区往往是多语种的。我们的目标是通过对生活在印度和菲律宾的3至6岁的儿童进行一项混合方法的研究，来解决文献中的这一差距。这项研究将考察在多语言城市贫困环境下的特殊复杂性下的口语发展。在这些背景下进行研究具有重要意义，因为有理由相信，自发支持儿童语言发展的资源可能会给城市穷人带来压力(例如，减少的社会网络，一种新的学校语言)，使他们成为学业失败的特别脆弱群体。政府合作伙伴都认为，一个紧迫的系统性问题是小学识字率低。社区合作伙伴强调，需要证据证明高质量的项目将在当地学校发挥作用，大学合作伙伴也呼应了全面研究项目的需要。因此，我们建议在语境中了解儿童的语言发展，并将测试一项干预措施，可能会更好地为儿童进入小学做好准备。研究地点将是印度的乌杜皮区和菲律宾的奎松市。这些网站的特点包括儿童周围的多种语言，以及对母语或多种语言教育的政策承诺。因此，这些背景提供了一个机会来研究一个不仅在发援会国家而且在国际上都没有得到充分研究的主题：多语言环境下的儿童口语发展和口语干预。目标和结果本研究的主要目的是通过三项研究提供关于质量(幼儿发展和学前教育)和准备好(小学教育)的描述性和因果证据，旨在a)绘制口语发展的机会和障碍，b)验证评估以跟踪儿童口语发展，以及c)检查教师在进入小学一年前提供的有针对性的干预。我们将绘制机会和障碍图，在一天内跟踪30名儿童，记录他们的语言经历，检查他们对话伙伴的语言知识，并对他们参加的课程进行民族志调查。我们将通过分析每项测试的3000个数据点，对15项评估进行微调，并在一项针对800名儿童的研究中，评估一项由教师设计的语言干预，该干预利用民间故事和当地叙事。这一跨学科项目将提供一种途径，通过关注儿童早期学习的语言基础，为所有儿童提供一种实现有效学习成果的可持续发展目标。产出包括为政策制定者提供的证据简报和为教育工作者提供的开放获取工具包。研究界的多个数据主体将在这些背景下扩大证据基础。其中包括词库、儿童语言档案、对课堂谈话的丰富描述、成绩数据和结果数据。综上所述，拟议的研究可能会成为印度、菲律宾和其他发改委国家知情幼儿教育的催化剂。

Children with a small vocabulary are at a disadvantage for all aspects of learning. Unless there is targeted support, children who start slow will continue to fall behind their language-rich peers. A powerful way to ensure all children are ready for learning, particularly in school, is to offer high quality oral language education early in a child's life. The power of early language intervention is supported by a large body of evidence showing a combined foundation of strong spoken language and listening comprehension cascading to reading and writing skills. However, little is known about the efficacy of oral language interventions in low- and middle-income countries where communities are often multilingual. We aim to address this gap in the literature through a mixed-methods study with children ages of 3-to-6 living in India and the Philippines. The study will examine oral language development under the particular complexities of multilingual urban poor settings. Research in these settings is of importance as there is reason to believe resources that spontaneously support children's language development may be under strain for the urban poor (e.g. reduced social networks, a new school language), making them a particularly vulnerable group for school failure.A co-developed projectThe proposed project was co-developed by multiple agencies. Government partners shared that a pressing systemic concern was the low literacy rates in primary schools. Community partners stressed the need for evidence on quality programs that will work in local schools and university partners echoed the need for a comprehensive program of research. We therefore propose to understand children's language development in-context and will test an intervention that could potentially better prepare children for primary school. The research sites will be Udupi district in India and Quezon City in the Philippines. Defining characteristics of these sites include the multiple languages around the child and a policy commitment to either mother-tongue or multilingual education. Hence, these contexts offer an opportunity to research a topic that is understudied in not just DAC countries but also internationally: children's oral language development and oral language intervention in a multilingual setting.Objectives and OutputsThe primary objective of this research is to provide descriptive and causal evidence on quality (in early childhood development and pre-primary education) and readiness (for primary education) through three studies that aim to a) map opportunities and barriers to oral language development, b) validate assessments to track children's developing oral language and c) examine a targeted intervention delivered by teachers one year before entry into primary school. We will map opportunities and barriers by following thirty children over one day to record their language experiences, examining language knowledge of their conversation partners, and conducting an ethnographic inquiry of classes they attend. We will finetune fifteen assessments by analyzing 3000 data points on each test and, in a study with 800 children, evaluate a language intervention designed with teachers that draws upon folk tales and local narratives.This inter-disciplinary project will provide an approach to reach the Sustainable Development Goal of effective learning outcomes for all children by focusing on the language bedrock of early childhood learning. Outputs include evidence briefs for policy makers and open access toolkits for educators. Multiple bodies of data for the research community will expand the evidence-base in these contexts. These include a word bank, an archive of child language, a rich description of talk in the classroom, performance data and outcomes data. Taken together, the proposed research could potentially act as a catalyst for informed early childhood education in India, the Philippines, and other DAC countries.