Family Literacy Programs for Migrants - Promoting Bilingualism and Enhancing Parent-Child Book Reading

1. Family Literacy Programs for Migrants - Promoting Bilingualism and Enhancing Parent-Child Book Reading Prof. Dr. Havva Engin, M.A. Fachhochschule Bielefeld / University of Applied Sciences havva.engin@fh-bielefeld.de Leeuwarden, 17./18.09.2009

2. Overview • Introduction - Situation in Germany • Language and literacy socialization in the family • Educational aims and didactic bases Language studying row Stark in zwei Sprachen - Iki dilde güclü • Theoretical frame • The role and importance of the parents • The effects of picture book reading • Topics • Methods and future prospects

3. Introduction - Situation in Germany • In Germany one fifth of pupils with migrant background (20%) almost leave the school without a degree. • National like international studies are documenting that the education failure starts already from elementary school and continues through the education career with high progression. • PISA-Study: half of the migrant children remained on the undermost reading competence level!

4. Language and literacy socialization in the family - I • Language acquisition research (Cummins 1982; Franceschini 2006) : First language represents an important reference quantity of second and broader languages and plays an important role in the language development. • In most elementary educational facilities in Germany, no reference is made to the first language(s) of the children. • The educational daily routine takes place solely in German -> the largest number of migrant children doesn't have any possibility of bringing itself in with their first language or mother tongue. • Submersion model doesn't represent a successful way (cf. PISA 2001; PIRLS 2006)

5. Language and literacy socialization in the family - II • Many migrant children grow up in families in which in daily routines written language (document and printed) play a subordinate role and hardly happen. • Empirical-qualitative study with Turkish migrant families pointed that children hardly met written documents in their families (cf. Kuyumcu 2007:41). • In opinion of the author this can have less to do with the so-called education distance of the family, but rather with culture-specific experiences of the parent generation which grew up with stories passed on verbally.

6. Language and literacy socialization in the family - III Elementary educational studies: family as an institution represents a socio-cultural frame for the individual, in which the child learns social, emotional behaviors by direct interactions with the reference persons (cf. Adybasova 2007:47). Parent-child interactions are central for the knowledge acquisition of the child and form the fundamentals of his language development

7. Educational aims and didactic bases Language studying row „Stark in zwei Sprachen/ Iki dilde güclü“ • A language studying row for German-Turkish children. • It consists of four books: • In the kindergarten, • My body / health, • At home, • My friends/ my family.

8. Educational aims and didactic bases Language studying row „Stark in zwei Sprachen/ Iki dilde güclü“ • Target group: • German-Turkish parents with children at the age between 2 and 6 years; • Nursery teachers in pre-school facilities who supports an effective early bilingual education

9. Theoretical frame • For learning of a second language, here German, the knowledge of the first language/ mother tongue, here Turkish, is necessary; • Basic aim: Acquisition of Biliteracy • Means the participation in two daily spoken language and written language cultures. • The children shall be able to learn different language structures parallel and to be able to transfer or translate from one language into the other one -> gaining metalinguistic competence. • Kuyumcu (2007): Children growing up bilingually start with metalinguistic reflections already earlier and faster than monolingual children.

10. The role and importance of the parents Parent child interactions like common picture book reading are important for the language development of a child because they support the expansion of his lexis. The role of the mother is central because her literacy competence and dialogical pattern are defining for the child. A special impact gets the mother-child-interaction patterns in two-/ multilingual migrant families; these interaction experiences can decisively support the second language acquisition; particularly if they are realized in social settings (Adybasova 2007)

11. The effects of picture book reading American study (cf. Apeltauer 2003): Families with high socio-economic status: time that children and partents spend on picture book reading together is approx. 1000 to 1700 hours every year- In pre-school institutions: 800 hours (4 h x 5 = 20h x 40 weeks = 800 h a year)

12. Topics of Language studying row Consists of all day relevant words and language structures adequate to the age and the cognitive development of 2 until 6-year-old children. The didactic concept of language acquisitions laid out spiral curricular: Established language structures are taken and connected with new, increasingly more complex language requirements again and again. Typical scenes and speaking causes from the experience world of the small children are represented by stimulating, true-to-life pictures and texts.

13. Methods and future prospects Dialogical reading (…) „describes a certain manner of the communication between adult and one or several children over a book or another visually attractive material“(Kraus 2005). It is a main educational aim that the child, not the adult, gets the action to the narrative one. The language studying row favors dialogical reading as the ideal method in parent-child interactions and picture book readings because the authors would like to contribute that bilingual migrant parents make at home literacy experiences for her children in their first language possible!

14. Examples – Im Kindergarten

25. Bibliography Engin, H; Reddig-Korn, B.; Weiss, B. (2009): Stark in Sprachen / Iki dilde güclü. Hückelhoven: Anadolu (in press) Apeltauer, Ernst (2003): Literalität und Spracherwerb. Flensburger Papiere zur Mehrsprachigkeit und Kulturenvielfalt im Unterricht, Nr. 32. Apeltauer, Ernst (2006): Kooperation mit zugewanderten Eltern. Flensburger Papiere zur Mehr-sprachigkeit und Kulturenvielfalt im Unterricht, Nr. 40/41. Apeltauer, E. (2008): Cummins, J. Kuyumcu, Reyhan (2006): Zur Entwicklung von (Bi)Literalität bei türkischen Migrantenkindern im Vorschulalter. In: Ehlers, Swantje (ed.): Sprachförderung und Literalität. Flensburger Papiere zur Mehrsprachigkeit und Kulturenvielfalt im Unterricht, Sonderheft 3, S. 52-70. Adybassova, Franceschini, Rita: Mehrsprachigkeit und Gehirn: Mythen – Potentiale – Praxis. Vortrag gehalten am 06.10. 2006 auf der Tagung „Frühe Mehrsprachigkeit: Mythen - Risiken – Chancen“. Mannheim. URL: http://kongress.sagmalwas-bw.de/media/pdf/Vortrag%20Franceschini.pdf Karoline Kraus Dialogisches Lesen - neue Wege der Sprachförderung in Kindergarten und Familie. In: Aus: Susanna Roux (Hrsg.): PISA und die Folgen: Sprache und Sprachförderung im Kindergarten. Landau: Verlag Empirische Pädagogik 2005, S. 109-129. Online: http://www.kindergartenpaedagogik.de/1892.html