Resumen

DIAZ, Carmen; VILLALON, Malva  y  ADLERSTEIN, Cynthia. Prospective early childhood teachers' practical knowledge to teach oral language and literacy: An approach from conceptual mapping. Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2015, vol.32, n.2, pp.331-345. ISSN 1668-7027.

Teachers' practical knowledge has become an increasingly relevant issue for educational research during the last decades. The concept of practical knowledge refers to the cognitions that underlie to teachers' actions, including teachers' knowledge and beliefs and attempts to grasp the knowledge and skills that are "unique to the teaching profession." Insights into the categories that constitute teachers' practical knowledge have suggested that it is a multi-dimensional concept that entails several dimensions: knowledge of student learning and development, subject matter, purposes and goals for teaching the subject, curriculum, instructional strategies (Beijaard & Verloop, 1996; Meijer, Verloop, & Beijaard, 2002). As part of their professional development, teachers need to know about language and its relevance to support general cognitive development and specific subject matter competencies. A great deal is known about how young children learn language and literacy and how their learning can be supported in the educational context. Literacy is a secondary system that depends on oral language as the primary system, so effective early childhood teachers need to know a good deal about language and literacy in order to organize learning opportunities for children during the first years of life. Early childhood teachers who have better training show better educational practices, more appropriate to children's development, are more sensitive to their needs and show more informed understanding of appropriate educational practices (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). This study aimed to examine the practical knowledge evidenced by prospective early childhood teachers in their last year of preparation to teach language and early literacy to children from 0 to 6 years. 26 prospective early childhood teachers in their final professional practice, from 8 university teacher education programs located in the city of Santiago - Chile (2-4 students from each program). Data were collected through the elicitation and verbal explanation of concept maps (Novak, 2008; Cañas, et al., 1997; Rovira, 2003) a procedure used in previous studies in which teachers identify and relate concepts considered important for teaching, organizing them into a schema (Meijer, Verloop, & Beijaard, 2002). A descriptive qualitative design based on the Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 2002) was conducted. Results evidenced the majority of conceptual maps included three of the six dimensions examined: knowledge of subject matter (oral language and initial literacy), knowledge of pedagogical strategies to teach this subject matter and knowledge of children. Phonology and phonological awareness were identified as the most relevant learning goals in the early years and activities like phonological segmentation as appropriate practices to reach them. Vocabulary was also identified as a relevant goal and different kind of texts, particularly children stories as important pedagogical resources. Knowledge of subject matter and pedagogical strategies to teach language of literacy was supported by recent research base, even tough, schemas and explanations did not evidenced the complex integration of language and literacy learning, oral language and literacy were presented as different skills, that had to be taught at different ages and using specific pedagogical strategies. Knowledge of children and their context was also considered in most of the conceptual maps, but there was no evidence of a systematic assessment of children strengths and difficulties, in order to organize the learning opportunities. This research expands international evidence on teachers' practical knowledge, focusing on prospective early childhood teacher education, which has not been examined before. According to these preliminary results, the early childhood teacher education programs, recognized by a panel of experts as the best of the country, are not preparing their students to address children needs. More research is needed in order to obtain a more complete picture of early childhood teacher education to teach language and literacy.

Palabras clave : Professional training; Practical knowledge; Literacy learning; Concept maps; Initial education.

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