Learning of Latvian Language in Pre-Schools in Linguistically Heterogeneous Situations

Abstract

Topicality of the article is that the development of a child's speech today needs to become more important and be promoted, because increasingly teachers in pre-school face the situation of children entering the pre-school environment with poorly developed vocabulary and insufficient skills to make a request to be able to communicate effectively with peers and adults. The aim of the article is to study the promotion of the Latvian learning of children of pre-school age in the pedagogical process in theoretical and practical terms, by implementing various methods and through the provision of the educational environment. The research includes analysis of scientific literature and methodology for learning the Latvian language of children aged 5-6 years old in pre-school education institutions of Riga and Kurzeme, evaluating audio records, and qualitative analysis of the observed facts. Research question – how to improve the acquisition of Latvian language of native speakers and minority pre-school age children? The research was conducted in May and June 2019 and the data were received from 4 pre-school educational establishments in Kurzeme (75 records) and 5 pre-school educational establishments in Riga (75 records). Pre-school child language records were performed in groups with Latvian and Russian as the daily languages. On the basis of the results of an empirical study, the promotion of Latvian learning for children of pre-school age has been updated in the pedagogical process, by developing a knowledge-based environment appropriate to the approach of competence. To become more familiar with the reasons for improving a child's insufficient Latvian language, as well as to help find an objective view of the results of learning the Latvian language in the pedagogical process of implementing various methods, the experimental methodology for phonology, grammatical, (morpho) phonology and reading skills developed in the project, was used.

Untitled

“…According to the analysis of 397 children's speech recordings and an express survey of pre-school teachers (Markus et al, 2021a, 26). Ja pirmsskolēnu grupā ar dominējošo krievu valodu bija bērni no jauktās ģimenes, kurā tika runāta gan latviešu, gan mazākumtautību valoda, rezultāti bija labāki, tomēr pētījuma laikā pārliecinājāmies, ka pilnībā bilingvālu ģimeņu bija ļoti maz (Markus et al, 2021b). Tātad ne visi mazākumtautību bērni bija gatavi sākt 2020./2021.…”