IMPROVING THE PREPARATION OF PROSPECTIVE PRESCHOOL TEACHERS IN THE METHODOLOGY OF CHILDREN'S SPEECH DEVELOPMENT

The quality of language interaction in preschool classrooms is one of the strongest predictors of children's later language and literacy, yet teacher preparation often treats speech-development methodology as a body of knowledge to be memorised rather than a practice to be mastered. This article describes an approach to improving the preparation of prospective preschool teachers in this area, developed and tested in preschool education retraining courses at a regional center of pedagogical skills in Uzbekistan. Methodological readiness is conceptualised as comprising four components: knowledge of speech ontogenesis, diagnostic skills, design-and-delivery skills (including the teacher's own speech as a model) and reflection. The approach rests on three practices: analysis of authentic recordings of children's speech, microteaching of core speech-development techniques – in particular dialogic reading – and mentored practice in partner preschools. Compared with trainees in a conventional course, trainees taught with this approach became more accurate in describing what a child can and cannot yet do in speech, asked more open questions, expanded children's utterances more often and gave children more time to speak. The findings suggest that preparation improves when trainees learn to "hear" children's speech and rehearse specific techniques before using them with children.