Seminar Thursday 27 August: Dr. Yvette Slaughter and Siobhan Hannan, Early Childhood language learning and teaching in Victoria

​Presentation Blurb: In 2019, the Victorian government introduced the Early Childhood Language Program (ECLP), whereby children in selected early childhood settings play and learn through a language other than English for between three to 15 hours per week. Although a small range of bilingual and language programs do exist at the early childhood level in Australia, this program is pioneering in its support for the supernumerary provision of language educators to support language learning at over 150 early childhood centres. In this presentation, Yvette Slaughter will present an overview of the program, of the professional learning (PL) provided to teachers and the key concepts guiding language teaching and learning at the EC level. As part of the PL team, as well as being a practicing teacher of Italian in an EC centre, Siobhan Hannan will provide insights into the challenges of teaching language within an established EC program, of working with the emergent nature of learning at the EC level, as well as introducing a range of effective pedagogical techniques for helping children learn language through play-based experiences.

​Presenter Biographies: Yvette Slaughter is Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She is co-editor of Challenging the Monolingual Mindset (2014) and currently working on research focusing on the use of plurilingual pedagogies and engagement with linguistic repertoires in early childhood, primary/secondary and adult educational contexts.

​Siobhan Hannan is a kindergarten teacher. She was the founder of the NW Brunswick Italian kindergarten program, and is currently a language teacher with the Victorian Government 'Learn Languages’ program. She also lectures in early childhood education, and has a PhD in early childhood languages pedagogy.