Characteristics and language-responsiveness of early childhood educators' affective-speech inside the classroom

Abstract

Increasing attention is being given to early childhood educators' verbal abilities due to its well-recognized role in teaching and learning by means of a plurality of meanings that are transmitted through them to children. Nevertheless, moderate interest has been devoted to the study of these abilities when addressing the affective domain in early childhood educators' interactions with children. Therefore, this study identifies qualitative nodes of characteristic uses, meanings, and phrasings produced by these professionals and associated to the affective domain, to then access the degree of expertise in such communicational interactions with preschool children. Through a mixed cross-sectional design, twenty early childhood educators provided a large number of continuous audio-recordings while working in regular educational environments, to identify sentences that, by their phrasings, recall an affective connotation. The findings suggest 8 differential nodes of affective connotations: Positive emotions v/s Negative emotions; Teaching v/s Learning processes; Expression, distinguish, sharing and/or inhibition of emotions; Emotions before, during, and after behavior; Calls for attention, warnings, reprehension and praise; Touching and the body; Increasing, decreasing and normalizing language; and, educators' own emotions. The degree of linguistic expertise was identified by experts and a blind sequential procedure, showing early childhood educators' affective-speech is mostly limited to noticing children's emotional experiences. The scope of these findings is briefly discussed taking into consideration future studies as well as its contributions to early childhood educators' formative processes.