Dr Connie Lum, Dr Tan Chee Lay & Ms Wendy Toh

Abstract

Unlike teachers in mainstream schools, the professional development of early childhood educators in Singapore is often overlooked, particularly among Chinese language teachers in Singapore pre-schools, as in-service teacher education for early childhood educators is not mandatory locally. Currently, as early childhood education diploma programmes do not specifically cater to language teaching, Chinese language teachers are generally not wellequipped when they enter the field. This has created a growing concern for many teacher education providers in Singapore, which mainly provide pre-service teacher education. In 2010, Singapore Centre for Chinese Language launched a modular in-service teacher education programme to enable teachers fill the knowledge gaps and equip teachers with appropriate skills, as well as to promote advance learning and introduce new theories or concepts. In order for this programme to aptly cater to the professional development needs of pre-school Chinese language teachers, the Centre conducted a survey with 356 pre-school Chinese language teachers to identify the key areas of concern, such as the areas of inadequacies, timing preferences, and investigate the problems they face in their field. The questionnaire was adapted from a nation-wide training needs survey that the Centre previously conducted for all mainstream Chinese language teachers. T he questions and options were modified to suit the early childhood sector. Statistics were then generated and analysed to see how the existing in-service teacher education programme can be improved to better suit their needs. While the demand for training in specific topics has been ascertained via the survey data, the data analysis also revealed the inadequacies of current diploma programmes. This paper will also discuss possible development of a holistic competence framework in preschool Chinese language teaching and a long-term continuous professional development programme, that is both effective and feasible in our local context, to help teachers pursue and attain professional growth.