The demand for early multilingual education is growing – and consequently, the number of bilingual and multilingual daycare centers has also multiplied in recent years. However, professional guidance is lacking: Currently there are no practical manuals for bilingual and multilingual daycare centers; nor are there any systematic training, coaching, or mentoring programs available. This is precisely where QITA comes in: Researchers and practicing professionals are working together to develop a handbook of criteria, which selected pilot daycare centers then test in their everyday operations and provide feedback to the authors. Using English, Turkish, French, and Arabic as their second languages, the daycare centers cover a wide range of populations. At the same time, all of the pilot centers employ an immersion approach, in which children learn the new language in the same intuitive manner that they acquire their native languages. In the context of QITA, the participating daycare centers receive process-oriented support and are guided in reflecting on their work and developing it further.
Philipp Weber-Bertram