Understanding the Impact of Teachers’ Language Skills on Professional Development

Abstract

This professional development study explored how teachers’ receptive language skills impacted their use of language enhancement strategies. Twenty-one Head Start lead and assistant teachers participated in an online in-service designed to support their use of language enhancement strategies. Findings show that teachers’ receptive vocabulary predicted how often they used language strategies. Also, we found that prior to the professional development assistant teachers used fewer language enhancement strategies when compared to lead teachers. However, after receiving the professional development the gap between lead and assistant teachers’ use language enhancement strategies began to close.