The aim is to raise teacher awareness of how to support children’s language development by transforming learning environment, opportunities and interactions.

A professional development programme (PDP) focusing communication supporting environment (Dockrell et al., 2015) was implemented in line with earlier findings on how to efficiently change teacher practice (Kraft et al., 2018; Snyder et al., 2015). Few studies on such PDPs have been conducted (e.g. Edlund 2025).

Based on the sociocultural perspective, we used a PDP as a conceptual framework to reflect on factors that support children’s language development.    

In this study, we analyse changes in teacher awareness and practice from a quantitative and qualitative point of view, as reflected in observation, survey and interview results within a larger one-year PDP involving three preschool units. The PDP was a collaboration between the preschool units and university language professionals.

Informed consent was obtained from all the participating teachers. To preserve confidentiality, all names and locations have received pseudonyms. Since the sole focus was on changes in teacher awareness, no observation data on children was collected.  

Preliminary findings show that the professional development programme increased teacher awareness of what constitutes language learning environments, opportunities and interactions, and their use of communication supporting strategies.

This study highlights collaborative gains between language professionals and preschool teachers. It indicates that a combination of a few lectures, workshops, self-reflection, discussion and observations in an iterative fashion has potential to make a considerable improvement in preschool communication supporting environment and make it inclusive for all children.