ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

1. Talk to Your Baby Janet & David Townend ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

3. Improving early language development leads to • Bigger vocabulary • Better sentence construction • Earlier reading and writing readiness • Readiness for learning other languages • Enhanced cognitive potential but, are babies in Tanzania getting a good enough early language experience?

4. Encouragements and Challenges • ‘Are you sure Tanzanian mothers don’t talk to their babies? • ‘Of course mothers interact with their babies…’ • ‘That makes complete sense to me…’ • ‘Go for it!’ and finally, from MoEVT “Let’s do it” Many meetings followed.....

6. We went to the field • We piloted the attitude questionnaire • We taught a lesson to Standard 5, about the importance of talking to babies • We talked to groups of mothers in village churches

10. Now the project looks like this • Key activities (to be completed): • Community-based research • Focus on community reach for intervention • Incorporation of learning into existing early childhood development (ECD) provision • Incorporation in curricula (primary, adult & training of relevant professionals) • Training of trainers • Learning packs for self-study • Information campaign

11. Partner organisations (so far): • Inter-ministerial Task Force (3 ministries) • UDOM • WAMA • Children in Crossfire • VSO • TECDEN • Monduli Pastoralist Development Initiative + UDSM, UWEZO, World Bank, Save the Children, TAWREF, CSWD (Mafia) are getting involved

12. What the stakeholders are doing now • Shifting ownership from volunteers to Tanzanian stakeholders. • Expressing their strong desire to bring about behaviour change, starting now. • Distributing responsibilities between stakeholders. • Following up their commitment to using existing routes • Focusing on rural poor, as the most needy group • Making progress on the key activities

14. Research evidence ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

15. Nobel prize winning economist and child development expert, James Heckman, wrote recently: “Skill formation starts in the womb. The early years of a child’s life before the child enters school lay the foundations for all that follows”

17. Neural connections for language (Harvard University) • Are established mostly in the first year • Depend upon a good language environment • Question: How many words do you think an infant in Tanzania typically hears at home in one hour?

18. Number of words heard

19. Literacy acquisition depends on language levels at 24 months (Blanden, 2006) Academic success correlates very highly with size of vocabulary at age 5 (Roulstone et al., 2011)

20. International researchers agree that: • Language skill is central to intellectual and social development in children (Cain & Oakhill, 2007) • Some say it is the most important factor (Harvard University) • Language development is most active in the first year of life (Ryan & Deci, 2000) • Early language experience is the most important experience for children to achieve their potential (Sylva et al., 2008)

21. Why start early?

22. Cost to benefit ratio of interventions in early education • Is highest in the first three years (Doyle et al., 2007) • This is before the start of formal education (Heckman, 2011)

23. What affects ECD?

24. What affects ECD? Home environment is even more important than length of time at preschool

25. Conclusion Parents must be their child’s first teachers Education starts at birth

26. Effects of socio-economic status

27. The rich win on • Better school readiness • Larger vocabulary • Fewer behaviour problems • This is why Zungumza na Mtoto Mchanga must target the disadvantaged. In Tanzania, that means the rural poor.

28. What do we already know in Tanzania? • Anecdotal & observation evidence so far: • Little verbal interaction between parents and babies • Parents do not expect babies to need / understand language • Hardly anyone knows of the importance of early language

29. There is now a need for: • Baseline research to establish present language experience of babies • Attitude survey to establish current beliefs & practice about language & babies • Investigation of the effectiveness of capacity building among families • Reporting of the findings

30. References • Harvard University Centre on the Developing Child. ‘In Brief: the science of early childhood development’. www.developingchild.harvard.edu . 2007. • Blanden, J. ‘Bucking the trend – what enables those who are disadvantaged in childhood to succeed later in life?’. 2006. Cited in DfE/DoH ‘Supporting families in the foundation years’. London, UK: HMSO, 2011.  • Roulstone, S.et al. ‘The role of language in children’s early educational outcomes’. London, UK: DfE, 2011. • Cain, K. And Oakhill, J. ‘Children’s comprehension problems in oral and written language’. Guilford Press, 2007. • Harvard University Centre on the Developing Child. ‘In Brief: the science of early childhood development’. www.developingchild.harvard.edu . 2007.  • Ryan, R. and Deci, E. ‘Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions’. Journal of Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol. 25, pp. 54-67. 2000. • Sylva, K. et al. ‘Effective pre-school and primary education 3-11 project: pre-school, school and family influences on children’s development during Key Stage 2 (age 7-11)’. 2008. Cited in DfE/DoH ‘Supporting families in the foundation years’. London, UK: HMSO, 2011. • Taylor, M. ‘The politics of parenting’. In Brack, D. et al. ‘Re-inventing the state: social liberalism for the 21st Century’. 2007. • Doyle, O. et al. ‘Early childhood intervention: rationale, timing and efficacy’. 2007. • Heckman, J. ‘The American family in black and white: a post-racial strategy for improving skills to promote equality’, 2011.