At the end of July, EducArt successfully completed the project “3 Ts: Interaction of Teachers, the Taught and Teaching materials” in partnership with Teach for Bulgaria Foundation. Within the framework of this project, a study of integrated language support was carried out, which was provided to children with a mother tongue other than Bulgarian (bilingual children) during classes in different subjects. The need for this project was dictated by the lack of empirical studies on the subject. With the integrated language support monitoring and analysis matrix developed for this project, 60 lessons were analyzed for participants in the Teach for Bulgaria program across different subjects and at all stages of training. The way teachers use the potential of teaching materials to develop reading and functional literacy, how they support vocabulary and speaking skills, what questioning and language correction techniques are used, and what effect they have on students, was explored.
Based on the data obtained, the specific needs of teachers working with multilingual children were identified and strategies and recommendations for integrated language support were offered across all the subjects. Also, the results of the study will serve as the basis for a follow-up project to develop teaching materials in Bulgarian as a second language, as well as trainings for teachers teaching children with a mother tongue other than Bulgarian.