Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

In an increasingly bilingual world, Quinsigamond Community College (QCC) has an innovative program for training multilingual early educators.

For five years, QCC’s Dual Language Program has offered courses that are taught in English and Spanish to family childcare providers. Classes are offered during the day and at night to give students scheduling flexibility.

Connecting family child care providers to higher education is crucial work because these early educators are typically working on their own in their homes — where they may not have easy access to colleagues or to the onsite college classes that some center-based providers offer.

The goal of the dual language program “is to impart early childhood content first in the student’s native language with a gradual increase of English proficiency over the four course sequence,” QCC’s website explains.

According to Charlene Mara, QCC’s Early Childhood Education program manager, “It’s important to remember who the childcare providers are servicing. They are servicing many English-speaking children, so it’s very important to be proficient in English, as well as their native language.”

In addition to meeting students’ specific language needs, the program also has a unique structure. Classes are taught or co-taught by Miluzka Munoz-Noriega, who has also taught at Boston’s Urban College.

There’s also a “tutor” — a teacher from QCC’s Children’s School — who attends classes and serves as a mentor. The tutor’s role includes acting as “a liaison between the students and the instructor for course assignments” and “individually supporting students as they develop stronger English skills.” The tutor also helps with required reading and writing assignments “from both the literacy aspect and the early childhood aspect.”

In addition, stronger early childhood students are sometimes paired with students who need extra help. This strategy has worked in other QCC early education programs, and it helps build networks among early educators.

To provide workplace support, QCC student teachers visit the dual language students in their child care settings to observe and help out.

Forging connections through in-person classes pays off. As one family child care provider explained in a 2015 report from the University of Massachusetts Boston:

“I’ve taken online classes in the past and I’ve had trouble navigating them, so I like going and actually listening to the teacher and being able to ask questions. The thing I find most valuable is listening to my classmates and being able to ask questions there.”

Next Tuesday, the first group of students to complete the dual language program will celebrate their accomplishments at a fiesta-themed potluck. And in May, they will take part in QCC’s formal graduation ceremony in May.

Congratulations to these students — and to Quinsigamond for increasing early educators’ access to higher education.