Defining Criteria For Evaluating Cultural And Dialogic Development Of Bilingual Preschoolers

This paper examines an issue of cultural and dialogical development of bilingual children. The preschooler period is an essential time for learning a second language and forming ethnical and cultural components of education. The need for bicultural and bilingual education is urgent and vivid in Transbaikal Siberia region of Russian Federation as it is a multinational territory. Russian is the official language, and numerous members of the indigenous group of Buryat speak Buryat (minority) language. The study focuses on the Transbaikal Agin-Buryat preschooler institutions. Linguistic, cultural, and person-oriented approaches are used. The authors discuss criteria for evaluating cultural and dialogic development of bilingual preschoolers, taking into consideration that such a process is determined by a child’s identification of self in social relations and his or her ability to construct interactive dialogue using native and non-native languages. The study shows that cultural and dialogic development of a preschooler can be successful in a bilingual educational environment.