Raising Intercultural Dialogic Competencies in Preschool Education: An Educational Programme
The aim of this paper is to provide a descriptive account of an educational program that attempted to cultivate intercultural dialogic competencies in preschoolers. The study was applied to 22 preschool children of a kindergarten with multicultural and multilingual composition in an urban city in Greece, and it was conducted during the school year 2022-2023. To that end, an educational program was designed and implemented, including traditional tales, cross-cultural games, cross-cultural exercises, and the encouragement of translanguaging as primary methods to improve the children’s cross-cultural understanding. The research utilized qualitative techniques such as document analysis, observations, and interviews. The axes presented in the current paper are methodological, thematic, and contextual. The results indicated favorable outcomes, suggesting that the program effectively amplified intercultural dialogical competencies among young children, fostering greater admiration and comprehension of diverse cultures.
Key words: young learners, interculturalism, dialogue, competencies, preschool