Learning Language and Loving It™ Advanced Workshop for Hanen Certified Speech-Language Pathologists

The Learning Language and Loving It™ Advanced Workshop is open to speech-language pathologists who have taken the It Takes Two to Talk® Certification Workshop, and who have current Hanen membership.

Please note: If you are an SLP with no previous Hanen training, and you’re specifically interested in building language and emergent literacy in early childhood settings, you may take the entry-level Learning Language and Loving It Certification Workshop.

What the Learning Language and Loving It™ Advanced Workshop offers

The Learning Language and loving It Advanced Workshop draws on the teaching methodology covered in It Takes Two to Talk to provide you with a comprehensive and flexible approach to empowering educators to create enriched and inclusive learning environments for all the children in their care.

Learning Language and Loving It provides you with an effective approach to teaching educators how to engage children in frequent and meaningful interactions that improve the social, language and literacy development of all children, whether they are at risk, have special needs or are typically developing.

Why Take the Learning Language and Loving It™ Workshop?

►The ability to teach an evidence-based program to early childhood educators

The Learning Language and Loving It workshop certifies you to offer the evidence-based Learning Language and Loving It Program to early childhood educators and preschool teachers.

This program equips educators to facilitate the language and emergent literacy development of young children (birth to 5 yrs) during everyday routines and activities, and shows them how to become more sensitive to the individual needs and abilities of children, and to respond in ways that will be most helpful to each child.

During the program, educators learn how to implement three kinds of responsive interaction strategies that are known to promote children’s social, language and emergent literacy development:

Child-oriented strategies – These strategies encourage children to initiate and engage in conversational interactions so that educators can respond in ways that encourage the child’s continued engagement in the interaction.
Interaction-promoting strategies – These strategies encourage extended individual and group conversations between adults and children.
Language-modelling strategies – These strategies expand the child’s oral language skills and facilitate the development of decontextualized language.

Educators learn how to:

Promote every child’s language development using natural everyday activities, routines and play
Become attuned to individual children’s communication styles in order to engage every child in frequent, positive interactions
Become responsive to individual children and follow their lead
Adjust the way they talk to help children learn language and, in time, develop decontextualized language
Promote positive peer interaction, especially for socially isolated children
Facilitate language-learning in pretend play, including increasing children’s ability to engage in pretend play
Foster emergent literacy skills by making print “talk” in the classroom

Grounded in the most current research in the field of early childhood education, the Learning Language and Loving It Program has been field-tested and rigorously examined using randomized controlled trials. Its efficacy has been supported in a series of studies showing positive changes for both educators and children.

View a detailed research summary supporting the Learning Language and Loving It Program.

Find out more about how the Learning Language and Loving It Program helps educators.

►Assurance that all children in the classroom will benefit

Promoting the Learning Language and Loving It approach in early childhood settings ensures that every child receives the help and encouragement he needs. That’s because Learning Language and Loving It has a three-pronged, comprehensive approach aimed at:

Prevention of Language Delays for children at risk and second-language learners
Early Language Intervention for children with language delays
Language Enrichment for typically developing children

►The ability to effect lasting systemic change

The evidence-based approach of Learning Language and Loving It has been shown to achieve long-term change in educators’ interactive behaviour and consequent increases in children’s language productivity and peer interaction.

Among early childhood educators who have taken the Learning Language and Loving It Program, studies have revealed a significantly high rate of carryover, maintenance and generalization of the strategies they learn.

Each program participant is videotaped practicing the strategies in the classroom, and the Learning Language and Loving It Program Leader then reviews the tape together with the educator, identifying which strategies are being implemented successfully and which need to be modified or further adapted to meet the needs of the children. This feedback process is central to the success of the Learning and Language and Loving It program because it helps educators internalize the strategies and continue to effect positive change in their classrooms months after the program ends.

►Improved long-term collaboration with educators

Early childhood educators who take Learning Language and Loving It have learned skills which they then apply to all the children in their care. As a result, you’ll find that your ongoing consultations with them become easier since you’ll have a shared understanding and will be talking about children in the same “language”.

►Tools to apply The Learning Language and Loving It™ approach flexibly in your day-to-day work

Even if you are unable to lead a Learning Language and Loving It Program, you can use the helpful framework you gain for working effectively with educators in the following ways:

Individual consultations with educators using the Learning Language and Loving It guidebook and/or Program Slides DVD with Embedded Videos
Offering Teacher Talk™ — a flexible series of three one-day trainings that cover the key principles and strategies of the Learning Language and Loving It Program. Click here to find out more about offering Teacher Talk to educators.

►Resources to use in your Learning Language and Loving It™ Programs, as well as in your day-to-day work with educators

At the Learning Language and Loving It workshop, you’ll receive all the materials required to offer the Learning Language and Loving It program for early childhood educators, and to work effectively with them on an individual basis. These resources include:

1. The Learning Language and Loving It™ Making Hanen Happen Leaders Guide

A session-by-session guide which outlines how to offer the entire program and includes all program handouts and checklists.

2. The Learning Language and Loving It™ Program Slides DVD with embedded video clips and the DVD User’s guide

Contains slides and embedded video examples for use in each session of a Learning Language and Loving It Program or during individual consultations.

3. The Learning Language and Loving It™ Guidebook

An easy-to-read guide to help educators effectively build the social, language and early literacy skills of preschool children.

4. Teacher Interaction and Language Rating Scale

A useful video observation rating tool to evaluate educators' use of the Learning Language and Loving It strategies before and after the program.

Learn more about how you can use Learning Language and Loving It resources is your day-to-day work.

►Professional development hours

The Learning Language and Loving It workshop is a great way to earn professional development hours. In the United States, for example, the workshop is ASHA-approved for 2.1 Continuing Education Credits.

►Ongoing Support

As a Hanen member certified in Learning Language and Loving It, the Program Director and Hanen team will be there to support you and answer any questions you may have about running the program or using the resources. You’ll receive frequent updates on the latest news and research concerning language and literacy development in early childhood settings and the Learning Language and Loving It Program, as well as being able to network and brainstorm with your fellow members around the world.

Taking the Learning Language and Loving It™ Workshop

If you’re a current Hanen member with It Takes Two to Talk certification, find a Learning Language and Loving It Advanced Workshop near you.

View the Learning Language and Loving It Advanced Workshop Fact Sheet.