Page 139 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff
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Pedagogical practices: focus on teacher behavior 139 6.4.2 Qualitative analyses of the CLASS In addition to the quantitative data in the previous section this section will describe the data more qualitatively, providing some examples of teacher behavior. The following are descriptions of the behavior of the highest and lowest scoring teachers in the three domains: Emotional Support, Organizational Support, and Instructional Support. These descriptions illustrate in more detail the pedagogical practices that were observed in the classrooms. The teacher who had the highest mean score on Emotional Support (5.44) was a teacher at a Mainstream school. In her classroom, positive climate was the highest. She used positive nicknames for the pupils, there were many shared activities, and the teacher shared the pupils’ enthusiasm. Another teacher who scored high (5.40) on Emotional Support was from another Mainstream school. She was sensitive to the pupils and showed high regard for the perspectives of the pupils. Furthermore, she acknowledged their emotions and reactions in class by reacting to them with an explanation or she shared their enthusiasm. The teachers who had the lowest scores on the domain Emotional Support were two teachers at two different DL2-schools. With their mean scores of respectively 4.10 and 4.13 they scored in mid-range, but for emotional support these are regarded low scores (cf. Buell, Han, & Vukelich, 2017; Pakarinen et al., 2010). On none of the occasions they scored 5 points or higher on one of the dimensions of this domain. Especially the dimension Regard for Pupils’ Perspectives could be improved with more flexibility towards the pupils (follow their initiatives) and pupil-centered focus. Two teachers who had the highest score on Organizational Support were from the same DL2-school (with a score of 5.50 and 5.47, respectively). One was particularly good on the Productivity dimension (6.00). The rules in her classroom were clear and visualized. Furthermore, the transitions during the day were smooth and short. The pupils and the teacher were engaged and there was a great variety of activities to choose from. The teacher with the lowest score (3.80) on Organizational Support was from a Mainstream School. The scores of this teacher were rated as particularly low on the dimension Productivity. On the dimension Instructional Learning Formats she did not score consistently, with three times a score of 5 and two times a score of 2. The observations with a score of 2 were at the start of the day when the pupils entered the class and sat waiting in a circle; the other one was during eating and drinking. The teacher did not maximize the learning opportunities at these points, she could have provided books, songs, or maybe an assignment to think or talk with a neighbor about a specific topic they would be discussing later. The Mainstream school teacher who scored highest on the domain Emotional Support also scored highest on the domain Instructional Support (4.00), which is relatively high. Especially her score on Language Modeling was much higher than those of the other 


































































































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