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Theoretical perspectives 39 Paradis, & Crago, 2008). Therefore, pupils need to catch up with their peers to reach their potential. To illustrate this dilemma better we follow Cummins (2008) when he refers to the difference between BICS, basis interpersonal communicative skills and CALP, cognitive academic language proficiency. Newly arrived migrant children need to learn Dutch to communicate with their peers and teachers, but also to follow the instruction in the school subjects. Pupils who learn the second language in the school context need proficiency in that language in all language domains and in all language skills to use it in all different content areas. In general, second language learners reach conversational proficiency at peer-appropriate level within two years, but they need at least five years to reach grade norms in the academic aspects of a second language (Cummins, 1981). Researchers need to be aware of the difference between these two types of language skills and should focus on how to support second language learners when they are in this catch-up phase to reach peer- appropriate levels on the academic level as well. 2.4.3 Individual differences Although it is important for all pupils to catch up with their peers as soon as possible, according to numerous scholars (e.g., Paradis, 2011; Unsworth, Hulk, & Marinis, 2011; Muñoz, 2008; Verhoeven, 1991; Wong Fillmore, 1983) second language development depends on various individual and external factors and thus not all second language learners can be expected to catch up at a similar rate or to a similar level. The many factors that can explain individual differences in language development can be categorized as child-internal and child-external factors (Paradis, 2011; Paradis et al., 2011). Child-internal factors are from the child itself, for example: motivation, personality, language learning aptitude, age, gender, and the structure of their first language. Child- external factors exist in the environment outside of the child, which can be the immediate environment of the family or the broader environment of the school or the society. Examples of child-external factors are: quantity, quality, and variation of the input in the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) at home or at school, the quality of interactions between child and parents, the nature of the language use in school, and the richness of the L2 the child is exposed to outside of the home and school. In the Sections 2.5 and 2.6 more detail is given about two aspects of language development, namely receptive vocabulary and narrative ability. For both skills, a brief overview is provided about how these two language skills develop in second language learners. We will also discuss how the school learning environment might influence this development since this will be one of the foci in this present study and therefore, this particular child-external factor will be investigated more thoroughly in a separate section, Section 2.7.