Page 222 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff
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222 Chapter 9 migrant pupils in general. Including all variables of CLASS and Snapshot in the analysis of our data might reveal more significant effects of the school learning environment for newly arrived migrant pupils irrespective of the school type. Due to time limitations we could not include these analyses in the current dissertation. All in all, it was difficult to draw firm conclusions about the effects of the school learning environment based on the language measures since we could only include the variables one-by-one in our models. With a larger population it might be possible to build a model that includes multiple explanatory variables at the same time. Furthermore, it would be desirable to develop learning profiles that account for both internal child characteristics (like age, home language, and motivation) and external child characteristics (like educational program, language use of peers, and percentage of language activities) are taken into account, which might result in different teaching approaches for learners with various backgrounds. 9.5.3 Language development and communicative competence Even though it is acknowledged in this present study that looking at language development through a communicative competence lens will benefit language development assessment, this study could not cover all segments of communicative competence. Based on the data that were collected in the present study, all segments of communicative competence (linguistic competence, discourse competence, sociocultural competence, and strategic competence) could have been discussed. However, due to time limitations and the fact that this study data collection was carried out by one researcher alone, not all segments were covered. Nevertheless, we agree with Sridhar and Sridhar (2018) who encourage researchers to work towards a holistic theory of second language acquisition. They encourage not only focusing on cognitive and structural dimensions of language acquisition, but also incorporating social, functional, and multilingual perspectives. In Chapter 2 the theory about communicative competence was explained and throughout the remaining of this dissertation the relation between the data and communicative competence has been discussed. The addition of a more communicative assessment instrument to the receptive vocabulary task – as was done by using the MAIN – already added value to the analysis of the language development. The data was collected in a more communicative context and children were freer to show their language abilities. Nevertheless, the data collected with the tool used to assess narrative ability, MAIN, can be a further source of information about especially the strategic competence of the pupils which in the current study has not focused on. In previous research on MAIN, only rarely video-recording was used (Bohnacker, 2016). Nevertheless, in previous studies with the MAIN no observations were presented about acting out parts of the story, the use of gestures, or other strategies to improve comprehensibility of the story. Video-taped narratives provide more natural language and 


































































































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