Page 130 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

130 Chapter 6 6.1 Introduction There is general agreement that the quality of the school learning environment is linked to child development outcomes (see, for example Yoshikawa et al., 2013 for a summary of research on this topic). To measure the quality of a program or a learning environment, many researchers focus on observed social and instructional interactions and on transactions among teachers, children, and materials, known as process quality (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Howes & Ritchie, 2002; Pianta et al., 2005; Pianta, 1999; 2003). The exchanges between teachers, children, and materials in early education settings also influence language development (e.g., Howes et al., 2008; Mashburn et al., 2008; Hamre & Pianta, 2007). Factors of the school learning environment concern among other things, the quality and the quantity of the language input which depends on interactions in the L2. The main source of input in the L2 for most newly arrived migrants comes from the interactions they have at school. Therefore, in the present study the pedagogical practices of the school learning environment of second language learners, and the possible influence they have on second language development is examined in more detail. In both Chapter 6 and 7 the school learning environment of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners will be reported. In the present chapter the focus is on teacher behavior, while Chapter 7 will focus on focal pupils’ experiences. The central question of Chapter 6 is: What are the differences in characteristics of the school learning environment regarding teacher behavior between DL2-schools and Mainstream schools?16 The present chapter is structured as follows: before discussing the data collection, a brief review is given (Section 6.2) about what is already known about the influence of teacher behavior on child-outcomes using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008). Then the methodology (Section 6.3) and results (Section 6.4) of data collected from 17 participating teachers from 10 different schools is discussed. The chapter ends (Section 6.5) with a summary and discussion, which will be extended in Chapter 9. 6.2 Pedagogical practices: focus on teacher behavior 6.2.1 Previous research with the CLASS Since 2008 the CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008) has been used in many different studies concerning analysis of classroom quality, to evaluate the quality of education and care 16 This research question was written in Chapter 3 as sub-question (c).