Page 155 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

155 Pedagogical practices: focus on focal pupils’ experiences The effect of school type was significant for Peer Interaction: F(1,2560) = 32.91, p < .001. The pairwise contrast showed that pupils at Mainstream schools were more engaged in Peer Interactions than at DL2-schools. The effect of school type was also significant for Teacher-Focal Pupil Interaction F(1,2560) = 4.83, p = .03. At DL2-schools, focal pupils were more engaged in interactions with only the teacher compared to pupils at Mainstream schools. When for the previous indicator of interaction “Teacher-focal Pupil interaction” of “Teacher gives instruction” was answered a subsequent question was used: “what kinds of teacher interactions are taking place?” Table 7.6 gives the estimated mean percentages. By far the most teacher interaction was “Didactic.” “Scaffolding” occurred only 5% of the time during teacher interaction in both school types. “No interaction” seems out of place here, but it is scored when a pupil was in interaction with the teacher, but at the exact 10 seconds of observation the teacher was distracted and not focused on the pupil. Additional analysis of the data about the teacher interactions did not reveal significant differences between the types of teacher interaction in the different educational settings. Table 7.6: (Estimate) Mean (Standard Error) of Percentage of Time for Teacher Interaction, per School Type. DL2-schools Mainstream schools Mean SE Scaffolding .05 .01 Mean SE .05 .01 .88 .02 .08 .02 Didactic No interaction Language Use .90 .01 .07 .01 As the final category the amount and type of language use that involved the individually observed pupils was coded. For language use, first the language situation itself was coded. The question that was answered is: what kinds of language situations are there? The results are presented in Table 7.7. Overall, one fifth of the day there was no language directed at, actively listened to by, or produced by the focal pupils. This does not mean that it was completely silent in the classroom, but it indicates that the pupils did not always pay attention to teachers’ and peers’ language use. Another fifth of the time teachers and pupils were engaged in a more balanced way in dialogues in a big group or whole class situation, usually when sitting in a circle. If the focal pupils were engaged in verbal interactions, this was most of the time with a peer (on average for the two school types respectively 26% and 42% of the time). One-to-one and small group dialogues between teachers and pupils were less frequent.