Page 160 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

160 Chapter 7 interview with the teachers of the focal pupils in the ten different schools. Specifically additional information about the pedagogical approaches, strategies, and teaching materials proved valuable for the qualitative comparison. At the national level, there are no guidelines indicating which methods and materials schools should use in the Netherlands. Therefore, teachers in both school types designed and developed their own curriculum based on existing textbook materials complemented by recent didactics and materials. In total, the teachers of the 42 focal pupils–in 10 schools–named eight different methods on which they based their activities. However, none of the teachers claimed to follow a specific method strictly. Like in most Dutch kindergarten classes, the daily activities were organized within one general theme (which would last a few weeks), such as, shopping, spring, traffic, or being sick. The themes were made explicit by means of crafts and pictures displayed on the walls in both schoolings. Specifically, all teachers at DL2-schools noted that they adapted the existing methods for mainstream kindergarteners to make them more suitable for newly arrived migrants and complemented them with extra word cards, games, craft activities, worksheets, and digital presentations. The number of new words presented to the pupils varied from lesson to lesson and from school to school (with a minimum of five words per lesson); although one DL2-school made clear that each day twenty new words should be taught. In all DL2-schools word clusters with pictures were visible on the walls, which were not observed in all Mainstream schools. Two Mainstream schools also reported that they adapted their methods. They claimed that they based their adaptation on goals from the observational methods19 they use, not specifically designed for the focal group. All Mainstream schools also work with explicit vocabulary instruction, but there are considerable differences between the schools. One school sometimes only teaches two words in a vocabulary lesson. During the Snapshot observation such a vocabulary lesson took place and it was not obvious why these two specific words were chosen, nor did it seem that they were part of a general theme–the words did not reoccur during other lessons of that morning. At only two Mainstream schools, word clusters were made visible in the classroom with pictures and written words. During the snapshot observations none of the teachers spoke a language other than Dutch. It was noted that the teachers did comment on the use of other languages by the pupils, mostly in a negative way. One of the teachers, for example, told the observer that she must regularly remind the Polish pupils in her Mainstream school “you are at school now,” meaning, at school they must speak Dutch, not Polish. At the time of the observations, deliberately including home languages in the daily activities was not part of the official school policy of any of the schools in the study. In at least two schools of the 19 KIJK! Groep 1 & 2, Bazalt, Vlissingen, https://www.bazalt.nl/expertise-kijk.