Page 201 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

The influence of the school learning environment 201 could not show that the fact that pupils at Mainstream schools were more likely to be engaged in Language Situations with Peers and Peer Interaction compared to pupils at the DL2-schools had any significant impact on the pupils’ development of Story Structure either. Structural Complexity (SC) Like with SC and CLASS, the reliability for the General Development Model of SC and Snapshot (with 162 cases) was too low: .35. Hence, at least 65% of the observed differences do not relate to SC but can be seen as random noise (error of measurement) instead. Therefore, we refrained from building a General Development Model and did not investigate what the effects of the school learning environment are in this General Development Model of SC. Internal State Terms (IST) Like with IST and CLASS, the reliability for the General Development Model of IST and Snapshot (with 162 cases) was too low: .48. Hence, at least 52% of the observed differences do not relate to IST but can be seen as random noise (error of measurement) instead. Therefore, we refrained from building a General Development Model and did not investigate what the effects of the school learning environment are in this General Development Model of IST. 8.4 Summary and conclusion The goal of this chapter was to answer the final research question: To what extent do differences in the characteristics of the school learning environment during the first year after arrival relate to receptive vocabulary development and to narrative ability development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners during the first two-and-a-half years of schooling in the Netherlands, in school types 1 and 2? The pedagogical practices in the school learning environment have been studied on two levels: with the focus on teacher behavior, see Chapter 6, and the experiences of the focal pupil, see Chapter 7. As reported in Chapter 6, the two variables that differed significantly between the school types with respect to teacher behavior were the specific dimensions of Positive Climate and Regard for Student Perspectives. Pupils at Mainstream schools were more likely to have a teacher that provided a more positive climate and took into account students perspectives than pupils in DL2-schools. As reported in Chapter 7, when we looked at how the focal pupils’ experiences differed based on whether they were enrolled in a mainstream Dutch school after arrival to the Netherlands versus whether they were enrolled in a program with intensive support in the Dutch language, we found that there was a significant difference in the amount of time they spent in six types of activities, interactions, and language situations. Pupils enrolled in