Page 64 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

64 Chapter 3 accustomed to me being part of their class and they had no difficulty with me assessing them in a separate room. As a teacher-researcher, I was confident that I could approach pupils and teachers in such a way that it was appealing for all parties to participate in my study. 3.4 Participating schools, teachers, and pupils In this section the participating schools, teachers, and pupils will be introduced. These participants will be introduced now because they are the same participants in all four sub- studies of this dissertation. Here we will discuss the participating schools, teachers, and pupils in detail, while in the subsequent chapters we will only briefly discussed the participants with specific tables summarizing the necessary descriptive statistics for that particular chapter. 3.4.1 Participating schools and teachers To recruit schools, all schools with Dutch as second language classes for newly arrived migrant pupils (around 300) listed on the website of a national organization for supporting the education for newcomers (named in Dutch LOWAN) were analyzed. It was rather difficult to analyze school guides and websites to figure out whether the school had kindergarten classes for newly arrived migrants or not. We were able to identify around ten of these 300 listed DL2-schools as having separate language facilities for kindergarteners in 2014. All these DL2-schools were approached and asked whether their kindergarteners could participate. Additionally, mainstream schools listed on the website having newly arrived migrant pupils were approached and asked whether they had young newly arrived migrant pupils in their kindergarten classes which would be willing to participate. Multiple schools replied, some schools replied in anticipation of receiving newly arrived migrant pupils; however, when this study began these children had not arrived yet, so these schools did not ultimately participate. In the beginning of 2014 kindergarten classes in thirteen schools all over the Netherlands, DL2-schools and mainstream schools were visited and preliminary observations were carried out in order for the researcher to get familiar with the different settings and schools. Due to practical reasoning the study continued with a total of ten schools: five DL2-schools and five mainstream schools (see Table 3.2). The schools were located in urban settings in different parts of the Netherlands that varied in population from 70,000 to over 600,000 inhabitants. The DL2-schools were a good representation since almost all known DL2-schools with kindergarteners participated, except for the DL2- schools adjacent to an asylum seeker center. These schools were left outside this study because we could not rely on the continuous participation of these children since their stay in that asylum seeker center was unpredictable. Practical reasons played a role in the