Page 135 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

Pedagogical practices: focus on teacher behavior 135 materials instead of the emotional and instructional aspects of the processes in the classroom (La Paro, Pianta, & Stuhlman, 2004). The CLASS focuses on a concept of interaction which is known as proximal classroom process (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Proximal refers to the assumption that the actions and interactions that are called proximal are direct determinants of children’s learning and development (see Section 2.7.1 in Chapter 2). The scores of the CLASS represent the experiences of an average pupil in the class. It measures the quality of the teachers’ interactions with the pupils in class in three domains: Emotional Support, Organization Support, and Instructional Support (Hamre et al., 2013; Hamre & Pianta, 2007; Pakarinen et al., 2010; Pianta et al., 2015). These three domains are composed of ten dimensions: (1) Positive Climate, (2) Negative Climate, (3) Teacher Sensitivity, (4) Regard for Student Perspectives, (5) Behavior Management, (6) Productivity, (7) Instructional Learning Formats, (8) Concept Development, (9) Quality of Feedback, and (10) Language Modeling (see Table 6.2 and Appendix 3). For each dimension, three to four behavioral indicators are defined that have to be checked during the observations. Table 6.2: Schematic Representation of the CLASS Quality Domains and Dimensions The CLASS Emotional Support (1) Positive Climate (2) Negative Climate (3) Teacher Sensitivity (4) Regard for Student Perspectives Organizational Support (5) Behavior Management (6) Productivity (7) Instructional Learning Formats Instructional Support (8) Concept Development (9) Quality of Feedback (10) Language Modeling Emotional Support includes the first four dimensions: Positive Climate, Negative Climate (reversed for analysis), Teacher Sensitivity, and Regard for Student Perspectives. Positive Climate reflects the genuine enthusiasm, enjoyment, and respect demonstrated during interactions between the teacher and children, but also among the pupils in the classroom. Negative Climate is the degree to which the classroom has a negative emotional and social atmosphere: whether there are displays of for example anger, aggression, or harshness. Teacher Sensitivity is the extent to which teachers provide comfort, reassurance, help, and