Page 136 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

136 Chapter 6 encouragement to the pupils. Regard for Student Perspectives reflects the extent to which classroom activities can be initiated by the pupils and to what extent the teacher includes the ideas of the pupils in the activities. Organizational Support is measured by three dimensions: Behavior Management, Productivity, and Instructional Learning Formats. Effective Behavior Management includes the teacher’s ability to use methods to prevent and redirect children’s misbehaviors effectively. Productivity reflects how well the teacher manages instructional time and routines so that there is more time available for learning. Instructional Learning Formats includes the availability of activities, methods of presentation, use of groupings, and the range of materials that teachers use to maximize pupil’s engagement. Instructional Support is also measured by three dimensions: Concept Development, Quality of Feedback, and Language Modeling. Concept Development considers the strategies teachers use to promote pupil’s higher order thinking skills and creativity through problem solving, integration, and instructional discussions. Quality of Feedback focuses on the quality of verbal evaluation provided by the teacher to the pupils about their work, process, comments, and ideas. Language Modeling is about the amount of sustained conversations and open questions in the classroom and how rich the language the teacher uses is. 6.3.3 Procedure All 17 participating teachers were assessed using the CLASS during multiple activities on one morning from 8:30 to12:00. For most teachers, 4 to 6 activities were observed (which corresponds to 4 to 6 different CLASS observations), making a total of 79 observations with the CLASS (see Table 6.1). One of the teacher had planned to assess pupils individually which did not seem to be a proper activity for a CLASS observation and, therefore, only 2 activities with that teacher could be used for observation with the CLASS during the morning in that classroom. Following the CLASS manual, the separate observations were done in periods of 20 minutes. After taking notes for the 20-minute observation period, the observer left the classroom, analyzed the notes, filled out the observation form, and calculated the scores. After approximately 10 to 20 minutes, the observer returned to the classroom for a subsequent observation round. All observations for each participating teacher were compiled to compute a mean score for all different CLASS dimensions per teacher, following the prescribed CLASS procedure.