Page 152 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

152 Chapter 7 Table 7.3: The three Observation Categories and their six Indicators. Category 1: Activities In what kind of activities are the focal pupils engaged? Category 2: Interactions What type of interaction does the pupil have? What kind of teacher interaction is taking place? Category 3: Language use What kind of language situation is there? What kind of language is it? What type of language is used by the focal pupil, the peer with whom the focal pupil is interacting, and the teacher? Activities Pupils in a kindergarten class participate in many different activities per day. Therefore, the first question to be answered is: in what kinds of activities are the focal pupils engaged? The Activities are clustered into nine types: (1) Language Activities, (2) Literacy Activities, (3) Mathematical Activities, (4) Play, (5) Expressive Activities, (6) Physical Activities, (7) Routines, (8) Waiting, and (9) Other. When the activity could fall into more than one category, the most cognitive category is chosen, which is called positive coding (cf. Early et al., 2010). Interactions The first question in the category interaction is: what types of interactions do the pupils have? This could be (1) Teacher-Focal Pupil Interaction, (2) Peer Interaction, (3) Teacher Instruction, or (4) No Interaction or interaction with a parent. Only in the case of teacher interaction is this interaction is further analyzed. The second question about interaction was therefore: what kind of teacher interactions are taking place? This teacher interaction could be coded as Scaffolding or Didactic. Scaffolding involves a high-quality interaction in which the level at which the pupil is achieving is actively raised to a higher level by the teacher. Language Use The first question in the category language use is: what kinds of language situations are there? It is scored whether there is language around the pupil during the observation or not. Does the pupil hear language from the teacher involved in a group activity or in a one-on- one situation, or for example does the pupil hear music or sound from a television? The choice could be: (1) Dialogue, (2) Language Situation with Peers, (3) Teacher Talk, (4) Balanced Language Situation, (5) Self-talk, (6) No language, or (7) Other. The second question in the category language use is: what kinds of languages are there? The possible answers to this question were: (1) Dutch, (2) Language Other than Dutch, (3) Non-Verbal communication, or (4) Silence.