Page 193 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

The influence of the school learning environment 193 Interaction (see Table 6.8 in Appendix 6 with the estimated parameters). Pupils with higher percentages of time spent in Teacher-Focal Pupil Interaction, had a higher GIS compared to pupils who spent lower percentages of time in Pupil Interaction. 4,1 4 3,9 3,8 3,7 3,6 3,5 3,4 3,3 Minus 1 sd Mean Teach-Focal Pupil Interaction Plus 1 sd Age in Months Figure 8.12: Development of Guiraud Index Score with Teacher-Focal Pupil Interaction as Explanatory Variable. The addition of the variables percentage of time spent on Language Activities or percentage of time spent in Language Situations with Peers or Peer Interaction did not improve the general model of growth in GIS. This means that we could not show that the fact that pupils at DL2-schools were more likely to be engaged in Language Activities compared to pupils at Mainstream schools had any significant impact on the pupils’ development of lexical diversity as measured with the GIS. Additionally, we 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 lexical diversity as measured with the GIS. Measure of Lexical Richness (MLR) From the comparison between the consecutive models for the MLR score (Table 8.17) it is apparent that a model with a fixed linear component – allowing for differences in Age – fit the data better than a model with only an intercept (ΔΧ2 (MLRII) = 19.73; df = 1; p < .001). The variance within individuals depends on the age of the participants (ΔΧ2 (MLRIII) = 54.56; df = 2; p < .001). The variance between individuals is a (linear) function of age as well (ΔΧ2 (MLRIV) = 13.00; df = 1; p < .001). Adding Age2 to the model improved the fit significantly (ΔΧ2 (MLRv) = 6.43; df = 1; p = .01). Hence, in the final model (MLRv) a fixed 51 55 59 63 67 71 75 79 83 87 91 95 99 103 Guiraud Index Score