Page 51 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

Theoretical perspectives 51 their classroom tend to be more familiar with the academic needs of the individual children in their classroom (Helmke & Schrader, 1988). Furthermore, studies show that the quality of the social and emotional interactions in the classroom predicts pupils’ performance on standardized test (Pianta et al., 2005) and it predicts pupils’ engagement in the classroom (Bryant et al., 2002; NICHD ECCRN, 2002b). Regarding high quality instructional support, teachers monitor pupils’ performance and they provide additional explanations and ideas (Meyer, Wardrop, Hastings, & Linn, 1993). Already in 1986 Brophy concluded based on a large body of research that when teachers emphasize academic objectives and use effective management strategies pupils in their class achieve more. These teachers provide their pupils with feedback through scaffolding and support (Yates & Yates, 1990). Due to increased pupil engagement in lessons with high instructional quality these pupils function higher academically (NICHD ECCRN, 2004). Furthermore, Hamre and Pianta (2005) found that high-quality instructional support had a positive effect on pupils who were at-risk and improved their academic performances. Focusing on actual teacher behavior during instruction is more important than looking at the implementation of a specific program, as Justice, Mashburn, Hamre, and Pianta (2008) concluded. They looked at the relation between procedural fidelity and quality of language and literacy instruction. Procedural or curriculum fidelity is whether a teacher implements the procedures of a curriculum in an accurate, efficient, and appropriate way. Even though most participants in the study of Justice et al. (2008) were able to implement the lesson plans as they were intended, the quality of the instruction was considered low. Focusing on language development, teachers did not provide instruction with strategies such as asking open-ended questions, repeating and extending children’s utterances, or modeling advanced vocabulary. Also, for literacy instruction the quality could improve if the instructions were more explicit, systematic, and purposeful. Research proved that with professional development of teachers the quality of the classroom can be enhanced (e.g. Hamre et al., 2012; Pianta et al., 2014). 2.7.3 Focus on focal pupils experiences When the focus is on teacher behavior mostly the classroom as a whole is observed, without specific attention to specific children, called the focal pupils. When the focus is on specific targeted pupils, a different pattern might be observed compared to whole group observations. First, it is interesting to investigate which activities a pupil is engaged in during a day. It could be that a certain pupil has different activities than the larger part of the group, or that the teacher is not engaged in the activity of that particular pupil. In a study by Kutnick et al. (2007) several European countries were compared from this perspective. They found a high degree of similarity across the countries: “a majority of children’s activities were undertaken with peers and with relatively little planning or