Page 76 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

76 Chapter 4 Table 4.2: Descriptive Characteristics of the Participants in the Receptive Vocabulary Assessments at Session 0. Gender Exposure to Dutch at School Boys (%) Girls (%) DL2-school 53.1 46.9 (in months) Mean sd. 1.81 1.49 2.90 1.79 2.07 1.61 (N = 32) Mainstream school (N = 10) Total (N = 42) 4.3.2 Measurement 40.0 60.0 50.0 50.0 In the present study the PPVT-III-NL (Schlichting, 2005) was used to measure pupils’ receptive vocabulary development. The PPVT, a standardized test, is available in many languages, and is used worldwide to evaluate word knowledge of participants from the age of 2;3 to 90 years old. The PPVT can be used with monolingual and bilingual children; however, the standardization has been based on monolingual norms only. The PPVT consists of 204 test sheets with four pictures each. The participant hears a word and is asked to choose the corresponding picture. In order not to interfere with other language tests used in school, we chose a test that had not been administered to the participants before. The PPVT was chosen in our study because it is a test that is not commonly used in Dutch schools and the PPVT seemed to be suitable as a curriculum-independent instrument. 4.3.3 Procedure All participants were assessed four times using the PPVT: Session 0, 1, 2, and 3. The first two sessions took place within the first year after the child had arrived in the Netherlands. The mean time interval between Session 0 and Session 1 was approximately 6 months, between Session 1 and 2 approximately 9 months, and between Session 2 and 3 it was 12 months (see Table 4.1). For participants at DL2-schools, Session 2 took place about 6 months after their transfer to a mainstream school. Thus, in the final two sessions no participant attended a DL2-school anymore. For participants already at a mainstream school the date of Session 2 had been set on about 1.5 years after the beginning of their school career in the Netherlands. All pupils were assessed individually in a separate room at their school. The PPVT was administered using a laptop computer with touch screen (see Figure 4.1 for the set-up). For each item the pupils saw four pictures on the lap top screen, and after hearing the target word they were asked to point to the picture that matched the target word best.