In the Netherlands, some municipalities offer separate schooling to newly arrived preschoolers in order to provide them with specific second language support, next to the general support, to facilitate their integration into the mainstream system up to two years later. The underlying reason for withdrawing pupils from mainstream education is that a minimum proficiency level in the language of instruction would be needed to facilitate the inclusion of the young child in mainstream education. To date, there is still no evidence to support or reject this strategy. In this study, we focused on the types of interaction between the pupils and their teachers depending on the organization of schooling. Does the type of facility matter with regard to the development of the school language? We compared the amount and quality of the interactions of the pupils among each other and with their teacher. To this end, we observed the classroom activities and interactions of 17 teachers and of 49 newly arrived preschoolers (mean age 5;5) in 10 schools. Each teacher was observed once and each pupil during twice. First, by means of the CLassroom Assessment Scoring System (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre 2008), we focused on the teachers. We observed the emotional support, the classroom organization, and the instructional support that they displayed. Then, using the Emerging Academics’ Snapshot (Ritchie et al. 2001), we focused on each pupil: with whom do the interactions take place and in which language? Overall, we found a lower classroom quality compared to results in previous studies with CLASS (a.o. Henrichs & Leseman 2016; Mashburn et al. 2009; Pakarinen et al. 2010). Additionally, we found that the instruction climate on mainstream schools was more child-directed than on separate language schools while the separate language facilities made better use of the time and provided relatively more opportunities for the child to learn. The second measure revealed more teacher-pupil interactions in separate language schools as opposed to a higher amount of peer interactions in mainstream schools, some of them including the home languages of the pupils. In this presentation, we will discuss the results in the light of the curricula. While in the Netherlands schools are bound by end-goals, each school may choose how to reach these goals. We will propose a pedagogical focus on inclusion at microlevel (i.e. classroom practices) as opposed to a focus on the organizational form of the schooling.

Based on: Groothoff, F., de Graaff, R., Leseman, P., & le Pichon- Vorstman, E. (submitted). Dutch perspectives on education for newly arrived migrant kindergarteners at national, school, and classroom level. In Li, F., Gibb, R., & Pollock, K.(eds.) Research in child second language acquisition: Towards an integrated understanding. John Benjamins: Amsterdam Henrichs, L., & Leseman, P. (2016). Onderzoeksrapport VVE Utrecht 2012-2015. Wetenschap en Werkveld ontmoeten elkaar in actieonderzoek. Universiteit Utrecht. Available at https://www.uu.nl/sites/default/files/vve_utrecht_onderzoek_henrichsleseman.pdf Mashburn, A.J., Pianta, R.C., Hamre, B.K., Downer, J.T., Barbarin, O.A., Bryant, D., Burchinal, M., Early, D.M., & Howes, C. (2008). Measures of classroom quality in prekindergarten and children’s development of academic, language, and social skills. Child Development, 79(3), 732-749. Pakarinen, E., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Poikkeus, A.-M., Kiuru, N., Siekkinen, M., Rasku-Puttonen, H. & Nurmi, J. E. (2010). A validation of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System in Finnish kindergartens. Early Education and Development, 21, 95-124. Pianta, R. C., La Paro, K. M., & Hamre, B. K (2008). Classroom Assessment Scoring System—CLASS. Baltimore: Brookes. Ritchie, S., Howes, C., Kraft-Sayre, M., & Weiser, B. (2001). Emerging Academics Snapshot. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles.