Teachers’ strategies in providing opportunities for second language development

PhD ceremony: Ms. J. Schuitemaker-King, 11.00 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: Teachers’ strategies in providing opportunities for second language development

Promotor(s): prof. C.L.J. de Bot

Faculty: Arts

Schuitemaker’s study forms part of a large-scale longitudinal study on the effectiveness of bilingual education in the Netherlands. One part of the project investigated pupils’ English language proficiency. This study is the second part of the project and investigates teachers’ discourse during lessons to these same pupils. The lessons are taken from three instructional contexts: subject classes to pupils in the bilingual streams, English support classes to the same pupils and mainstream English language classes.

The objective was to analyse teachers’ use of didactical strategies which provide pupils with opportunities for second language development. The data relates to five areas of discourse: teachers’ use of Dutch (L1) and English (L2) during presentation of content and in interactional discourse, modifications of teacher-input, question forms during interaction and corrective feedback given to learners. The study compares the three instructional contexts and presents conclusions about the differences in the number and types of strategies.

Results show that instructional context is a factor in the amount of Dutch and English used by the teachers, with English support teachers showing the highest level of use of L2. Subject teachers have a high use of L2 and mainstream English teachers have the lowest level of L2 use. English support teachers reveal a higher number of modifications and divergent questions than teachers in the other two groups. A range of didactical strategies providing opportunities for language development occur in all three contexts, and the type and number of corrective feedback strategies are dependent on the instructional context.