Teacher-Student Interaction in Bilingual Primary Education

Abstract

The present study took place in the context of a national pilot study on bilingual primary education (BPE) in the Netherlands (Jenneskins et al., 2020). Interaction plays a crucial role in language acquisition; therefore, this study aimed to outline current practices by teachers and relate this to insights from earlier language acquisition research. Initiation-response-feedback (IRF) patterns were studied following distinctions set out by Wierenga (2014), and the teachers’ use of the students first language (L1) Dutch was studied. Data included classroom observations at four groep-5 teachers (students’ age 8-9) from four schools, which were transcribed and coded for analysis. Furthermore, interview data was used to interpret the data. Results indicate that the verbal dominance of teachers exceeded that of students, some teachers mostly asked closed/display questions, and others asked mostly open/reference questions. The types of questions were susceptible to change by context; most teachers asked significantly different questions in different lesson parts, and in a prescribed lesson format compared to the other observed lesson. All teachers used positive feedback more often than other types, and focused most of their feedback on content rather than language form. Two out of four teachers used Dutch during the lesson for didactic purposes, to correct students’ behaviour, and due to a limited proficiency in the target language. Native language of the teacher and school type did not influence the results, but views on language acquisition and limited proficiency in the target language seemed to explain some of the variation between teachers in the question types, feedback focus, and use of the L1. Therefore, the suggestion was made to adhere to a minimum proficiency level of CEFR-level B2 (Council of Europe, 2001) in English for teachers in this type of education, and to inform and train teachers based on insights from language acquisition research.