Teacher-child interactions are the most important factor that determines the quality of early-childhood education. A systematic review was conducted to gain a better understanding of the nature of teacher-child interactions that multilingual children are exposed to, and of how they differ from teacherchild interactions of monolingual children. Thirty-one studies were included. The included studies (a) mainly focused on multilingual children with low language proficiency in the majority language and (b) hardly compared between monolingual and multilingual children. The review shows that teacher-child interactions of multilingual children are comparable to the interactions of monolingual children, although teachers do adopt different strategies to facilitate the development of multilingual children, such as the use of the home language and nonverbal communication to support understanding. Worryingly, several studies indicate that multilingual children are exposed to unequal learning opportunities compared with their monolingual peers.
Nowadays, classrooms include children coming from a wide range of cultures and speaking different languages. Teachers are therefore challenged to create appropriate learning opportunities for very diverse children. The current study examined the unique contribution of general classroom interaction, individual teacher-child interactions and behavioral engagement, on early literacy and executive functioning development of monolingual and multilingual kindergartners. Nineteen classrooms were followed for one school year. On three occasions teacher and children were observed for teacher-child interactions and the children were assessed on engagement, early literacy and executive functioning. Research findings: The results show that learning outcomes of both multilingual and monolingual children were positively associated with high engagement in large groups and frequent interactions with the teacher. Furthermore, monolingual children's favorable academic outcomes were predicted by complex interactions; multilingual children's favorable outcomes were predicted by low classroom organization. Practice or policy: The present study emphasizes the importance of recognizing the differences between monolingual and multilingual children in their needs in the classroom, as well as recognizing that these groups might be unjustifiably exposed to different educational experiences, in order to optimize the learning opportunities for all children, regardless of their language background.
Early childhood education serves an increasing number of multilingual children, and teachers are challenged to create high-quality learning opportunities in the classroom for all children. The child’s engagement and interactions with the teacher are important in this respect. The present study therefore examined how multilingualism relates to engagement and teacher-child interactions, taking a person-oriented approach. During one school year, 76 kindergarteners (43 multilingual) from 19 classrooms were observed for behavioral engagement and individual teacher-child interactions. Five engagement profiles were identified that reflect different levels of engagement across classroom settings. Multilingual children were overrepresented in profiles that showed lower engagement in one or more settings. Also, five interaction profiles were identified that showed strong diversity in the interactions of teachers with children in their classroom. Monolingual and multilingual children were equally represented across these profiles. Children in the more beneficial interaction profiles were also often in the moderate-to-high engagement profiles.
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