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.

This study used Latent Class Analysis to identify groups of children exposed to similar Home Language and Literacy Environments (HLLE) and explored whether belonging to a given HLLE group was related to children's language and early literacy growth from prekindergarten to kindergarten. Participants were 1,425 Chilean mothers and their children (M age = 52.52 months at baseline) from low-socioeconomic status households. Four HLLE groups were identified, which were associated with different trajectories of language and early literacy development. Children from groups whose mothers either read and talk about past events with them or teach them letters in addition to reading and talking about past events, showed higher relative vocabulary and letter knowledge. Implications for research and interventions are discussed.

The aim of the study was to explore teacher-child interaction in 24 whole-class read-aloud sessions in Chilean kindergarten classrooms serving children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Fifteen sessions focused on story meaning, and nine focused on language coding/decoding. We coded teacher and child turns for their function (i.e., teacher initiation, child response, teacher follow-up), type (e.g., open/closed questions, directives; confirmation, elaboration), and complexity (i.e., literal/low vs. inferential/high language). We found considerable variability in reading approaches. Teachers in meaning-oriented sessions initiated more inferential conversations, whereas in code-oriented sessions the majority of initiations had low complexity. Confirmations were the most recurrent follow-up type, while elaborations occurred mainly during inferential conversations. Overall, teachers strongly determined the complexity of the conversation by means of their initiations. The study expands Anglo-American and European findings to the Latin American context, illustrating the commonality of read-alouds as early childhood education practice and underscoring that teachers can engage children from low socioeconomic backgrounds in cognitively challenging conversations.

Positive student engagement is a prerequisite for students’ educational success. In this study, a microanalytic approach was used to explore patterns in teachers’ use of specific motivating teaching behaviours from the perspective of self-determination theory in relation to indicators of students’ positive engagement. The lessons of 52 teachers were observed and event-based coded. Results showed that specifically asking motivating questions and providing positive feedback and support during exercises were associated with subsequent positive student engagement. Unexpectedly, some demotivating teaching behaviours were also found to relate to positive student engagement, although to a lesser extent. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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