If we would ask the children. The potential of productive interaction for second language acquisition from the early beginning

In Flemish schools, a high proportion of children with an ethnic minority background underachieves. It is commonly accepted that underachievement is closely related to limited academic language proficiency. The nature of early second language learning is perceived as an implicit and automatic process driven by affiliation with significant others. Powerful modes of teacher-child interaction, like productive classroom talk, are therefore essential in terms of second language learning success.

Most studies in primary and secondary school settings, however, have approached productive talk qualitatively. Little is known about the potential of productive talk for pre-schoolers in terms of its relation with second language acquisition (SLA), especially for learners-at-risk such as ethnic minority children. Furthermore, studies on affective priming show that reference to significant others, like participants’ mothers, leads to higher scores for linguistic tasks. Most affective priming studies, however, are conducted in laboratory settings rather than in authentic classroom situations. In this dissertation, we will examine whether the affective priming paradigm and the productive interaction approach can be used as affiliative language learning boosts for pre-schoolers with a Turkish background acquiring Dutch as a second language in Flanders. Participants were aged 5/6 and were in the third year of kindergarten during data collection.

The data collection consists of two main parts: a field experiment and a longitudinal study. In the field experiment (N = 98), we examined whether reference to ethnic minority children’s parents in productively addressed and non-addressed classroom interaction had a positive effect on early second language acquisition. A 3 by 2 field experiment was set up: participants were exposed to a task-based neologism story in differently manipulated learning situations. The story was told in three different conditions: a parent condition, a stranger condition and a control condition. In the parent condition, the story was told against the background of pictures of participants’ parents. In the stranger condition, the same was done, but against the background of pictures of unknown adults. In the control condition, the story was told against a traditional classroom background with no pictures in it. In each condition, two subconditions were implemented: a productively addressed and a non-addressed group (overhearing). Language tests measured the effects of the treatment on participants’ receptive and productive SLA, while controlling for initial language proficiency and school liking.

Analyses revealed no significant effects for affective priming. However, significantly stronger novel word learning was found for learners with a higher initial language proficiency and for learners who were addressed productively. Furthermore, non-addressed school dislikers outperformed non-addressed school likers, suggesting that the possibility to overhear productive classroom talk – alternated with participating in this type of talk – constitutes a powerful language learning situation for pre-schoolers who dislike school.

In the longitudinal study (N = 104), we further explored different modes of teacher talk (active-productive, passive-productive and non-productive) and examined how the use of these different modes was related to participants’ second language development during the school year. Analyses revealed significantly stronger second language development for participants who were mainly addressed active-productively as compared to those who were addressed non-productively. Furthermore, interview data concerning teachers’ beliefs suggest the active-productive mode is associated with high expectations towards pre-schoolers and an autonomy-supportive conceptualisation of kindergarten education while the non-productive mode seems to be associated with low expectations and a control-focused conceptualisation of kindergarten. Overall, the research findings suggest that productive classroom talk has the power to boost second language development and to contribute to more equal education opportunities from the early start.