Purpose
The study investigates picture book dialogues between kindergarten teachers and multilingual children to gain insight into the types of questions that promote adequate responses. The aim is to better understand how question formulations can support language development in multilingual children, and how kindergarten teachers can adapt their dialogue to promote children’s active participation and learning. The research questions are: 1) What types of responses do multilingual children give to different types of questions? 2) What is the distribution of adequate responses to different types of questions under the conditions with and without a script?
Result
The study found that kindergarten teachers asked the most semi-open-ended questions, followed by closed-ended and open-ended questions. The children responded adequately to semi-open-ended questions in 70% of cases without scripts and 54% with scripts. With regard to closed-ended questions, the proportion of adequate responses was 65% without scripts and 38% with scripts. Open-ended questions promoted adequate responses in 57% of cases without scripts and 39% with scripts. The study concludes that semi-open-ended questions often promote adequate responses, but that variation in question types and adaptation to children’s skill levels are important in supporting children’s language development.
Design
The data were collected through video observation of picture book dialogues in Norwegian between four kindergarten teachers and nine multilingual children aged four years. The dialogues were transcribed and encoded. 3464 exchanges from the dialogues were analysed, focusing on the question types (open-ended, closed-ended, semi-open-ended) and the children’s responses. The kindergarten teachers used both scripted and non-scripted questions.
References
Holmen, F. J., & Haakonsen, S. (2023). Spørsmålstyper og responser – en studie av bildebokdialoger mellom barnehagelærer og flerspråklige barn. Norsk tidsskrift for logopedi, (4), 6–17.