ABSTRACT

Research Findings: Conversing abstract concepts boost children’s language learning. Despite the numerous studies on the linguistic environment of early childhood education settings (ECE), most of this work disregards contextual factors that may influence abstract conversations and omits characteristics of children’s verbal participation in these interactions. We examined how preschool classroom contexts influenced the abstraction level of children’s conversations and how the context and conversational partners’ language influenced children’s verbal participation. We analyzed 2,928 utterances in 453 natural teacher and peer conversations during a one-week period in a preschool classroom. Bayesian analysis showed that children and teachers used significantly more abstract talk in small-group activities coded as math and science than other coded settings. Moreover, Bayesian analysis revealed that the abstraction level of conversational partners’ turns influenced that of children’s talk beyond the characteristics of the context. Interestingly, this association was moderated by the partner (teacher or peer). Practice or Policy: The inconsistent association between measurements of ECE quality and children’s outcomes invites practitioners to reevaluate what these measurements should assess. This study suggests the need to pay greater attention to the features of ECE settings that are conducive to children’s development, such as learning materials, grouping, and peer interactions.

摘要

研究成果：交谈抽象概念可以促进儿童的语言学习。尽管对幼儿教育环境 (ECE) 的语言环境进行了大量研究，但大多数这项工作都忽视了可能影响抽象对话的语境因素，并忽略了儿童在这些互动中口头参与的特征。我们研究了学龄前课堂环境如何影响儿童对话的抽象水平，以及环境和对话伙伴的语言如何影响儿童的口头参与。我们分析了幼儿园课堂为期一周的 453 次自然教师和同伴对话中的 2,928 条语句。贝叶斯分析表明，与其他编码设置相比，儿童和教师在编码为数学和科学的小组活动中使用的抽象谈话要多得多。而且，贝叶斯分析表明，谈话伙伴轮流的抽象层次对儿童谈话的影响超出了上下文的特征。有趣的是，这种关联是由合作伙伴（老师或同伴）主持的。实践或政策： ECE 质量测量与儿童结果之间的不一致关联促使从业者重新评估这些测量应该评估的内容。这项研究表明，需要更加关注有利于儿童发展的 ECE 环境的特征，例如学习材料、分组和同伴互动。