Observer et évaluer la qualité des interactions enseignant.e/enfants à l'école maternelle en Belgique pour soutenir le développement langagier des enfants de 4 ans : une étude exploratoire

Early childhood education is a privileged context for children to develop their language and communication abilities (Dickinson, 2011). More specifically, it is demonstrated that the quality of the interactions between teachers and children plays a protective role on language and communication development for more vulnerable children (Burchinal et al. 2010; Simard et al. 2013). The current study explores the quality of interactions in kindergarten in the French-speaking part of Belgium (second year for children of 4-5 years old). Observations took place in 17 classes, using the CLASS® Pre-K (<i>Classroom Assessment Scoring System</i>®, Pianta et al. 2008). Similar to other international investigations, our results show heterogeneity in the scores of the different classes. But overall, emotional support and classroom organization reach medium to high quality level, while instructional support shows a low average score. Some dimensions of the instructional support vary as a function of the teacher/children ratio and the type of activity. This exploratory study enables a reflection about language development support in early childhood education and raises questions about creative ways to optimize it.