Nanke Dokter

258 Stimulating academic language during mathematics instruction The measurements of the knowledge on AL and AL stimulating strategies, and the attitude regarding AL stimulating behavior did not show significant differences between the experimental and the control group. Therefore, no significant effects were found in the personal domain. However, a significant effect was found in the domain of practice: student teachers from the experimental group showed a significantly higher variety in the use of AL stimulating strategies than student teachers from the control group. This result has to be interpreted with care, because only thirteen student teachers handed over pre- and post-test video recordings. In the domain of con- sequences, some evidence was found in the evaluations. Student teachers and the teacher educator both indicated improvement of language awareness. Involvement and appreciation of the student teachers correlated with their salient outcomes. A better involvement and higher appreciation of the lessons correlated with gaining more knowledge about AL and AL stimulating strategies. High involvement also correlated with understanding the importance of using AL stimulating strategies and high appreciation correlated with better knowledge on how to use the AL stimulating strategies. The conclusion is that effects of the training were found in the domain of practice (based on a small amount of participating student teachers) and in the domain of consequences, but not in the personal domain. Because many student teachers did not follow the training as it was designed, the view on the training might be distorted. To gain a better insight regarding the effec- tiveness of the training, the learning process of three student teachers was investigated more closely. These three student teachers performed all the assignments in the training. Their materials were analyzed and an interview was conducted with them two years after they followed the training. The results showed that the way they enacted and reflected differed from each other. Although the learning process of all three student teachers was different, they all showed professional growth. One student teacher learned the most during the training, one student teacher started the learning process after the training and the third student teacher learned both during and after the training. The training started a learning process for all three student teachers: that means that the training can be effective if it is carried out as intended. Reflections Reflections relate to four topics: academic language, the relation between AL and mathematics, stimulating AL and training in AL stimulating behavior. These reflections lead to recommendations for future research. Academic Language This research expands existing research on AL. Eleven features of AL could be reduced to five key features: lexical diversity, lexical specificity, lexical complexity, grammatical complexity and textual complexity. Using these key features it became clear that teachers primarily used the features lexical diversity and lexical specificity. The features