Classroom Observation

Classroom Observation

1. Learners can be uninformed subjects of the investigation or collaborators

2. Investigators can reflect about teaching and learning processes

3. Systematic Approach

   • It requires a formal setting
     • It implies direct observation
     • Observation and analysis are systematic
   • Classroom observation to:
     • To compare teaching methods
       • To study efficient classroom techniques
         • To evaluate teachers and materials
           • To see what is happening in a systematic way
   • Ethnography techniques are useful to study classroom event
     • Meanings given to successive classroom phenomena by participants
       • Takes into account all the students' participations

4. Interaction Analysis

   • Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) taxonomy
     • Student and Teacher talk
   • Foreign Language Interaction (FLINT) Taxonomy
     • Used as a research tool and as a feedback instrument
       • Student teachers analyze their teaching behavior
         • Themselves as potential teachers
   • Foci for Observing Communication Used in Settings (FIAC)
     • Applicable for classroom research

5. Discourse Analysis

   • Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching (COLT)
     • It is form-focused
       • Two headings: Classroom events and Communicative features
   • Craig and Chaudron proposal
     • Discourse is divided in two types: structural and functional units
   • Sinclair and Coulthard model
     • Discourse is comprise of five levels: lesson, transaction, exchange, move and act.

6. Ethnography

   • Researcher tries not to influence istruction and interaction
     • It includes comparison groups and quantitative and qualitative data
       • It revolves around two ideas: Context and the subjective perceptions and belief systems
   • Considered as
     • The elicitation of cultural knowledge
       • Detailed investigation of patterns of social interaction
         • Holistic analysis of societies
           • Descriptive
             • Development and testing of theory
               • Social research method
   • Constitutive ethnography characteristics
     • Retrievability of the data, Comprehensive data treatment. Convergence between researcher's and participats' perspectives. Interactional level of analysis
       • The major procedure is the detailed analysis of recorded data

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