Teacher Trainees’ Explicit Knowledge of Grammar and Primary Curriculum Requirements in England
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Video recording of four hours of teaching related to the following sentence level objectives (DfEE, 1998: 34-40) took place in February-March 2002:
- the function of adjectives (Linda, 7-9 year old pupils);
- distinguishing between common homophones, in this case: their, there, they’re (Harriet, 9-10 years);
- distinguishing personal pronouns and understanding differences between first, second and third persons (Catherine, 7-8 years);
- recognizing how connectives are used and ‘improving sentences’ (by using adjectives and adverbs) (Holly, 8-10 years).
Filming was followed by interviews recorded between the observer-researcher and trainee, while watching the recording of the lesson. Immediately after the lesson, the video was left with the trainees to identify episodes for discussion in stimulated recall interviews (SRI).
The SRIs were partly modelled on the Leicester SPRINT project (Study of Primary Interactive Teaching, reported in English et al., 2002; Moyles et al. 2003) in which VSRDs (video-stimulated reflective dialogues) were used by tutors and teachers who acted as co-researchers in the analysis of classroom interaction. On completion of the SRIs, and after a further teaching experience, the four trainees were brought together for two hours of Group Review using semi-structured interviews. These explored their grammar teaching, asking how they had learned grammar, how they had worked with the grammar objectives, and what they had learned from other teachers.
Each researcher viewed the video evidence independently, transcribing grammar events in each lesson. We then met, watched the videos and agreed upon the wording of transcripts. Finally, structured recall and group interviews were transcribed and revisited so that we could highlight common themes. Below, we report the critical incidents that trainees identified as particularly important or formative, the episodes discussed in SRIs.
