Experience, Knowledge about Language and Classroom Practice in Teaching Grammar
THE DATA
The data come from two separate studies of EFL teachers in Hungary and Malta respectively, and here I discuss one teacher from each of these larger studies. I begin by outlining the methodological background to the data I present.
In both studies the underlying methodological principles were derived from an exploratory-interpretative view of research (Grotjahn, 1987), which is committed to understanding the perspectives on their actions of those being studied. It focuses on the meaning of particular events, aims to generate rather than to verify theory, and adopts naturalistic rather than experimental research designs.
Data collection and analysis in the studies were cyclical - collection and analysis occurred throughout the period of field work, with each successive stage of data collection being influenced by the analysis of the data already collected. The core procedures followed in each study were as follows:
1. An audio-taped semi-structured interview lasting about one hour was first held with each teacher. The aim of this first interview was to establish a profile of the teachers’ educational background, language education, teacher education, and experience of teaching. In interviewing of this type, the researcher uses an interview schedule as a guide to the themes which need to be discussed. Question order and wording, however, are adapted to fit the specific manner in which the interview develops. In addition, the interview may also cover issues not directly listed in the schedule but which may arise during the course of the conversation.
2. Classroom data for each teacher in the study were collected through unstructured classroom observations. Detailed descriptive field notes of observed lessons (at least five lessons per teacher) were made, and copies of instructional materials collected. The ability to provide accounts of real classroom events relevant to grammar teaching was seen as fundamental to the research. Such accounts would provide the concrete backdrop against which teachers’ KAL and practices could then be discussed in the interviews.
3. In analyzing the observational data I focused on key instructional episodes, which are classroom incidents which shed light on or generated questions about teachers’ KAL and about its impact on their approach to teaching grammar. Occasions where the teachers were presenting grammar to students, for example, or where they were responding to students’ questions about grammar, were typical key episodes.
4. A further two hours of audio taped semi-structured interviews were conducted through which the observed classroom practices were discussed. The focus in these post-observation interviews was the discussion of the key episodes identified in the observation data. Fieldnotes and instructional materials relevant to these episodes were shown to the teachers and they were encouraged to articulate their perspectives on these incidents, examining in particular connections between these and their KAL.
5. Interview data were subject to content analyses through which they were read several times and through which recurrent themes were identified. These themes were then linked together in order to construct the narrative accounts for each teacher which I present here. One representative key instructional episode was also chosen from the database for each teacher and included in the narrative to highlight connections between teachers’ KAL and their classroom practices in teaching grammar.
