Audio-video recording set up

Depending on available technology, two or three camcorders, and two or four microphones were used. The camcorders were fixed and deployed as follows:

One camcorder at the back of the classroom. Where available, it was fitted with a wide-angle lens. The black- or white-board was always recorded by this camcorder. In France, this was a large XM2 camcorder on a tripod. In England, a SANYO VPC-CG100 on a gorilla pod was used. The presence of the former was more obvious, and looked more professional than the latter (to the point that

students from other classes, seeing the material, believed they would be on television), but it yielded a better quality of video.

One camcorder trained on the selected student. This was, in both countries, a small digital camcorder which could be placed on a shelf and which looked inconspicuous.

In France, one camcorder was set so as to capture the contents of the selected student’s notebook. For safety reasons, it was impossible to put it atop the student’s head, hanging from the ceiling, so this recording was mostly used to find out on which page the student was writing and could only be used in conjunction with photocopies or photos from their notebook.

The teacher wore a tie microphone.

The selected student wore a tie microphone; except for the mathematics lessons in England, where it was deemed less disruptive to place the microphone in a hole in the wall by the student’s seat.

In France, the selected student’s neighbour wore a tie microphone. In France, a fourth microphone was put on a table in the classroom.

This was only done as a consequence of the technology that we used for the other three microphones: they were linked wirelessly to a four- channel recording device (Edirol), and a fourth wireless microphone could be used at no extra effort.

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The technology used in either country was different, as the resources available in France were of much better quality; and as a result, the quality obtained in England was poorer than in France. Whilst it made transcription harder in the case of English data, there have only been a few isolated episodes that could not be transcribed.

The choice of only using fixed camcorders was consistent with the willingness for the observer to be as unobtrusive as possible (Heath et al., 2010)

3.4.3. Use of field notes

The role this complementary data plays is to give a better understanding of the classroom culture, in order to give the researcher/coder a backdrop against which to perform their work. This inner knowledge is itself strengthened by the physical presence of the researcher in the classroom when the recording took place15 – and, depending on access, without the cameras.

This presence of the researcher was also used to draw out a rough, general structure of the lesson prior to coding, which sped up the process; and to collect any data that may have been missed by the technological recording. To that end, the researcher would take notes during the interaction. Particular areas of interest were identified prior to the recording:

the use of the black/whiteboard. Depending on available technology, this would be photographed or copied out.

15

There is one exception to this, where, after the first recorded session, the teacher felt the students were behaving differently as a result of the presence of the researcher. It was then agreed that the cameras would stay there without the researcher – see chapter 9.

the seating plan, and positions of the camcorders relative to them. Classroom proxemics was not identified a priori as a specifically important element for our analysis; but this allowed us to refer to students both conveniently and anonymously in our notes.

the general structure of the lesson: what the aim of each section was, when changes happened, as it was felt by the researcher.

the register of language used in each segment (colloquial or subject- specific)

the contents of additional material (ISBNs of books where relevant) for possible future reference.

conflicts

The use of the first person was considered for inclusion in those notes, as it had been identified as a marker for change of position. However, it was discarded on two grounds. Firstly, that only occurrences in speech were easily observable enough for practical purposes, and as we remarked in chapter 2, these are not the only events that lead to positioning acts. Secondly, that the use of the first person was a very short event and its recording would therefore not fit with an episodic approach to the notes, and thus would be highly impractical and impede the observer heavily in the taking of the rest of the notes.

Initially, the notes were following a reference grid. However, due to access issues, this grid could not be piloted and the categories used to label the types of interactions were often too restrictive, meaning that general descriptions of the episodes observed were preferred. If the observation notes were the only data

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acquired in the classroom, the use of categories in the compiling of these notes would have been necessary to come to any conclusions about the nature of the interactions as a whole. However, given the use these notes were to be put to (detailed below), the grid system was quickly abandoned in favour of a free- flowing, episodic form.

These notes would then be used as a structural frame for the first treatment of the data: division into episodes was guided by observation notes, and segments of special interest were identified prior to transcription, which led to a preferential order of treatment. Conflicts, in particular, though rare, were useful in that rights and duties are made explicit in their rejection. Thus, we analysed them first in order to know what to look for in other segments. Whilst observer notes gave a first impression which weighed in on the analysis, all segments were transcribed and analysed as far as recording quality permitted.

The observation notes were also used as complementary data, especially when the quality of the recording was too poor. In those cases, they were treated as the rest of the complimentary data: a light by which to see some practices that were not understood.