Classroom observation

Classroom observation was adopted in order to understand teachers’ practice pre- and post-DR (RQ 2) and to triangulate information from the interview. It has been frequently employed in collecting data about teacher’s beliefs (Borg, 2005) as a method for observing instructional behavior in an actual educational setting (Patton, 1987; Bryman, 2012), and it helps to avoid the inaccuracy and bias of data that comes from the interviews with participants (Gall et al., 2007).

In contrast to its advantages, the main limitation may be a change in behavior as a result of observation and video recording (Labov, 1972). Teachers may behave in a way that is different to how they normally act to serve the purposes of the study and students may be excited with the recording which encourages them to act differently. The second limitation is that it can be time-consuming as it requires a researcher to observe and take notes during class and the data needs to be transcribed and interpreted after observation (Bryman, 2012). The third problem was a personal bias which is influenced by the personal experiences and beliefs of the researcher (Gall et al., 2007).

To minimize some limitations, all the teachers were informed about the purposes of the study and they were told that no factors would harm their teaching career as pseudonyms were used and all evidence would be eradicated after the study (Appendix B for information sheet for students and Appendix C for information sheet for teachers). Furthermore, frequent observation for eight weeks (approximately 7-8 lessons of two hour lessons (21-24 hours) and 7-8 lessons of one-hour lesson (7-8 hours) of each teacher) should reduce the effects of classroom observation as the more frequently I appeared in the classroom, the more familiar the students and teachers would be with my presence. Regarding time, only lessons or teaching concerning vocabulary instructions were transcribed and analysed. With regard to problems of bias, avoiding the use of positive and negative notes or comments in class might diminish these problems (Appendix O for example of observation notes and Appendix P for lesson descriptions).

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In particular, this present study involved reactive observation in which teacher participants knew they were being observed (Allwright and Bailey, 1991; Gall et al., 2007). It was a natural observation as participants were observed in their actual real-life setting (Kothari, 2004; Gall et al., 2007). It was an unstructured observation in which all lessons were noted down without specific features being identified beforehand (McKechnie, 2008). As a non-participant researcher, there was no interaction between the teachers and me, or the students and me (Kothari, 2004; Dörnyei, 2007). It was also an uncontrolled observation as it took place in a naturalistic setting in which no definite pre-determined plan could be arranged and there were no precision instruments aided the observation (Kothari, 2004).

An unstructured classroom observation form was employed instead of some observation schedule, such as COLT (Spada and Frohlinch, 1995). As the main aim of the study was to capture how teachers taught vocabulary, COLT was inappropriate because it was grounded on a communicative approach which captures features of communication (Allen et al., 1984); therefore, it might not suit to observing a specific domain of vocabulary skills. Furthermore, as I could not be certain how the teacher would teach or emphasise vocabulary skills, the pre- determined categories did not match the main purpose of the study. Particularly, this study employed an unstructured observation form adapted from a T-chart observation tool which was easy to use, simple to record the data of teacher talk and suitable for teachers without much experience on classroom observation (Gall and Acheson 2011; Malu, 2015) (Appendix N for an example of unstructured classroom observation form).

As the focus of the study was vocabulary teaching, how teachers taught vocabulary, steps of their teaching, how teachers gave explanation or the wording they used to explain vocabulary, time spent on teaching vocabulary, students’ reactions and classroom atmosphere were all noted down on the observation form (Appendix O for an example of observation notes) during observations in the lesson throughout the second half of the semester, with all five Reading and Writing course teachers. During the observation periods, students tended to look at me and the video recorder on the first day. After that, they did not seem to show interest in my presence anymore. Teachers acted naturally as if they were not bothered by having the video recorder on. However, it was a Reading and Writing course; therefore, the other skills of reading and grammar or writing were also noted down on the form. Each of the five teachers’ teaching was observed for over 8 weeks. Two lessons were observed per week: the first day a two-hour session and the second day a one-hour session. Each teacher’ lessons were not equal as shown in the summary table 3.3. Apart from notes concerning their teaching, questions in relation to their practice were also noted down, such as why there was revising at both the beginning and

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end, why they introduced other aspects including word families, why they would always use this technique, etc. After observation, all the questions or points noted from the observation forms were used to form questions to be asked in DR sessions. One audio recorder and two video cameras (at the front and back of the classroom) were used to record the phenomena taking place in classes.

Table 3.3 Summary of lessons observed