Sampling

Qualitative case studies are likely to have two levels of sampling: selecting particular units of analysis can be regarded as the first level of sampling and selecting specific participants and activities in these units can be regarded as the second level (Merriam, 1998, 2009).

Sampling, in a broader sense, refers to the process of selection of particular research participants, times and events that the researcher includes and investigates in the study (Dörnyei, 2007; Merriam, 1998, 2009). Two main types of sampling procedures in research are probability sampling and non-probability sampling. Qualitative research usually follows a non-probability sampling method, and one of the most common sample types in this method is ‘purposive or purposeful’ sampling, in which the researcher selects a group of participants from whom ‘the most can be learned’ (Merriam, 1998, p.61). Various types of purposeful sampling strategies can

be listed as typical sampling, maximum variation sampling, unique sampling, extreme or deviant case sampling, convenience sampling and snowball or chain sampling (Dörnyei, 2007; Merriam, 1998, 2009).

In the present study the following sampling strategies were adopted in the selection of the schools, the classrooms to be observed and the groups of language teachers and students to be interviewed:

Typical sampling

Although there was no chance that they had completely identical backgrounds and features, the contexts and participants were selected to reflect the ‘average’ or ‘typical’ instances with regard to the focus of this study. In other words, the lessons observed and participants selected in this study had similar characteristics with their counterparts, especially within the selected school contexts.

Convenience sampling

Although this strategy is not particularly purposive, it is ‘largely practical’ and very often preferred by researchers in applied linguistics (Dörnyei, 2007, p.129). The schools, participants and events were selected according to their availability and accessibility, as well as the participants’ willingness to volunteer.

Chain sampling

This strategy was particularly used with the teachers. One teacher from each school was identified with the help of the principals and s/he helped me to find other teachers who would be interested in participating in this study.

Table 4.1. Sampling strategies

Sampling procedures also include deciding on an adequate number of participants and activities in data collection to answer the research questions (Merriam, 1998, 2009). As Merriam (1998, 2009) observes, numbers are likely to be revisited and revised during the period of data collection and/or first phases of data analysis. For example, although I had planned to involve four students as participants for the pilot study, I revised this number to eight during the data collection. This helped me to find out the underlying reasons and interpretations of particular actions and behaviours by the students in the language lessons. Including eight interviewees in the pilot also helped me improve my interview questions and skills for the main study. The details of research context and schedule will be discussed in detail in the following section. Number of Classrooms Number of Teachers Number of Teacher Trainees Number of Students Pilot Study 1 1 - 8 Main Study Phase I. 4 4 8 8 Phase II.

I selected the four classrooms to be observed according to the language teachers’ preferences and their accessibility. In three cases, we decided together with the teachers which days and lessons could be appropriate and available for both sides. Only in one case, the teacher herself determined which lessons I could observe. Although it had not been planned in the initial research schedule, I also involved eight teacher trainees in the study. The teacher trainees (TT, hereafter) were in their twenties and they were studying on their BA in ELT in one of the universities in Ankara. As a part of their last year course requirements, they were observing ‘real’ classroom practices in the schools. They also prepared and taught some of the lessons in the classrooms in this study. Since I attended some of the lessons with them and observed their teaching practices, and since some issues about their lessons were mentioned during the interviews with the students, I asked some of them to participate in this study. Eight of the TTs accepted to participate and the same ethical procedures discussed in the Section 4.9 were followed with them.

While selecting the students to be interviewed, I particularly took the following issues into consideration:

(1) Students who volunteered to participate in this research and who could allow some time during the lunch break for the interviews,

(2) Students who seemed engaged in the classroom activities (e.g. asking and/or answering questions, making comments about activities, discussing the content with his/her classmates and so on),

(3) Students who could be easily observed from the place where I sat in the classroom during the classroom observations.

In the main study, I had two students as participants from each classroom rather than one or more because of practical issues. Some of these issues are that: (1) the interviews were held during the lunch break when it was not always possible or efficient to conduct more than one or two interviews; (2) I wanted to use that limited time to interview the same participants more than once (on a weekly basis) in order to elicit and explore more information from these participants; (3) I wanted to control the amount of interview data within manageable limits in terms of organising, analysing and reporting the data.

4.5. Research context

This section includes information about research sites and schedules for both piloting and main data collection phases. The details about secondary education in Turkey and Anatolian high schools in particular were correct at the time this research was being carried out (2012-2013 academic year in Turkey).

4.5.1. Research sites

This research was carried out in two Anatolian high schools in Ankara, Turkey. Secondary education in Turkey covers two main types of high schools, which are namely general high schools and vocational and technical high schools (Ministry of National Education, 2008). Anatolian high schools were listed as one type of the general high schools (Table 4.3, accurate during the academic year this research was conducted). All administrative legislation and supervision related to these schools is carried out by the Ministry of National Education (hereafter, MoNE) in Turkey.

General High Schools

General High Schools Anatolian High Schools Science High Schools

Social Sciences High Schools

Anatolian Teacher Training High Schools Anatolian Fine Arts and Sports High Schools Table 4.3. Types of general high schools in Turkey

Anatolian high schools were opened as ‘prestigious public schools’ that offered English as a medium of instruction. That is, the school subjects such as science and mathematics were to be delivered in the foreign language in these schools. However, this requirement was abandoned in 2002 due to some problems such as the lack of qualified subject teachers who could deliver their lessons in English (Alptekin & Tatar, 2011; Doğançay-Aktuna & Kızıltepe, 2005). According to the regulations by MoNE, class sizes in Anatolian high schools are limited to maximum 30 students. The teaching days divided into two semesters and classes were held five days a week: Monday to Friday. These schools provide at least four years of formal education for the 14-18 age group. As the present study focuses on 9th grade classrooms, the student participants were 14-15 years old during the data collection. Like all Anatolian high schools, the selected two schools also accepted their students through a very competitive nation-wide exam. English language lessons were compulsory for all 9th grade students. The lessons were offered for 6 times a week and each lesson was 45 minutes long. In Anatolian high schools, 9th graders can also have 2 lesson hours of another ‘foreign language’ lessons. In this case, German was offered in both of the selected research sites.

In both of the schools selected in this study, students took a placement test in English at the beginning of the academic year. In School A, the students were divided into two groups as A2 and B1 according to standards of the CEFR. Classroom A.0 (the

classroom in the pilot study) and A.1 were identified as level B1, and Classroom A.2 was identified as level A2. In Classroom A.2, they used Solutions Türkiye A2 (Oxford University Press) in addition to the textbooks sent by the Ministry. In Classroom A.1, however, they mainly used Upstream Pre-Intermediate B1 (Express Publishing) and additional photocopies as they had not received the textbooks prepared by the Ministry. In School B, all of the 9th grade classrooms were identified as level A1 according to CEFR. Therefore, Classrooms B.1 and B.2 were both identified as level A1. They used Solutions Türkiye A1 (Oxford University Press) as supplementary resource to the textbooks sent by the Ministry. The CEFR lists A1 and A2 as ‘basic users’ and B1 as ‘independent users’ (see Appendix 1.2).

The details about the selected classrooms are given in the table below. Although all the classrooms had smart-boards, the smart-boards were not activated in the 2012- 2013 academic year due to some technical issues. When they wanted to use some interactive activities or the textbook software, the teachers brought their own laptops and used the projectors in the classrooms.

Classroom Number of students English lesson hours (per week) Proficiency level (CEFR) A.0 (Pilot) 30 6 A2

Individual desks, smart-board, white and green boards, projector, student lockers

A.1 30 6 B1

Individual desks, smart-board, white and green boards, projector, student lockers

A.2 26 6 A2

Individual desks, smart-board, white and green boards, projector, student lockers

B.1 27 6 A1

Two-student desks, smart- board, white and green boards, projector

B.2 24 6 A1

Two-student desks, smart- board, white and green boards, projector

As for one of the contextual details, I should also note that in School A, the language teachers had their own language teachers’ room separate from the main teachers’ room. In the language teachers’ room, they had a number or resources (e.g. textbooks, grammar and vocabulary activity books, both unabridged and abridged readings, audio materials etc.) as well as technological tools such as DVD players, a computer and a printer. The room was used only by the language teachers, which, as I observed, created somewhat visible borders excluding the language teachers from the other teachers. In School B, however, the language teachers did not have their own common room so they used the teachers’ room with other teachers. Due to the

limited space allocated to them, the language teachers had fewer resources stored in the room. Moreover, as I observed, the group of language teachers in School B seemed more integrated with other teachers although language teachers usually preferred to sit together around the same table.

4.5.1.1. Access issues

After I decided on my potential research sites, I contacted the principals of two Anatolian high schools through an intermediary. Although obtaining permission from MoNE was sufficient to access these schools, I wanted to find out how the principals would consider my presence as a researcher in their schools. When I received verbal confirmation from the principals, I started the formal procedures and sent the necessary documents to the Educational Counsellor of the Turkish Embassy in London. In June 2012, I obtained the official permission to conduct my research in the selected schools in Ankara (Appendix 3.2).

4.5.1.2. Presenting my research

When I went back to Turkey, I visited both of the schools in the first week of September 2012 and presented my documents to the principals (they had already received copies of the documents from MoNE). In both schools, the principals introduced me to the language teachers and asked them to help me in my study. Then, we arranged meetings with English language teachers in which I introduced myself and explained the design and purpose of my research as well as the ethical considerations. As for the purpose of my research, I told them that I was interested in materials selection and use in the classrooms and their thoughts about what could be ‘authentic’ in ELT in general. I also shared further information about the procedures (e.g. using audio-recording, introducing myself to the students). During these meetings, I also told them that I would like to be an active participant in the school context with the permission of the principal and that I could help them with lesson preparation or other related issues. Then, I asked the teachers if they were interested in participating in my research. The language teachers at School B seemed very ‘welcoming’ and enthusiastic and two of them volunteered to participate in my research (for the main phase).

The teachers at School A, however, were relatively reluctant and at the beginning they did not want to participate in my research. Except for one teacher, they stated that they would be very busy during the academic year and could not allocate time to my research. In fact, one of the teachers suggested me to find another school for the study. In another meeting, the principal told me that he could talk with the teachers and ‘ask’ them to participate in my research. However, I did not accept his offer due to ethical considerations as teachers were ‘free to decide whether or not to participate

in this study’ and I had to respect their decisions. Then I realised that teachers’ initial reactions might be because of several reasons such as (1) I was a complete ‘outsider’ in the school who wanted to observe their lessons, (2) I had official letters from MoNE so they might think that the reports/findings regarding to their lessons would be directly shared with the Ministry.

In order to overcome this situation, I decided to spend more time with the teachers and tried to introduce myself and my research closely as well as the details about ethical issues (e.g. confidentiality and privacy). Although I had planned to start the pilot study on 17 September 2012 (i.e. first day of the academic year), I could start it properly in the beginning of October. After our first meeting with the teachers at the beginning of September, I visited School A regularly every week for a month and spent time with them in the language teachers’ room during which I had lunch with them, joined their daily conversation and helped them to prepare some worksheets. At the end of this process, they ‘accepted’ me into their ‘community’ and some of them wanted to volunteer in my research. In the last week of September, one of the teachers unexpectedly invited me to her classroom and I could start the piloting phase.

4.5.2. Piloting

In research literature, it is often suggested that a researcher should pilot his/her research methods and procedures before conducting the actual project (Dörnyei, 2007, Richards, 2003). The piloting phase of the present research was conducted in the beginning of the first academic term and lasted for six weeks (September 2012 – November 2012). The main reason for allocating six weeks for piloting was that I wanted to become familiar with the research context in general and to observe the

nature of language teaching and learning experience in order to understand how I could relate the framework of authenticity to my observations and interpretations effectively. In addition, I wanted to use my research instruments and improve them to investigate this phenomenon under study efficiently.

In this phase, I observed only one classroom (i.e. Classroom A.0). During this process, one language teacher was a participant and one of her 9th grade classrooms was observed three-four times for five weeks. The classroom observation sheet presented in the next section was used during the observations. Although I planned two interviews with the teacher, I could have only one interview because she did not want to be interviewed more than that. Eight students from the classroom were interviewed two times during the pilot study. All of these interviews were audio- recorded with the permissions of the participants. Some informal talks related to lessons were also conducted with the participants but they were not audio recorded.

My initial plan was to analyse the data collected during the pilot study thoroughly and develop exploratory themes for the main study. However, due to time limit and other practical reasons, I could not analyse the data in depth. Despite this fact, I was consistently reflecting on my observation notes and interviews in order to be prepared for the following classroom observations and interview sessions. As will be discussed in Section 4.7, qualitative data analysis is a continuous and recursive process which starts with and continues during the data collection process. While I was transcribing and organising the data on my computer and reviewing them several times, I could develop possible ideas and themes for the main phase of the

study. However, I cannot overlook the fact that it would have been more beneficial and productive if I had analysed and discussed the pilot data in detail.

On the other hand, I found the pilot study very useful for me to get familiar with the school/classroom contexts and revise the research methods and techniques I used. During this period, I improved my observation and interview skills as well as my interview questions. As a result, I was more prepared for the main phase of the study.