SEGMENTING CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES

Alun Rees

Abstract
Engaging in classroom research offers one route to personal professional development. Such research can take many forms. This paper describes an observation scheme designed for the systematic observation of EFL classrooms, based on a conceptualisation of teaching events in a form familiar to teachers. The segment, a naturalistic unit designed to capture this aspect, is defined. This acknowledges the multi-dimensionality of classroom events by enabling the observer to code four major aspects simultaneously: Topic focus, Teacher activity, Learner activity and Class grouping. The resulting observation device – the Rees Observation Template (ROT) – may be readily adapted by researchers, trainers or teachers for their own use.

Research and classroom complexity
The very word research can daunt practising teachers for a variety of understandable reasons (see Rees, 1992). But personal research offers a route to awareness of the routinised and often unconscious behaviours of which much teaching is composed. Routine is essential for a sense of security, otherwise chaos rules. But routine can mask aspects of reflex behaviour which the teacher might not approve of were they actually reflected upon. Research can encourage a personal de-robotising process by forcing into consciousness not only those aspects of our teaching which we endorse, but also those which we may not consider conducive to student learning. Lest we forget, the ultimate aim of all classroom research should be to improve learning.
However, there are as many ways to consider classrooms as there are classrooms. Furthermore, classrooms and the language used in them operate on many levels at once. Attempts to unravel this surprising complexity have ranged from the statistical quantification of teacher/learner verbal and non-verbal behaviours, to ethnographic analysis modelled on the techniques of anthropology. There is no right or wrong in this matter, for in the final analysis the approach each researcher adopts depends on personal preference and interest.
How then should the tyro researcher proceed? The normal initial move is the prudent one of familiarisation with some of the existing instruments developed in the brief history of systematic classroom observation. Fortunately, the task is facilitated by the wide-ranging schemes described in anthologies such as those by Simon and Boyer (1970), Galton (1978) and Allwright (1988b). This avenue offers the advantage of avoiding rediscovery of the wheel. However, the bewildering array of devices with which the reader is faced can be demoralising for the faint-hearted, and often difficult to grasp.
Why difficult to grasp? Part of the answer lies in the apt words of De Bono (1969:30), even though he did not have classroom observation in mind when he wrote them:
‘ … Matters are often made more and more complex by the ability of man to play elaborate games that feed on themselves to create bewildering structures of immense intricacy, which obscure rather than reveal. The only thing that these structures do reveal is that man has the ability and compulsion to play such conceptual games.’
A glance at the above-mentioned anthologies will swiftly reveal that the complexities of classroom happenings are all too frequently reflected in the impenetrable intricacy of the instruments devised to disentangle them.
And matters are made yet more complex by the lack of universal conformity among learners, teachers, classrooms, methodologies and educational goals. This renders it extremely unlikely that an observation instrument designed for one context will readily adapt to another without modification.
The problem of wholesale borrowing is aggravated further by the fact that published accounts of instruments are constrained by space considerations and can rarely be explicit enough to encompass the multifarious problems that crop up in coding real-life classrooms. Neat published accounts of research tend to conceal the complexity, uncertainties and rough edges of the activity.
However, there is a more fundamental principle at work here. Trying to operate a ready-made instrument demonstrates that the categories do not echo some shared reality ‘out there’, but are the product of the compiler’s personal construct – an individual conceptual framework of the world which affects the interpretation of classroom events. In essence this is acknowledged by Long, Adams, McClean and Castaños (1976:152) who admit that: ‘As for objectivity, like all systems for analysing classroom interaction, our categories are subjective, and classification of language into them intuitive.’
To compensate for this phenomenon, instrument compilers are obliged to formulate comprehensive ground-rules which define mutually exclusive categories which can be applied without question by other researchers. But it should be clear from the foregoing that these can never be explicit enough. Viewing classrooms through other people’s spectacles tends to produce a blurred and uncomfortable perspective, and we inevitably feel compelled to regrind the lenses to obtain a more personally familiar picture. Hence cries for a respite in instrument production to allow for consolidation will remain unheeded. There will always be new classroom observation instruments, or rumours of them.

In search of an instrument
In constructing a research package to survey the teaching of English at secondary school in Catalonia (Spain), a core systematic data-gathering device was required for the task. Lacking intensive personal training or experience in the techniques and subtleties of ethnography, there was no viable alternative but to carry out the central part of the survey with a prepared checklist. The possibility of an analysis based on transcription, following a model such as that formulated by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) was also ruled out – with some 20 hours needed to transcribe the verbal interaction of just one lively lesson, and that merely in readiness for embarking on subsequent analysis, this would have precluded the wider sampling the survey demanded.
How was the task to be tackled? In another context, De Bono (1969:7) again strikes at the heart of the matter which the apprentice researcher is forced to consider in answering this question:
‘The difficulty lies in deciding at what level of organization it is best to explore the functioning of a system. If the level is too detailed and the units are too small, then the over-all function of the system may not be disclosed at all. On the other hand, if the level is too high, one may only be able to describe the system in broad functional terms that are of no practical use whatsoever.’
The question of the basic research unit is indeed a crucial one, and will remain a bone of contention among researchers. Timely warnings are offered by Dunkin and Biddle (1974:77):
‘Since classroom events have a rhythm of their own, their boundaries may or may not correspond with the arbitrary time boundaries we are forcing upon them.’
and by Biddle (1967:342):
‘Since analytic units reflect the sophisticated concerns of the investigator rather than those of the participant, their use entails the risk of moving away from phenomenal reality and the problems of having to translate results into some convenient form usable by educators.’
Although the classroom may be operating physically as a series of discrete events, the learner, teacher and observer naturally infer a continuity and consistency among them. Yet the imposing of a not well-understood, artificial boundary with an arbitrary tempo upon this holistic psychological reality, threatens to mask if not destroy it. Here is an example of broad, naturalistic episodes occurring in class-time:
(1) 9.05-9.08 Teacher greets class, followed by general hubbub as she sorts out her papers and sets up the tape-recorder.
(2) 9.08-9.11 Teacher asks a learner to collect completed homework, counts the pieces returned, identifies defaulters, then listens to and queries their excuses.
(3) 9.11-9.20 Teacher returns marked homework from the previous day. Deals with general points first, using the blackboard to illustrate, before commenting on individual efforts as she returns them.
(4) 9.20-9.22 Teacher outlines the procedure for the next part of the lesson (various tasks connected with listening to a tape-recording).
(5) 9.22- etc., etc.
The question now arises: Can a research instrument be devised which preserves such units? The answer may lie in the adoption of the segment as the basic unit of analysis.

The segment
The segment may be described as a phenomenological episode in real time, derived from American studies in ecological psychology, principally the work of Barker (1968) and Gump (1974). The essence of the ecological approach lies not in the study of a particular environment or a person’s behaviour in isolation, but in the recognition of their inter-relationship. These temporal units identified by Gump were defined by a taxonomy of subsettings occurring simultaneously:
1. general academic or other concerns (topic);
2. the role played by the teacher;
3. the size of the working groups and the extent of interdependence among pupils of their work;
4. the nature of the pupil activity;
5. the extent to which the pupils’ work is self or externally paced.
This concept was adopted by Mitchell, Parkinson and Johnstone (1981) in the construction of a somewhat ingenious observation scheme designed to examine the teaching of first-year French in secondary schools in Central Scotland. They defined the segment as a stretch of lesson discourse, having a particular topic, and involving the participants in a distinctive configuration of roles, linguistic and organisational. An arbitrary minimum length of 30 seconds was specified per segment, with no upper limit being set. Five dimensions of the segment were recognised:
1. topic of discourse (11 subcategories)
2. language activity (8)
3. teacher mode of involvement (7)
4. pupil mode of involvement (6)
5. class organisation (7)
The ROT instrument
The personal attempt to transport this instrument to the Catalonian context quickly led to drastic modifications in its structure. Seventeen variations were devised to cope with the new situation, each tried out and then rejected. The eighteenth version, the Rees Observation Template (ROT), appears on the following pages. This is the exasperated version; there can never be a final one, for each trial inevitably tempts the user to tinker with it.
The instrument is presented here through a coded checklist of a genuine lesson which consisted largely of a debate conducted in English by the learners. The categories are then elucidated line by line for the reader, and a sample segment selected for explanation.
It will be noted that the scheme basically consists of four dimensions operating simultaneously:
TOPIC FOCUS: (what the interaction is mainly concerned with)TEACHER ACTIVITY: (the teacher’s role)LEARNER ACTIVITY: (the ways in which the learners participate)CLASS GROUPING: (how the learners are grouped)
When there is a change of sub-category on any one of these dimensions, and this new configuration is sustained for 30 seconds or more, then a new segment is considered to have begun. Only on the LEARNER dimension can several subcategories operate at the same time, for example, during a dictation learners will be listening, writing and reading. But any major switch of activity here will also signal a new segment, e.g. if the learners stop writing and just listen for 30 or more seconds to an explanation by the teacher.
In operating ROT, a single channel tape-recording is made of each lesson, and this is played back retrospectively so that individual segments can be identified, timed with a stopwatch, and coded on the checklist. To code comfortably in real-time would require a reduction in the number of subcategories. The analysis is aided by reference to a running description of key points which were written down by the researcher during the observation of the lesson.
[INSERT Fig 1: Rees observation template]

Explanation of the ROT checklist
Title The term Template is designed as a reminder that the instrument is a flexible model, not a cast-iron product.
Identification The serial number of the observation, name of the teacher, and level of the class.
Segment Segments numbered continuously from left to right across the grid. Each vertical column contains all the coded components of any one segment. There were twelve separate segments in this particular lesson.
Counter The counter setting on the tape-recorder at the start of each segment, beginning at 000 (entered vertically).
Ragbag Reserved as a reminder of various items of interest to the observer, not catered for by the main ROT instrument (and often operating below the 30-second limit), e.g. use of the blackboard, a dialogue, dictation, extraneous interruptions, strong grammatical focus, a game, chaos, reference to homework, a joke/anecdote, music, use of the OHP, spelling, a song, translation, vocabulary emphasis, video work, etc. They are coded in short-hand form.
Language Indicates the prevailing language employed in each segment, E for English and M for the Mother-tongue. E= (2 minus signs) would signify the predominance of English, but with 2 samples of Mother-tongue use.
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TOPIC This dimension distinguishes areas of discourse dealing with the main purpose of the lesson, from those merely ensuring that it is being carried out. Subcategories:
management/
routine Almost exclusively conducted by the teacher, and concerned
with moving the class forward by organising the learners/ materials/environment in readiness for, or to sustain, the learning task.
study:
introduce A teacher-conducted setting-the-scene prelude to an
immediately following segment.
study:
substance Episode dealing with the central concern of the lesson.
real life Discourse not overtly concerned with the learning and its management but containing a substantial non-pedagogical element, and hence a lack of formal linguistic constraint.
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EXPERIENTIAL
A subcategory of the TOPIC focus which captures some selected areas of content at subsegmental level which serve to allow the learners a degree of personal or familiar involvement in the discourse, e.g. teacher or learners talk about selves, there is reference to the immediate or local environment, or to general knowledge. As the purpose here is to record whether these features arise at all, their presence is noted but once in each segment no matter how many times they occur (one-zero time sampling).
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TEACHER Records the degree and nature of teacher intervention in the lesson. Subcategories:
lecture Teacher monologue, largely uninterrupted by any meaningful overt interaction with the learners.
lecture/
interaction The teacher is imparting information, interspersed with contrived or spontaneously generated teacher/learner verbal exchanges, most commonly through the solicit/ response mechanism.
conducting The teacher actively officiates and leads a sustained episode of learner rehearsal/manipulation to ensure practice/ mastery of the material taught. The predominant move structure will be solicit/response/reaction, and the teacher’s contribution typically oral.
monitoring/
helping Embraces periods when the learners are being supervised as they privately tackle an assigned task without their attention being constantly focused on the teacher.
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LEARNERS The only major dimension on which subcategories may co-occur.
listening Attending to any auditory language source. This category can only record when aural output is available to be listened to by most of the learners, and not if anyone is actually listening.
Speaking Embraces periods where the learners are performing individually, rather than at the same time. Essentially focused on the current professional concern with communicativeness. Subcategories:

practice of
form: Speaking where the focus is overtly pedagogical, and concentrated on language form rather than function.
practice of
communication Pre-communicative oral practice, where there is some shift of focus from form towards meaning.
realistic
communication Learner speech exemplifying natural language use or closely approaching it, within the pedagogical constraints imposed by the classroom (not, incidentally, a necessary consequence of authenticity of topic).
Reading Attending to any written language or other graphic code, including printed text, blackboard writing and the pupils’ own manuscript. Only recorded if most learners are engaged in it in corporate fashion. Reading, like speech, is recorded on an accuracy/fluency spectrum. Subcategories:
reading - All restricted silent reading from words to individual sentences.
reading + Silent reading beyond sentence level, where reading fluency skills are being exercised with connected text for information/content, as when tackling a reading comprehension passage. It is not designed to record a teaching context where substantial periods of uninterrupted silent reading prevails.
reading +
teacher The learners follow a text silently as the teacher reads aloud from it.
reading aloud Normally, a reading-round-the class type activity where one reader reads at a time, with the rest of the class in listening mode. A Ch(orus) code may be used to indicate choral reading aloud.
Writing Purposeful imitative or creative graphic text, not casual writing/note-taking. This item again focuses on communicative concerns. Subcategories:
write - Minimal, constrained, imitative, non-creative writing.
write semi- Semi-constrained writing at sentence level or above without slavish adherence to a pre-specified model e.g. writing answers to a reading comprehension passage.
write free Writing beyond the sentence level with little or no imposed syntactical demands.
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Grouping Records seating arrangements and learner groupings. Subcategories:
class The class is functioning as a single unit controlled by the teacher or teacher-substitute.
individual Teacher independent. Pupils are set to work alone as individuals, without sanctioned co-operation, and the task set is identical to all. Typically an episode where all the learners are assigned the same exercise which they complete individually at their desks within a set time limit.
pair/group Teacher independent. The interaction takes place between pairs or groups of learners, with no ongoing input from a central public source such as the teacher. All pairs/groups have been allocated the same task.
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Time Each segment is timed to the nearest second (minimum length: 30 seconds), written vertically down the column. Seconds are converted to decimals to facilitate statistical analysis.
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Segment The number of each segment appears at the top and bottom of the coding grid for ease of reference.
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ETHOS This footnote stands outside the ROT system proper, and represents merely a global, impressionistic assessment of the ‘communicativeness’ of each complete lesson on a broad tripartite scale ranging from Communicative to Traditional.
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Segment Nº 9 in detail
As further illustration, segment Nº 9 on the checklist is delineated below:
Counter: Commenced at tape-recorder counter setting 694 (and ended at 832).
Ragbag: Some vocabulary (Vc) explanation occurred in the course of this segment.
Language: Conducted entirely in English (E).
Topic: Concerned with the main study part of the lesson.
Experiential: Personal reference made to the teacher, and also to the local environment, at least once in each case.
Teacher: The teacher was overtly conducting the proceedings.
Learners: The learners were listening, and engaged in realistic oral communication.
Group: The class was functioning as a single unit (not in pairs/ groups).
Time: This particular segment of the lesson lasted 6.7 minutes (just under 6 3/4 minutes).

Remarks
1. It has already been emphasised that space-restrictions tend to hamper a workable description of any published scheme for classroom observation. This paper is no exception. However, a supplementary two-page account appears in Rees (1988) and a two-volume comprehensive study of its development in Rees (1989).
2. The instrument was not designed to record, for example, a self-access session where learners spend a prolonged period in silent reading of texts of their choosing; nor would it capture learners working on different tasks in pairs. This is because these possibilities did not feature in pilot observations and were therefore correctly assumed not to be widespread among the research population. All researchers are obliged select by donning blinkers of one kind or another.

The problem of Topic
To provide additional clarification of the model, a flow-chart (Fig.2) is included, indicating the kind of decisions required when classifying a particular episode, in this case on the Topic dimension.
[INSERT Fig. 2: 1-page flow chart for topic focus identification]
That common-sense, whatever it may be, cannot always come to our rescue, even when dealing with a naturalistic unit, is evidenced by discourse topic which is, surprisingly perhaps, very difficult to characterise for research purposes. Other researchers have experienced this. For example, Gardner (1984:112-13) summarises the topic predicament as follows:
‘With regard to discourse topic, there have been a number of attempts at defining topic, none of them entirely satisfactory … Some of these definitions appeal to logical systems, but in the final analysis one is forced to identify topic intuitively … Van Dijk (1977:132) says on this point: "terms like ‘topic’, ‘theme’ or ‘being about’ are intuitively applied to longer stretches of discourse and conversations".’
This explains why the subcategorisation of the topic dimension in the ROT system may seem somewhat gross at first sight; but it is at least workable!

Concluding remarks
Criteria guiding the construction of ROT included relative ease and unobtrusiveness of use, a limited number of categories, replicability and, as we have seen, a conceptualisation of classroom events in a form familiar to teachers. The remit of this paper has been to describe the instrument, rather than to report the results of the broad-brush survey in which it played a central role. However, it should be mentioned that it served its purpose well, and performed very satisfactorily in reliability trials. The ‘study: introduce’ subcategory on the Topic dimension highlighted a particularly interesting feature of classroom discourse which is not often singled out in research. The use of ROT seems to confirm that its basic concepts do identify a stable unit of classroom discourse which may serve as the basis of a high-inference, multiple-category, systematic observation instrument.
The teacher, trainer or researcher who decides to overhaul the instrument in the dry-dock of his or her study in readiness for a personal voyage of discovery, is more likely to encounter, not new lands, but leaks that require constant caulking when relaunching it on the turbulent seas of the classroom. And even when such a voyage is under way, the farther one journeys in teacher observation, the more one realises how far there is yet to go. Perhaps the facet of research which contributes most to personal professional development is not the chimera of a final product, but the process itself with the stimulation resulting from personal investment, and the revelation of hidden shoals along the way. For some it will lead to a healthy cynicism, but few will not marvel at the perception, ingenuity and diligence of those who have gone before.