Role of the Researcher

3.5 Role of the Researcher

As many others including Merriam (1998), and Marshall and Rossman (2006) have pointed out, in qualitative studies the researcher is the main instrument for data collection and analysis. According to Merrian (1998), data in qualitative research “are mediated through this human instrument, the researcher, rather than through some inanimate inventory, questionnaire, or computer” (p.7). This highlights the differences between human researcher and other data collection instruments, for “the researcher is responsive to the context; he or she can adapt techniques to the circumstances; the total context can be considered; what is known about the situation can be expanded through sensitivity to nonverbal aspects; the researcher can process data immediately, can clarify and summarize as they study evolves, and can explore anomalous responses” (p.7). In their book titled Designing Qualitative Research, Marshall and Rossman (2006) suggest that “in qualitative studies, the researcher is the instrument. Her presence in the lives of the participants invented to be part of the study is fundamental to the methodology” (p.72). Given the sustained and intensive presence of the researcher in the research sites, the researcher of this study remains full aware of these issues regarding technical and interpersonal considerations. To think about her role in planning and conducting this study, the

researcher follows the advice of previous scholars (Patton, 1980; also cited in Marshall and Rossman, 2006, p.72) by evaluating herself along a continuum of participantness; more details are discussed below.

Participantness refers to “the degree of actual participation in daily life” (Marshall &

Rossman, 2006, p.72), ranging from full participant to the complete observer. As earlier noted, during classroom observations, the researcher entered into the research site as a complete observer, sitting at the very back of the classroom as unobtrusively as possible to avoid intervening the participants’ teaching or influencing learners’ performance. After class, only brief conversations and informal interviews between the participants and the researcher happened in the research site. However, as a senior schoolmate of the

participants, the researcher often engages in social interaction with the participants on the occasions such as taking on-campus courses and having meals together. As Marshall and Rossman contend (2006) that “building trusting relations must proceed in conjunction with gathering good data” (p.73). The researcher regards engaging in daily activities with the participants as an important process of establishing good connections between the researcher and the participants. These connections allow for rich description of participants’ life experiences, thoughts, feelings and beliefs as the barrier between the researcher and the participants are consciously avoided (Toma, 2000). On the other hand, while having daily conversations on the topic of teaching the GEPT course, the researcher cautioned herself to avoid any personal involvement and offering any preference

concerning lesson planning, language instruction, and classroom management in order to remain neutral and not to contaminate the research results.

CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS

This chapter provides the results of the current study. Being aware of a large amount

of data yielded in this study, here the researcher starts from reviewing the primary research questions which were posed to guide the current study. Two research questions are as follows:

1. What are the TEFL student teachers’ perceptions of their team-teaching experience?

2. What skills and knowledge, if any, do the TEFL student teachers learn from their team-teaching experience?

In this chapter, the researcher will answer the two research questions respectively. Also, the content of this chapter will be organized on a team basis, that is, the Lynn and Irene team in the first section, followed by the other team, Andrea and Nadya in the second.

Furthermore, as stated in Chapter Four, after each interview was conducted, the interview audio file was immediately transcribed verbatim into a word-processing file and stored chronologically for analysis. Then the researcher carefully analyzed the raw data to determine important episodes and texts which were helpful to understand how engaging in team teaching affected the participants’ professional lives. These important episodes and texts were then translated from Chinese in English as shown in this chapter.

4.1 TEAM 1: LYNN AND IRENE 4.1.1 Description and Perception of Team-Teaching Experience 4.1.1.1 Lynn’s Motivation of Team Teaching and Perception of Her Role

In the background interview, Lynn found it difficult to define team teaching in her own

words. The researcher therefore asked Lynn to describe her motivation of teaming up instead. Lynn remarked:

Learning from peers can bring me new inspirations. For instance, Irene and I have discussed what we want to include in our course syllabus, from which I learn something that I never thought of. Apart from that, before teaming up with Irene I once heard from an undergraduate lecturer in our institute saying that she often discusses with her colleagues about how to teach and they usually share teaching tips together. Based on her sharing, I learned that discussing with someone else can bring benefits to both of the parties and the teachers gain something they are lacking of (background interview, Lynn, 2009/05/09).

Regarding the role she expected herself and Irene to play in team teaching, Lynn stated in the background interview that she expected herself and Irene to take equal responsibility in the cooperative teaching relationship. She also stated, “Irene seems to have little teaching experience, nor do I. Though she is currently tutoring students studying in elementary schools, Irene has no experience of teaching college students English, and I don’t, either.

So probably we will plan lessons together and teach together” (background interview, Lynn, 2009/05/09).

4.1.1.2 The Challenge Lynn Had Expected to Encounter Before Team Teaching

The challenge Lynn thought she might face with was how to solve the conflict over different opinions of two teachers. She mentioned:

The conflict over different opinions may end up with quarrels. We need to design a Speaking Class together after all. We may spend time deciding on the procedures of each lesson, discussing who takes charge of the first period and who the next. The process of teaching together involves numerous problems (background interview, Lynn, 2009/05/09).

Another challenge Irene thought of in the background interview was the issue of turn taking between two teachers. Irene started to imagine the process of the first class and

stated, “We will do self-introduction in the first class, so both of us shall be present on the podium. Supposing Irene and I don’t take turn to talk, will students feel our cooperation is like a chaos” (background interview, Lynn, 2009/05/09)?

4.1.1.3 A High Level of Anxiety in the Early Stage

In the fourth week of conducting a team-taught class with Irene, Lynn reflected upon her feelings and thoughts when she knew she was going to co-teach English in a real classroom:

Researcher: Please describe your feelings and thoughts when you were about to teach English in a real classroom?

Lynn: I felt very good! I have no experience of teaching a whole class, teaching in front of so many students, so thinking of a teacher who can co-teach with me made me feel very good!

Researcher: In what way was it good?

Lynn: I felt less nervous. I thought that I am not the only teacher who needs to take the full responsibility of teaching a class. There’s another person who can share the workload with me.

Researcher: So you felt less anxious?

Lynn: Yes. I thought that we can brainstorm together. And even if I encounter difficulties, the other teacher is gonna help me out with problems (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

4.1.1.4 Lynn’s Metaphor for Team Teaching

Lynn’s perception of team teaching was shaped by the following metaphor and the picture she provided (see Figure 2):

As far as I am concerned, I think of team teaching as parenting. Like parents, team teachers might have to take on the roles of “good cop and bad cop.”

Other than that, another possibility is that two team teachers are both the good cops but they both earn respect from their students. Students resemble our children. During the process of parenting, we spend much time discussing our nurturing approaches, sharing and communicating individual perspectives.

At times, parents discuss and share the process of decision making (e.g.,

whether we should send our child to the piano class), which is much like what team teachers are involved during the process of co-planning, co-teaching, and co-evaluation (e.g., whether it is appropriate to have our students do the role-play or information gap activity as a way of conversational practice).

Though having different viewpoints, parents would try to reach the consensus behind the scene and act in concert in the face of children. Similar to

parenting, the consistency within the two parties is rather essential for a successful team teaching (the 1^st question in the open-ended questionnaire, Lynn).

In the follow-up interview, the researcher asked Lynn to provide a specific example to illustrate “the consistency within the two parties” in the written metaphor of her team teaching experience. She stated that all the teaching instruction provided in a team-taught class should be the agreement resulting from discussion of both teachers. She added, “In a discussion of two teachers, if a teacher says yes to an idea, a plan, or suggestion, while the other says no, students will get confused about which teacher they should listen to”

(follow-up interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

Figure 2. The picture provided by Lynn to conceptualize her written metaphor.

(Source of the picture: http://www.fotosearch.com/clip-art/house.html)

4.1.1.5 Equal Pose Between Two Teachers

With regard to the question that who is more powerful in the team, Lynn stated in the second interview that she felt both Irene and her took equal power during team teaching.

She remarked:

It seemed that the one who insisted on the certain thing more strongly than the other made the final decision. We sometimes worked on the problems of the order of worksheets, and I once suggested Irene that we should put worksheet A at the end of the day’s handouts. She considered my suggestion seriously and then accepted it. Irene usually approved of my decisions when she had no opinions about the issue under discussion, and vice versa. It’s easy for us to reach common ground (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

She added, “Our decisions are usually made by peaceful compromises.”

4.1.1.6 Challenge and the Most Rewarding Aspect in Team Teaching

With respect to the most rewarding part from this team-teaching experience, Lynn considered the process of co-lesson planning the most valuable. She elaborated:

We all have our own blind spots. Discussing with Irene gets me to find my blind spots more easily. Our different educational backgrounds and life

experiences generate varied perspectives and interpretations of a single issue.

Each of us can think up new teaching activities and worksheets. This is the most precious part in team teaching and this is beneficial to our future teaching as well (interview, 2009/07/27).

Reflecting upon the team-teaching process, Lynn couldn’t come up with the most frustrating thing throughout team teaching. On the other hand, when it comes to the challenges Lynn faces in team teaching, she answered:

Everything seemed fine. One challenge I can think of is the time when two

teachers both like to deliver certain part of the instruction. And this happened especially when the teaching part is easier to instruct for teachers, such as leading students to do activities. At times I felt I was more confident in delivering teaching instruction in the 1^st period, and so did Irene. But I couldn’t just get my own way and say “Give me this part.” So we did paper-scissor-stone to decide, and like last time we even asked Nadya¹ to assign because we both want to teach the same part (laughing) (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

4.1.1.7 Lynn’s Most Memorable Incidents in Team Teaching

When asked about the most memorable incidents throughout team teaching, Lynn remarked:

To me, the most memorable incidents are that whenever students asked us questions regarding certain vocabulary, I could barely answer students’

questions. But Irene could often come up with the vocabulary to solve students’

puzzles. I can’t help admiring her and feeling perplexed where she learned those words. For example, last time a student asked us “Do you know what was meant by KO?”, I didn’t realize that it could be an acronym of something until Irene answered “knock out” without hesitation. Another incident that once happened was that one of our students asked how to say “健康檢查” in English, Irene answered “check-up” with great ease. However, because I was under the vague impression of the word and afraid of saying the wrong word in face of students, I appeared silent at the moment that Irene was answering student’s question (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

The researcher continued to ask Lynn to elaborate what she learned from these incidents, she answered:

I learned…many new words (laughing), not actually learned something.

Instead, I was reminded that I should do something to broaden my vocabulary bank, such as listening to English-learning radio programs and watching American TV series. I was aware that I should immerse myself in daily life

1Nadya is one of the team teachers in GEPT Speaking Class.

English or English that is trendy at the present time to upgrade my English proficiency. Perhaps because I am not the kind of learner who has wild enthusiasm for English learning, I usually don’t do these to brush up my English skills. But I think if I want to become a competent English teacher, I need to do these to enrich myself (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

4.1.1.8 Lynn’s Perception of Advantages of Team Teaching

When asked about how helpful or significant team teaching is for Lynn to lead a class, she described how this experience helped her on her first try:

Lynn: Yes, it really helped.

Researcher: In what aspects did it help?

Lynn: I think the help lies in…when a student teacher first led a class, as I just said, I felt less anxious. I was more confident about how to design a course because there was a teacher co-planning with me. Because I have this teaching experience, if someday in the future, I have to lead a class all by myself, I will feel less panic. minutes to finish an activity, but Irene felt that ten minutes is a bit rushed. If I planned the lesson alone…and I thought ten minutes was sufficient, and there were also lots of worksheets to teach, I supposed there’s no way of finishing all these in one class. Irene and I usually pondered on the potential flaws of our teaching plans. Sometimes I thought I got a perfect activity, but from Irene’s point of view she could easily point out the weaknesses in my teaching idea.

Researcher: What might be the weaknesses in your teaching idea?

Irene: Such as time control…can the activity arouse students’ interest?...and what does the activity lack?

Researcher: What might an activity lack?

Irene: For example, the following worksheet or activity might lack the connection with the preceding one (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

Because of the several benefits she found in team teaching, Lynn endorsed teaching with a co-teacher. She said, “According to what I just mentioned, team teaching is a pretty good idea, because you got another teacher’s support” (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27). However, she added:

It is because now I am a student teacher who has little teaching experience that I like the feeling of co-teaching with peers. Maybe after years of teaching, I become a practicing teacher who has much experience of teaching and my teaching beliefs are deeply rooted, I may dislike co-teaching with others. Many in-service teachers don’t like to change and accept new things (interview, Lynn, 2009/07/27).

She indicated in the second interview that at the phase of being a student teacher she found collaborative teaching satisfactory. Nonetheless, a pleasant team-teaching experience does not guarantee that she will implement team teaching in her daily teaching after moving forward from a student teacher to a practice teacher.

4.1.1.9 Lynn’s Strength and Weakness as a Team Teacher

Lynn evaluated her strengths and weaknesses as a team member from the

team-teaching collaboration and concluded that “I am a teacher who is able to accept colleague’s opinions, and so is my teaching partner. In addition, I usually don’t insist on my personal viewpoints, and this may greatly facilitate cooperation” (open-ended

questionnaire, Lynn). Nonetheless, according to her responses of weakness as a co-teacher, the quality of being respectful to colleagues’ ideas could also be viewed as a defect of a team teacher’s character. She wrote:

It’s like two sides of the same coin. When a team teacher gives in to the other’s opinions easily, it’s very likely that he/she is gonna miss out something.

Insisting on what I think is right is what I need to improve (open-ended questionnaire, Lynn).

4.1.1.10 Irene’s Expectation Before Team Teaching and Perception of Her Role Before participating in team teaching, Irene expressed her expectation of learning from her partner. She remarked, “I expect to learn from Lynn about some teaching activities or teaching ideas. Although we were both English majors, the way we were educated is different. She must know some interesting activities that I don’t know, so I think we can learn from each other in this aspect” (background interview, Irene, 2009/05/09). In addition to the expectation in team teaching, Irene, like Lynn, considered different opinions between them as a challenge likely to happen in their collaboration.

4.1.1.11 Irene’s Reflection of the First Class

After the first class, Irene mulled over their team-teaching practice and recorded her feelings in the reflective log. In her words (she kept the log in English):

This was the very first class of this GEPT speaking course. I felt so nervous about teaching college, graduate, and even doctorial students. This is also the very first time that I teach such a big class. I[t] was nice to have Lynn to work with me for we can work together. I felt more secured when there was a team member to back me up.

Today’s class went quite smoothly. For this was the first class, we spent more time talking about the course syllabus and introducing each other. Lynn and I worked well today. While discussion about the course content, I

reminded her to tell the students about some “rules” of this class. I also helped her type students’ names on the roll-calling list while she was calling the roll and asking the students their English [names].

Anyway, I think this was a quite successful class and a good start. I hope we can do better in the following classes for there are still a lot to be improved (reflective log, Irene, 2009/06/30).

4.1.1.12 Irene’s Most Memorable Incident in Team Teaching

From Irene’s point of view, collaborative teaching is significant in providing her a sense of security of her first teaching as well as the timely teaching assistance and suggestions from the other student teacher. In the reflective journal of the 6^th class, Irene jotted down an incident which Lynn gave her a helping hand to meet the urgent need. The incident happened when Irene was the major teacher of the task of picture description¹. In her words:

From Irene’s point of view, collaborative teaching is significant in providing her a sense of security of her first teaching as well as the timely teaching assistance and suggestions from the other student teacher. In the reflective journal of the 6^th class, Irene jotted down an incident which Lynn gave her a helping hand to meet the urgent need. The incident happened when Irene was the major teacher of the task of picture description¹. In her words: