| In the study I describe and interpret how interaction between participants (practicum leader, student-teachers, ESL students) in a preservice English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher preparation practicum set up or blocked opportunities for student-teachers to change their teaching behavior. I describe how interactional arrangements possibly set up or blocked these opportunities through nine kinds of activities: practice teaching, observations of teaching, learning the language of observation, supervision, seminar discussions, reading, talk between teaching partners, investigative projects on teaching, and journal writing.; In addition I map out and interpret relationships between what went on in the activities and specific changes or lack of changes in aspects of the teaching behavior of June, a participating student-teacher, including changes in her way of setting up and carrying out a lesson, treating student errors and taking roll, and lack of changes in her way of collecting samples of students' language and her way of responding to students' questions.; Through my analysis I discovered that change is a consequence of complex social arrangements, not a one-to-one cause and effect relationship as much literature suggests. For example, each observable change in June's way to treating errors (from not treating errors, to treatment, to specific techniques for treatment) was not a consequence of any one intervention, but of a process which included a complex arrangement of specific interactions through seminar discussions, assigned readings, supervisory intervention, observations of teaching, interaction with ESL students, a change in teaching assignments, and more.; I also discuss the procedures used to conduct this study, including how my methods of data collection and analysis evolved. I discuss the limitations of nonparticipant observation, use of out-of-context interviewing, and interview analysis and the advantages and drawbacks of my eventual use of participant observation, in-context interviewing and interactional (context) analysis. Since I believe the method used to collect and analyze data cannot be separated from the findings, I treat my procedures as a finding in itself. At the end of my study I provide suggestions for teacher educators and researchers. |
