Page 138 - Getting of the fence
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                                Chapter 6
 coded lesson time, which allowed for a comparison per teacher as well as between teachers.
Due to the nature of the data, we were only able to code explicit instruction. This means that whenever a teacher did not verbally explicate the intention of the lesson through providing a lecture, an explanation, or assignments, we used the code ‘unknown’. The overall average lesson time that was coded this way was 31.6% (range 9% - 47%) in year 1 and 16.8% (range 3% - 33%) in year 2. In other words, we were able to code 68.4% of the total lesson time spent on literature in year 1 and 83.2% in year 2.
Because we only coded explicit instruction that was visible and audible on video, we were unfortunately unable to code the Language approach element ‘Language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing)’. For example, the video- recorded data did not provide any insights into whether students were writing in English or in Dutch. Furthermore, only coding direct instruction leaves out any implicit foreign language learning. One of the attempts to empirically investigate Language approach element ‘Language skills’ in the foreign language literature lessons can be found in a paper by Wolthuis, Bloemert, Tammenga-Helmantel and Paran (under review), entitled “A curriculum in transition: TL/L1 use in Dutch EFL literature lessons.” This paper exemplifies how Language approach element ‘Language skills’ can be investigated as well as the issues and limitations it poses. The study, for example, only included spoken language by teachers and students. We are fully aware of how the decision to leave out this underlying element of the Language approach has an impact on the interpretation of our results, and this issue is further addressed in sections 6.5.
We first calculated the average lesson time spent per teacher per year. We then calculated the difference in time spent on the four approaches from an assumed even distribution. This second step was included because in previous chapters we argued that the four approaches of the Comprehensive Approach function as a unified whole and that an EFL literature curriculum in which all four approaches are addressed in an interrelated way is likely to support high quality teaching and learning. In following this assumption, for the purpose of analysis we assumed an even distribution between the four approaches, which resulted in a division of 25% per approach of the coded lesson time. Although the division of 4 x 25% is a simplification of the underlying notion of the Comprehensive Approach, it allowed us to compare teachers regarding how they spend time on the four approaches (see section 6.5 for a discussion regarding this methodological decision).
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