On the Language of Student Teachers’ Professional Vision: How Do Pre-Service EFL Teachers Comment on Classroom Videos of Pupil Engagement?

Teacher’s professional vision is a well-researched concept that highlights the importance of noticing salient issues in classroom situations and reasoning about them. This paper aimed to investigate pre-service teachers’ professional vision of pupil engagement: what student teachers notice in classroom videos regarding pupil engagement and how they verbalize it. The data was collected using interviews with classroom videos as prompts. 20 English as a foreign language pre-service teachers participated in the study. The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis and word clouds. The results suggest that pupil engagement is observed on three levels: behavioural, cognitive, and emotional, and it is seen in connection with classroom factors influencing it; the most mentioned one being teacher actions. To verbalize their noticing of pupil engagement, student teachers used wors and phrases that describe engagement directly (such as “participate”, “enjoy”, “respond”) or indirectly, for example through descriptions of actions (“raising hands”) or suggestions of cognitive involvement with the content (“know” or “remember”). Understanding how student teachers talk about pupil engagement can help us tease out important points in discussions during teacher education programmes and, in doing so, aid the pre-service teachers in framing their noticing and developing their professional vision.

1. Blomberg, G., Stürmer, K., & Seidel, T. (2011). How pre-service teachers observe teaching on video: Effects of viewers & teaching subjects and the subject of the video. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(7), 1131-1140. CrossRef

2. Choppin Ch. (2011). Learned adaptations: Teachers' understanding and use of curriculum resources. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 14(5), 331-353. CrossRef

3. Fredericks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P., & Paris, A. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74, 59-109. CrossRef

4. Freeman, D. (1996). "To take them at their word": Language data in the study of teachers' knowledge. Harvard Educational Review, 66(4), 732-762. CrossRef

5. Gold, B., Förster, S., & Holodynski, M. (2013). Evaluation eines videobasierten Trainingsseminars zur Förderung der professionellen Wahrnehmung von Klassenführung im Grundschulunterricht. Zeitschrift für pädagogische Psychologie, 27(3), 141-155. CrossRef

6. Goodwin, Ch. (1994). Professional Vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606-633. CrossRef

7. Gutiérrez, M., Tomás, J.-M., Romero, I., & Barrica, J.-M. (2017). Perceived social support, school engagement and satisfaction with school. Revista de Psicodidáctica (English Ed.), 22(2), 111-117. CrossRef

8. Hargreaves, D. (1980). The occupation culture of teachers. In P. Woods (Ed.), Teacher Strategies (pp. 125-140). Croom Helm.

9. Jackson, P. (1968). Life in classrooms. University of Chicago Press.

10. Jang, H., Reeve, J., & Deci, E. (2010). Engaging students in learning activities: It is not autonomy support or structure but autonomy support and structure. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102, 588-600. CrossRef

11. Janík, T., Minaříková, E., Píšová, M., Uličná, K., & Janík, M. (2016). Profesní vidění učitelů a jeho rozvíjení prostřednictvím videoklubů. Masarykova univerzita. CrossRef

12. Jarodzka, H., Skuballa, I., & Gruber, H. (2021). Eye-tracking in educational practice: Investigating visual perception underlying teaching and learning in the classroom. Educational Psychology Review, 33(1), 1-10. CrossRef

13. Lefstein, A., & Snell, J. (2011). Professional vision and the politics of teacher learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), 505-514. CrossRef

14. Malyuga, E. M. (2011). Professional language in formal and business style. Global Journal of Human Social Science, 12(3), 7-10.

15. Mayring, P. (2004). Qualitative content analysis. A companion to qualitative research, 1(2), 159-176.

16. Mendez, E. P., Sherin, M. G., Louis, D. A. (2007). Multiple perspectives on the development of an eighth-grade mathematical discourse community. Elementary School Journal, 108(1), 41-61. CrossRef

17. Mesiti, C., Artigue, M., Hollingsworth, H., Cao, Y., & Clarke, D. (2021). Teachers talking about their classrooms: Learning from the professional lexicons of mathematics teachers around the world. Routledge. CrossRef

18. Minarikova, E., Smidekova, Z., Janik, M., & Holmqvist, K. (2021). Teachers' Professional Vision: Teachers' Gaze During the Act of Teaching and After the Event. Frontiers in Education, 6, Article 716579. CrossRef

19. Oga-Baldwin, W. L. Q., & Nakata, Y. (2017). Engagement, gender, and motivation: A predictive model for Japanese young language learners. System, 65, 151-163. CrossRef

20. Oga-Baldwin, W. L. Q., Nakata, Y., Parker, P., & Ryan, R. M. (2017). Motivating young language learners: A longitudinal model of self-determined motivation in elementary school foreign language classes. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 49, 140-150. CrossRef

21. Roose, I., Goossens, M., Vanderlinde, R., Vantieghem, W., & Van Avermaet, P. (2018). Measuring professional vision of inclusive classrooms in secondary education through video-based comparative judgement: An expert study. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 56, 71-84. CrossRef

22. Seidel, T., Prenzel, M., Rimmele, R., Herweg, C., Kobarg, M., Schwindt, K., & Dalehefte, I. M. (2007). Science teaching and learning in German physics classrooms-findings from the IPN-Video Study. In M. Prenzel (Ed.), Studies on the educational quality of schools (s. 79-99). Waxmann.

23. Sherin, M. G., & van Es, E. A. (2005). Using video to support teachers' ability to notice classroom interactions. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 13(3), 475-491.

24. Skinner, E., Marchand, G., Furrer, C., & Kindermann, T. (2008). Engagement and disaffection in the classroom: Part of a larger motivational dynamic? Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(4), 765-781. CrossRef

25. Stürmer, K., & Seidel, T. (2017). A standardized approach for measuring teachers' professional vision: The observer research tool. In E. O. Schack, M. H. Fisher, & J. A. Wilhelm (Eds.), Teacher noticing: Bridging and broadening perspectives, contexts, and frameworks (pp. 359-380). Springer. CrossRef

26. Stürmer, K., Könings, K. D., & Seidel, T. (2013). Declarative knowledge and professional vision in teacher education: Effect of courses in teaching and learning. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(3), 467-483. CrossRef

27. Stürmer, K., Seidel, T., & Holzberger, D. (2016). Intra-individual differences in developing professional vision: Preservice teachers' changes in the course of an innovative teacher education program. Instructional Science, 44(3), 293-309. CrossRef

28. Terhart, E. (1992). Reden über Erziehung. Umgangssprache, Berufssprache, Wissenschaftssprache. Neue Sammlung, 32, 195-214.

29. van Es, E. A., & Sherin, M. G. (2008). Mathematics teachers' "learning to notice" in the context of a video club. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(2), 244-276. CrossRef

30. van Es, E. A., & Sherin, M. G. (2010). The influence of video clubs on teachers' thinking and practice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 113(2), 55-176. CrossRef

31. Vrain, E., & Lovett, A. (2020). Using word clouds to present farmers' perceptions of advisory services on pollution mitigation measures. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 63(6), 1132-1149. CrossRef

32. Wipperfürth, M., (2015). Professional vision in Lehrernetzwerken: Berufssprache als ein Weg und ein Ziel von Lehrerprofessionalisierung. Waxmann.

33. Wood, P., & Cajkler, W. (2018). Lesson study: A collaborative approach to scholarship for teaching and learning in higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 42(3), 313-326. CrossRef