Consolidación del modelo estatal-nacional

In order to collect data, the researchers used some instruments according to each

stage of the project. Based on Nunan and Bailey (2009), we have used some classroom

observation instruments and some Elicitation procedures as follows: while exploring the

question: teachers’ field notes, a preliminary semi-structured interview, an ICC test; during the implementation: teachers’ field notes (Appendix B), an external observer’s sheet

(Appendix C) based on videos and a student’s self-evaluation rubric (Appendix D); after

the implementation: a students’ semi-structured interview (Appendix E).

2.6.1 Teachers’ field notes

According to Nunan and Bailey (2009), classroom observation has become a very

accepted method and even essential nowadays. The authors underline that there are two

ways of collecting information during observations: manually and electronically, field notes

are one of the most common manual techniques since they are open-ended and people can

include not only a description of the situation they observe but some reflective comments

about it.

This instrument was used while exploring the question as long as through it we

analyzed some particular situations inside the classroom and their possible causes and

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to facilitate the teachers’ registration of specific facts and personal impressions about each session, in order to contribute to the further analysis and interpretation of the data.

2.6.2 Semi-structured interview

Following Nunan and Bailey (2009), this is one of the elicitation procedures, it means that “the researcher tries to obtain data directly from informants (rather than, for example, simply by observing them”. A semi-structured interview is mainly conducted orally and it is more flexible than a structured interview, it means that the interviewer has a

general idea of the topics or even some questions previously prepared but they can change

on the way taking into account particular interests or needs.

We have used two semi-structured interviews, one at the beginning of the process to explore some learners’ needs, the other was used at the end of the implementation to

inquire into the students’ perceptions, both were centered on two aspects: students’ oral interaction in English and intercultural awareness. As researchers, we chose this instrument

because it allows the interviewees to express their points of view spontaneously and using

their own words.

2.6.3 Intercultural Communicative Competence test

This instrument was taken from Vilà, R. (2012). It contained 18 multiple choice

questions, nine of them related to the cognitive dimension of the Intercultural

Communicative Competence and nine related to the behavioral dimension. It was applied to

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students’ ICA at that moment. Specifically, the aims of this test were: to evaluate pupils’ capacity of interpreting in an accurate way some aspects of verbal and nonverbal

communication in multicultural contexts and to measure students’ ability to have a flexible

behavior in certain communicative contexts.

2.6.4 External observer’s sheet based on videos

Video constitutes an excellent source of information that could facilitate the

collection and analysis of the data. Jewitt (2012), highlights that video recordings are great

tools for registering spontaneous reactions in the classroom. It offers the possibility to look

at the same situation multiple times in order to find aspects that could not be seen during

the direct observation. Video has many possible uses in research but in this case the

researchers considered video-based fieldwork. This use of video involves recording the

naturally occurring interaction of people in a specific context capturing all the aspects of

the environment around the situation. It also gives the possibility of making casual

interviews to the participants which was ideal for the current study because we were interested in monitoring students’ points of view and opinions during the process.

This instrument was used six times, one per each connection. The two researchers

recorded the performance of all the students while using video calls and the reflection

moment after each session. Additionally, we tried to catch two different perspectives through video recordings, one centered on the pupils’ reactions and behaviors and the other centered on the general context, the teachers-researchers, the screen, the foreign teacher and

the interaction itself.

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was asked to watch the videos and fill the External Observer’s Sheet provided by the researchers with her impressions of the implementation. The sheet was designed taking into

account the research questions and objectives in order the external observer to focus on specific information as students’ intercultural awareness and oral interaction. The external observer was asked to fill one sheet per each session and to take into consideration the

different moments of the process (preparation session, discovering previous knowledge and

imaginaries about the target country and culture, the video call interaction itself and, the

reflection moment after the connection).

2.6.5 Student’s self-evaluation rubric

We designed a rubric in which the learners had the possibility to evaluate their own

process during the development of the pedagogical strategy. We were interested in

documenting their impressions about their own oral interaction and at the same time the

state of their intercultural awareness session by session. Besides, in the same form, each student was able to receive a partner’s opinion about the mentioned items. This instrument had a high relevance when interpreting data, since it was possible to compare some stages of the implementation according to each student’s performance.

The previous instruments contributed to the design, implementation and evaluation

of the proposal created by the authors of this paper, which has been described in the next

chapter. Through this proposal, they wanted to establish the impact of some oral

interactions with foreign English-speaking teachers, on their learners’ ICA. The proposal

has been developed in an instructional design in which Blended Learning opened the

possibility to combine a work following Task-Based Language Learning and the use of a

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Chapter 3