Video-based Teacher Input Observation in a German Primary Classroom Setting

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, University of Hildesheim (Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur), language: English, abstract: Foreign language acquisition and learning plays a pivotal role in the educational system and is of great interest for empirical investigations (Mehisto et al. 2008). Research in this field is termed Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Ellis (2010) defines SLA as 'the way in which people learn a language other than their mother tongue, inside or outside a classroom'. The aim of SLA research is to explain the processes that occur when learning another language after the native language and what factors influence them (Kersten 2019). Every learner has individual, internal prerequisites determined by his or her personality, language and cognitive skills (ibid.). Furthermore, external factors such as the family and the social environment or institutional factors, for example educational policies and school administration and the teacher's personality and professionalism contribute to his or her success in learning a foreign language (ibid.). The teacher as an external factor is of major importance for the present study, in particular the quality of input given by him or her in different instructional settings. Since 'teaching is a complex interaction among teachers, students and content that no single measurement tool is likely to capture' (Archer et al. 2014), this study aims to identify differences in input quality between two teaching approaches by using the Teacher Input Observation Scheme (TIOS), an observation scheme which is currently in the developing phase at Hildesheim University. The study outcomes are anticipated to make a limited contribution to the context field of teacher education by providing a single-case data measurement of Teacher Input Quality (TIQ) regarding two different approaches to reading literacy.