Observer le travail enseignant

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to highlight the role played by observation in the analysis of the teaching activity from a work point of view. It aims to show how the methodological framework of "self-confrontations" represents an environment from which the experience embodied by teaching staff becomes "disembodied" through observation subject to a co-analysis between trained professionals and researchers. Firstly, the epistemological and theoretical bases for observation, designed as an operational method and source of knowledge production, will be presented. Its role in the analysis of the activity will be placed with respect to the various forms and positions of the observer and those observed, which will enable the epistemological status of the video to be investigated in the observation made of teachers. Then the role of video as an artefact in a methodological framework designed to foster teacher self-confrontation - an activity that is not in the least spontaneous - will be presented. We will, using the analysis of a few excerpts, show the socially-built character of the springs and mechanisms at work in the self-confrontation in relation to the development of professional experience. Finally, the discussion will return to the subjects, time and environment of the observation in which the teacher’s body remains a poorly identified object.

Keywords

• analysis of professional practice
• professionalization
• student-teacher relations and interactions