Researching interactive whiteboard (IWB) use from primary school to university settings across Europe: an analytical framework for foreign language teaching

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of an analytical framework for the observation and analysis of interactive whiteboard (IWB) use in the foreign language (FL) classroom. Developed from existing classifications of IWB activity in generic educational contexts (e.g., Armstrong et al. 2005; Bennett and Lockyer 2008; Hennessy et al. 2007), the instrument constitutes a new tool for analysing IWB use specifically in FL teaching and learning. It is based on empirical data collected during a large-scale collaborative project on the IWB in second language teaching and learning, which followed 44 teachers of six languages in seven countries to obtain class video recordings and participant commentary for a website supporting language teachers in integrating the IWB in communicative teaching practice. The paper outlines the process of developing the coding instrument to analyse three main aspects of IWB use: participant configuration, IWB tools and features, and language teaching objectives, providing definitions and examples of each item. The instrument is then applied to the dataset of over 250 video clips of FL teaching with the IWB, providing a detailed overview of teachers’ use of this technology across educational contexts in Europe. The classification system adopted in the study thus offers a new framework for the analysis of IWB use in language teaching, which adds to the existing body of literature on the use of interactive technologies in general education, and constitutes a tool for language teachers, trainers and researchers to investigate classroom practice in other contexts.