Abstract
The growing use of peer observation in teacher professional development has created an interest in understanding how it is carried out and what the benefits are. Post-observation feedback is a crucial component of peer observation practices. This study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of peer observation feedback in foreign language teacher’s professional development. Adopting a conversation analysis perspective, we aim to establish how the interactional infrastructure is developed between observers and observees after a negative assessment during peer observation feedback. The results show that, when the observer is assessing a specific teaching action negatively and the observee expresses alignment with the observer’s position, the observer adopts an affiliative stance through the use of his/her epistemic expertise in two ways: either putting his/her self in the shoes of the observee or, in other cases, expressing the affiliative stance by appealing to the epistemic community to which they both belong.
Appendix Transcription conventions
- ↑
Shift to high pitch on next syllable
- ?
Rising intonation on previous syllable
- .
Falling intonation on previous syllable
- =
Latching
- .hh
In breath
- hh
Hearable aspiration (e. g., exhale, laughter token). The more ‘h’s’ the longer the aspiration.
- [
Top begin overlap
- ]
Top end overlap (when relevant)
- [
Bottom begin overlap
- ]
Bottom end overlap (when relevant)
- <word>
Slower than surrounding talk
- °word°
Softer than surrounding talk
- word
Emphasized talk
- £word£
Smiley voice
- wo-
Cut-off
- :(:::)
Stretching of previous sound (the more colons, the longer the stretching)
- (0.2)
Length of pauses in seconds
- (.)
Micropause (less than 0.2 s)
- (word)
Uncertain transcription
- *
Time when the nonverbal action happens
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