In what foilows, we shall look at some observation systems which are,
or may be, especially relevant and useful for observing language teaching (LT) classes: we shall call them ‘LT Observation systems’.
Observation systems commonly used tend to be similar either to the model provided by Bellack and others, or to the model provided by Flanders (although this is by no means the whole story : see Croll, 1986, for a very thorough survey). We shall therefore, as a kind of shorthand, talk about the ‘Bellack tradition’ and the ‘Flanders tradition’. In the ‘Bellack tradition’ we might note: (1) the fact that the data are measured from a transcript, i.e. the data have to be first recorded and then transcribed, and (2) the central place of labelled units of discourse (‘moves’) such as structure/solicit/response/reaction. In the ‘Flanders tradition ’, on the other hand, we have a form of documented recall (see page 63), in which twenty or so tallies may be made every minute under one of a range of categories: in other word, the preliminary analysis is done in ‘real time’ as the lesson is procedding.