Teacher interviews

Many efforts were made in order to gather participants for the teacher interviews. In total six EFL teachers were asked directly if they wanted to attend an interview, and five answered that they wished to participate. In addition, applications (see Appendix E) were e-mailed to three lower secondary schools in the Rogaland district, which explained the project and asked if they had any EFL teachers who wished to participate. Two of the school did not reply, and the last school replied that they were too busy to participate in the project. From the group of

participating teachers, three of the teachers were the EFL teachers of the pupil group that was interviewed for this project. In order to assure the participants’ anonymity, the teachers who participated in this project will be referred to as T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5. Participants T1, T2 and T3 were from school A and participants T4 and T5 were from school B. It was the researcher’s intention to gather a larger teacher group; however, the end result became five participants.

The interviews were held at the school faculty, and was conducted during the school time, with one exception. Due to busy schedules and time limits, both for the teacher and researcher, one of

the interviews was conducted by telephone, which was agreed both by the teacher and researcher. The one-to-one interviews that were conducted at the school faculty, lasted on average 30-40 minutes. Due to the busy schedules that most teachers had, is was important to stay within the time limit. Therefore, some of the interviews seemed a bit rushed and not as relaxed as the pupil interviews. Most teachers had classes both before and after the interview, therefore most of the interviews were held during their breaks.

3.6.1 Conducting the phone-interview

The phone-interview with participant T5 had some complications, which arguably affected the results and quality of the interview. First, conducting an interview by phone does not allow the interviewer and the participant to physically communicate, therefore the interview lacked the connection that was experienced with the other one-to-one interviews. Secondly, there were some difficulties with communication, for instance, that sometimes during the interview, the connection was lost, thus some information was lost. The researcher experienced that is was sometimes difficult to hear what the participant was saying, and therefore the transcriptions were not as precise as the one-to-one interviews. The results from the phone interview are presented in the result section; it is, however, important to consider that the validity and reliability are not as precise compared to the one-to-one teacher interviews. There is also reason to believe that if participant T5 had been interviewed in a regular one-to-one interview, the result might have been different. Farooq (2015: 2) writes in his article on telephone interviews that it is generally

discouraged to use telephone as an equipment in qualitative interviews, but that this has not been supported by factual evidence. Farooq (2015: 3) further argues that face to face interviews allow the use of body language, which is one if the essential keys tools that ensures that the message is understood, and that this natural way of conducting interviews creates a relaxing and friendly environment between the interviewer and the interviewees. There is, therefore, reason to believe that some essential information was lost, or rather not established, whilst conducting the

interview by telephone. Holbrook (2003: 80) argues that telephone interviewing has its benefits, such as reduced cost, and explains that this method has quick turnout time. In addition, phone interviews are in some cases easier to organize, because the participants do not have to set up a place to meet, and therefore can conduct the interview from home or where they like.

To conclude, although the technical issues made the interview process challenging, important and relevant information was gathered from the participant, which will be used to answer the thesis questions. One of the solutions that could have improved the quality of the phone

interview, is the use of face-time, meaning that the interviewer and the participant would be able to see each other through the phones. This would allow for better visual communication between the participant and the interviewer, like being able to share facial expressions, which is

something Farooq (2015: 9) argues is an essential part of the communication process. He also adds that the visual communication we use during an interview, like facial expressions and body language, are “means of interpreting what is being communicated” (Farooq, 2015: 9. This means that both the interviewer’s and the participant’s body language and facial expressions, are

essential tools that should be present during an interview, in order to strengthen what is being communicated. It is therefore reasons to believe that the use of face-to-face communication during phone interviews would probably have improved the communication between the interviewer and the participant; this was, however, not accessible during the period of the interview.

3.6.2 Interview questions

The interview questions for the EFL teachers are divided into the following four sections:

• General information and background

• Stronger pupils

• Adapted education in the English classes

• Adapted education for stronger pupils

The first section asked about the teachers’ educational background, how long they had been teaching the subject of English in lower secondary school and asked about their perception of adapted education. In addition, question 5 asked which textbook is used in the EFL classes and asked if the teacher thought the textbook is adapted for all the pupils in their class. As Dörnyei (2007: 137) argues, the first questions that kick off an interview, are particularly important because they set the tone of the interview and should be questions that are “easy” for the participant to answer. Dörnyei (2007) further writes that this often helps the participants relax

and open up, that hopefully “breaks the ice” between the interviewer and the participant, which is something that is important to establish so that there is a relaxing environment during the interview. The second section, stronger pupils, addressed the thesis topic, which asks the teachers how they would characterize stronger pupils and how they adapt the EFL classes with regards to stronger pupils. Question 9 concerns stronger pupils in relation to the lack of

motivation, which is something both Børte (2016: 3) and Idsøe (2019: 3) emphasize as a relevant issue for underachieving that needs to be addressed and resolved. Question 10 asked the teachers if they felt like they had the right education and knowledge about stronger pupils in order to identify and educate them, which is something that the research results in Børte (2016: 2) showed that teachers lacked, and that they were unsure about how to identify and educate pupils with higher learning potential. This question was included in the interview simply to research if the EFL teachers of today felt like the educational program which they had studied, provided enough education about stronger pupils or if there is room for improvement.

The third section, Adapted education in the English classes, discussed the EFL classes, and asked the teachers how they organized the EFL classes and organized group-work. Question 17 referred to the research article by Børte (2016) which states that “because the teacher spends so much time on the pupils who are struggling – stronger pupils are not getting included in the group of pupils who receive differentiated education” (Børte, 2016: 8 – my translation). This question was asked with the purpose to explore if the teachers experienced the same struggle that this article referred to or not. The last section, Adapted education for stronger pupils, asked more final questions about adapted education for HLP pupils, and for instance asked about challenges that the teachers experience when working with HLP pupils.