Advances in the Study of Bilingualism

Semi-structured observation

During the research project, observation was conducted in ten BA (QTS)
lectures, four PGCE (Secondary) lectures, two BA Childhood Studies lectures
and three FdA lectures. Purposive sampling was used to select the lectures
for observation. They were chosen as examples of a variety of courses and
subjects taught in a bilingual setting. A total of 10 lecturers and 184 students
were observed. The observations were carried out by the project’s principal
researcher, with the exception of one lecture which was co-observed by a
second researcher. Two lectures were filmed and, in all other cases, the lec-
ture was recorded using a written observation schedule. Investigating various
aspects of bilingual lectures as detailed below, the observation was semi-
structured in nature (Cohen et al., 2000).
The observation schedule recorded the students’ language profile, that is,
the proportion of students who had opted to follow their course through the

182 Part 4: Bilingual Education

Table 8.1 Response to student questionnaires

Academic

year

Courses Number of

questionnaires

returned

Response

rate

Language of

response

2006/7 BA (QTS);

BA Childhood Studies;

BSc;

FdA

177 71% 38% Welsh-medium;

62% English-medium

2007/8 BA (QTS) 177 93% 32% Welsh-medium;

68% English-medium

2008/9 PGCE (Secondary);

BA (QTS);

BA Childhood Studies;

BSc;

FdA

189 32% 24% Welsh-medium;

76% English-medium

Table 8.2 Student interview sample

Course Number of

students

Percentage of

students in year

groups

Number of

Welsh-medium

students

Number of

English-medium

students

BA (QTS)

(Years 1 & 2)

40 21% 25 15

PGCE (Secondary) 21 12% 9 12

BA Childhood

Studies (Year 3)

28% 0 2