Didactic Analysis of School Volleyball Teaching in Tunisia Case Study of two Specialist and Non-Specialist Teachers

I. INTRODUCTION

The physical education and sport (PE) teacher, in a contemporary school lulled by the concept of interdisciplinarity (Dimitri Le Roy, Jean Trohel and Michaël Attali, 2020), can help a student progress in several ways. By explaining more simply, at greater length or in a different way. By engaging them in another task, one that is more challenging or commensurate with their abilities. By alleviating his anxiety, by restoring his confidence. By offering him other reasons to act or to learn. By placing him in another social setting, by de-dramatizing the situation, by modifying the didactic relationship or contract, by modifying the pace of work and progress, the nature of the sanctions and rewards, and the student's share of autonomy and responsibility. Tardif and Lessard (1999) note that "interactivity characterizes the main object of the teacher's work, since the essence of his or her professional activity consists of entering a classroom and initiating a program of interactions with the students". First of all, regulation gestures appear as typical of PES teaching (Gal-Petifaux, 2000; Lémonie, 2009; Marsenach, 1987; Thorel, 2007). In this sense, the didactic intervention constitutes for them a fundamental descriptive category of the teacher's work. The second pitfall leads to a different and legitimate understanding of the teacher's intervention. It is a question, in this framework, of not remaining at a relatively macroscopic analysis where one seeks to account for the way in which the interventions and consequently the interactions structure the task of the teacher, but to analyze with a more "microscopic" focus how these interventions function, and more precisely, how it is constituted by the joint action of the teacher and the pupil. Consequently, we can postulate that the intervention of didactic regulation (IRD) of PES teachers is a process by nature complex: it can be indissociably communicative, verbal, didactic and social, which is influenced by several variables such as the expertise/speciality of the teacher.

For a better understanding of the teaching/learning process, it is important to articulate in a systemic way three distinct and interdependent logics: that of the learner, that of the teacher and that of the subject taught. However, this articulation generates several questions concerning the reliability of the didactic system and the originality of each of these elements in the dynamics of the system. Thus, the study of one element will allow the understanding of the whole and the observation of any of these components only takes a didactic meaning when it is related to the two others (Mercier, 2000). Indeed, these three elements are articulated in a didactic environment which has several facets: institutional (schools); human (learners); temporal (sessions, cycles); material and didactic spaces. All these variables interact and evolve over time and constitute the basic elements from which we conduct our research.

II. METHODOLOGY

In this research, we considered it useful to mention a main hypothesis which aims to verify that the modalities of didactic intervention of teachers vary according to their speciality. Our study will concern two teachers of physical education and sports in the region of Kef (northwest Tunisia): Kais 3 2 years, specialist in volleyball as well as trainer for the categories of young volleyball players, has been teaching for 8 years in middle school and high school.

Ramzi is also 30 years old, he is a football coach and has been teaching PE at the secondary school for 10 years. These two teachers work in the same school. The beginning of April (after the spring break) is the starting point of our research which lasts four weeks to film four teaching sessions after having ensured a familiarization session to minimize the parasitic effects during the video recording with three fixed cameras and a tie microphone.

Therefore, ten interviews were conducted to question their teaching practices, to identify their beliefs concerning their actions in class and to note their personal conceptions of verbal and non-verbal interventions. The first part of the interview was a general interview on didactic teaching regulations, what they included in each category and what role they attributed to these communications in the didactic relationship. A second part of the interview, based on reminders stimulated by a montage juxtaposing selected passages of their interventions, aimed at collecting their comments about these sequences and their intentions at that moment. This second part of the interview allowed them to confront the reality of their practice with the beliefs expressed previously. The different interviews will be transcribed.

It is therefore a question of building an empirical tool from an illustrative analysis of the interventions of these teachers during volleyball sessions, based on examples and a case study that will focus on the content of the statements made by these teachers as well as the discursive categories that appear through their didactic interactions (Austin 1970).

2.1 Processing of Verbal Interventions by Teachers

The method requires an initial joint work of cutting and naming. The verbal communications addressed to the students in the context of the task are transcribed in full, task by task. They are simultaneously divided into two units: "episodes" and "objects". An "episode" begins when the teacher communicates with a student (or a group of students) and ends with the teacher's departure or a new observation. An "object" represents a particular content of the communication. Each episode can thus comprise several objects. Each "object" is given a name corresponding to its content. In addition, elements of description of the teacher's gestures (demonstrations, manipulations) are notified. In addition, it is specified whether the communication is preceded by an observation (Tables 1 and 2 do not give an account of this in order to simplify the reading) and to whom the teacher is addressing (in the example below, the roles held by the pupils are identified: thrower, passer or receiver). Note that, when processing the data, the objects of regulation are sometimes grouped into macroscopic categories.

As a result of this work, we isolate the objects of intervention of didactic regulation. Communications that follow an observation and are of a didactic nature (as we have defined it) are given the designation "IRD". Each object named "IRD" then receives a coding corresponding to the four categories of didactic regulation: "task";

"results of the action"; "technical means"; "attitude towards learning" J-M. Boudard, J-F. Robin (2012). Objects that do not correspond to this definition are coded as "other". Finally, the IRDTs are isolated and subjected to qualitative analyses. The purpose of these analyses is to better identify the characteristics of the knowledge actually taught (formal/functional, declined/macroscopic, explicit/metaphorical, dispersed/tight, convergent with the instructions or not, etc.).

Table 1: Processing of kais' verbalizations. Session 1, Step 1.

Table 2: Processing Ramzi's verbalizations. Session 1, Step 1.

Table 3: Processing of Kais' verbalizations. Session 1, Step 2.

Table 4: Processing Ramzi's verbalizations. Session 1, Step 2.

The analysis of the video recordings allows us to report, during the 8 sessions, on the interactive decisions related to the micro didactic variables negotiated during the analysis In accordance with Guerchi's (2015) analysis protocol, we proceed by processing the words of the associated teachers in order to put forward elements of response to the guiding questions.

First of all, we make a first global reading to mark the didactic interventions that interest us (nature and moment of the intervention). The analysis of the videotapes allows us to make a finding that highlights two possibilities of decisions related to the micro didactic variables.

• The modalities of the micro didactic variables emerging from the verbal intervention are identical to those decided during the questionnaire phase.

• The modalities of the micro didactic variables that emerge from the verbal intervention are fundamentally different from those that were planned.

These two possibilities occur in interactive contexts that evolve. Depending on the singularity of the teacher, and depending on the adequacy or inadequacy of the didactic functioning to the teacher's project and expectations.

The analysis of interactive decisions thus implies the distinction between two extreme states with regard to the project and the teacher's expectations. Either the didactic functioning is deemed acceptable by the teacher (the students are involved in the task and produce behaviours "in line" with the teacher's expectations) who considers their involvement and their achievements acceptable. There is therefore an "adequacy" (A) between the teacher's project and the didactic functioning. Or the didactic functioning is judged unacceptable by the teacher (the pupils are not involved in the proposed tasks and produce behaviours that do not conform to the teacher's expectations such as agitation, non-cooperation and repeated failure). There is therefore a "mismatch" (I) between the teacher's project and the didactic functioning.

This step allows us to account for the effects of verbal regulation interventions on the content actually taught.

In this research, we are particularly interested in the ways in which the verbalizing subject, who is at once singular, subject and specialist/non-specialist, intervenes and communicates knowledge/technique for girls and boys.

In order not to make the analysis too heavy and in order to ensure equivalence between teachers, we will select only the most relevant video passages. For data processing, we opted for complementary approaches. These approaches are quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative approach consists of processing numerical data illustrated from the coding of certain qualitative data. This phase consists of assigning a unique number to a variable, a modality or a given response to make possible the processing and statistical analysis of the collected data that follows. In the continuity of the analyses, the quantitative analysis makes it possible to measure the quantitative intra-individual variability thanks to the study of the quantitative variations of the decisions of the two teachers during 8 sessions. To do this, we conduct an analysis by variable category. In the context of a cross-case study, this approach also allows us to account for quantitative variability between teachers. In this study, for each "case" we will count the number of interventions carried out in continuity with the project with regard to the didactic functioning (Adequacy or Inadequacy). The quantitative approach enriched by the qualitative approach allows us to make an analysis of the regularities allowing us to point out certain analogies in the two cases with regard to our research questions.

III. RESULT

As pointed out by Touboul (2011), expertise is one factor among others that structures knowledge. It relates to the knowledge and mastery of the specific objects of knowledge taught.

In volleyball, Kais' personal knowledge is built through his practice of volleyball from a young age, completed and enriched at the ISSEP of Kef and maintained in his experience as a coach and referee. However, Ramzi is not a volleyball expert like Kais, he is a football specialist. His first encounter with volleyball was at the ISSEP of Kef where he completed training cycles in volleyball. These training cycles represent the only basis of information and experience in the practice of volleyball. He teaches volleyball for the first time, his training cycles represent the only information base and the only experience in the practice of volleyball. Beyond their singularity, what differentiates these two teachers is essentially their expertise in volleyball.

The knowledge in volleyball is known before the cycle, both teachers have in their heads all the objectives to teach, even the most relevant knowledge to transmit for girls and boys in the school setting.

For the expert, he plans to transmit knowledge centred on technical, tactical, strategic and regulatory elements plus other ethical knowledge: "in volleyball I prefer to work with my pupils on everything that is basic technique with the work of some technical-tactical and tactical combinations...and I will insist on other aspects such as respect for the partner and the opponent, the spirit of the group, respect for the girls since the boys dominate the game and the notion of the rules of the game" (Interview).

In the negotiation interviews, Kais had stressed that his knowledge was commonplace for him. The observation of the event confirms his words, he explicitly addresses technical, tactical and strategic notions to give his students the means to collectively build a project of actions in volleyball. Kais tries to transmit to his students an expert knowledge that he is led to simplify. Thus, his expertise is identifiable through the nature of the knowledge used and the conditions to transmit it.

The quantitative analysis of Kais's language approach allowed to highlight different points concerning the nature of the knowledge to be transmitted in his class. Using the verbal language approach, Kais transmits a priori technical knowledge with 60%, followed by tactical knowledge with 17% and 12% for regulatory knowledge and 11% for strategic knowledge. During the test, his knowledge is enriched by the knowledge acquired during his practical specialization. This strategy leads to the knowledge actually taught in the classroom and leads Kais to refer to theoretical knowledge, to knowledge "by practice" and "for practice" (Terrisse, 2000). Unlike Kais, Ramzi does not use the same references to construct knowledge. These are knowledge that can be found in school programs. They are not enriched with expert knowledge. His teaching was focused on learning technical elements, tactical, strategic and regulatory knowledge is never addressed during the test. The lack of specialization in volleyball puts Ramzi in difficulty, as he teaches a sport that he does not master and does not know enough about. The didactic contract established by Ramzi focuses on knowledge from his academic training. During the test, the teacher only aims at reproducing what he knows about volleyball: "I ISSEP in Kef about volleyball... I was not too remember some notions from my training at the interested in volleyball at that time" (interview)

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The analysis of the test shows that Ramzi often communicates technical knowledge with 95.04% of the total knowledge communicated against 1.48% for tactical knowledge, 2.97% for regulatory knowledge and only 0.49% for strategic knowledge. To do this, he puts his pupils in an opposition situation without any strategy of the game. The pupils do not try to organize themselves collectively to play, and start looking for the easiest solutions by using an individual game. As a result, the pupils are in difficulty and Ramzi cannot define precisely the causes of their problem. He becomes aware of this as the situation unfolds and declares that he wants to remedy it: "I don't know...but...they didn't try to follow my instructions as we explained at the beginning of the session" (interview).

Thus, expertise in volleyball is identifiable through the nature of the knowledge transmitted, and the way teachers transmit this knowledge to students. The knowledge taught is not only that found in the disciplinary didactic literature, it is enriched by the conversion of knowledge acquired during academic training and practical specialization.

IV. CONCLUSION

The teaching of PES is based on the "expert knowledge" (Joshua, 1996), these expert knowledge of physical practices are constituted by knowledge of the initial training and "empirical observations of the field". It is professional disciplinary knowledge (Léziart, 1997) assimilated to technical knowledge is specific to the activities taught (Bouthier and Durey, 1994). However, it has been shown that specialization is also linked to specialized body practice, discourse on practice, as well as the use of knowledge, know-how and know-how (Brière-Guenoun, 2005; Buznic et al., 2008).

The quantitative and qualitative study shows that the teachers' decision-making process, before, during and after the interaction, has an effect on the organization of the teaching content. The changes that take place are linked to the teacher's reading of the interactive context and guide his or her interventions, which constantly evolve over time under the effect of the circumstances of the didactic situation.

This analysis sheds light on the sources of difficulty for the non-expert teacher when teaching volleyball.

Thus, we were able to notice that the weight of expertise does not act in the same way in organizing the different practices of each teacher in a singular manner.

At the end of this research, we attempt a synthetic vision of this weight by articulating the different elements identified in our successive analyses. Our intention is to position each teacher on a continuum according to his or her relationship to the test and to knowledge. This essay constitutes a didactic analysis framework in which we can situate each teacher observed according to the weight of expertise. The value of this framework is in fact the final draft of this approach, which was built up from various didactic interpretative elements. This draft is based on the initial analysis framework of the "didactic triangle" (Terrisse, 1994).