Universite d’antananarivo ecole normale superieure

2.2- THE CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS

Observation is defined as “the systematic description of events, behaviors, and artifacts in the social setting chosen for study” (Marshall and Rossman , 1989). As we have stated earlier, asking the teachers of English in the Malagasy lycées to fill the questionnaire is not enough to know the realities which occur in the classroom during the teaching of conditional sentences. Observations enable the researcher to describe existing situations using the five senses, providing a “written photograph” of the situation under study. (Erlandson, Harris, Skipper & Allen, 1993). Hence, we also carried out some classroom observations which enable us to see whether the teachers really do what they say in the questionnaire. Classroom observation allows us to witness what exactly happens when teachers teach conditional sentences in “première” and “terminale” classes.