Typing, thinking, and other musings!

Having transcribed almost 50,000 words of interviews in the last two weeks I am ready to start really looking at what has been said by students and teachers about the use of imagery in ballet.   My first impressions are that everyone uses it in some way, but within that there is a huge range of cognisance, type, process and recognition of what is being used and delivered.  Of the 3 staff members that I interviewed, one is currently on a teaching course and is really aware and hungry to progress, one is a self-confessed ‘strategic’ learner who has lots to offer, but not always via direct answers to my questions, and the other feels content with what they know for the students that they teach, providing the shortest interview of the 3.  They are all very good teachers, who I have recently seen in action.  The last teacher I listed teaches Foundation students mostly and having observed her teaching them after the interview had taken place I was able to relate what she said about the imagery that she used during the interview to the class she gave, and comprehend more clearly what she meant.  It was clear that the students had limited anatomical experience, and indeed in some cases very limited classical ballet experience and we reflected after the class that the teaching had to be what we called quite ‘literal’ and obvious in order to allow the class to understand the basics of what was required of them.  I mooted that I would like to see her teach more advanced students sometime to compare her approach to them in order to ascertain if there was a difference in the delivery and whether or not more imagery was used.

The students offered a wealth of information, with an early days observation from what I have transcribed being that they often contradict themselves, for example stating that they learn a certain way, or do not use a certain type of imagery, but stating later in the interview that they learn a different way to originally stated, or do use a type of imagery that had been discarded earlier.  In contrast, some do correlate all the way through. 

In addition, the depth of understanding of how they learn and process imagery was really varied from Foundation to 3^rd year students which was what I expected.  In the end, not all selected students were organised enough to arrange interviews, so I had 1 Foundation student, 2 first years, 3 second years and 8 third years which has given me a spread across all years and a lot of third year interviews to work with.  I am happy with this as the third year interviews demonstrate great depth of understanding and knowledge which will heighten my learning.   I know all the interviews will teach me, but the third years were the most sophisticated and very diverse and I do not want to discard any of them just to have an easier time analysing.   

I wanted to write this blog before I get into formally processing the transcripts as I feel that my first impressions are of value, however informal they are.  I wanted to capture the essences of how I feel after the marathon typing sessions, which amount to about 45 hours without interview time included, which has been all consuming but revealing.  On reflection, I did not always stick verbatim to my questions, sometimes jumping on something that was said as it sparked an interest and I think for me that was the best route.  The interviews are richer for it, if harder to transcribe, but nothing can beat the teenage use of language, which meant that the sentences were often extremely fragmented – see previous blog for my frustrations about that!  

So, I now prepare to analyse the texts.  Wish me luck!