ABSTRACT
This chapter reports a study that focuses what teachers experience in their teaching. The study is carried out within the framework of phenomenology and primarily concerns consciousness and intentionality. A phenomenographical approach has been used to describe and analyse the experiences of twelve primary teachers. A stimulated recall method was used to remind the teachers of their own thought processes during a previous lesson. The findings indicate that the teachers comment upon similar aspects of their practice-above all, capturing their pupils’ attention and developing the pupils’ thinking or creating a sense of community in the class. However, although the teachers direct their consciousness towards similar aspects, they do so in three qualitatively different ways: the act of consciousness is directed towards the activity itself; the act of consciousness is directed towards aims of general character; and the act of consciousness is also directed towards a specific content.
