In recent years, educational research has focused, special attention on teachers’ practical-operative experience. The growing interest in the concept of practice within workplace settings has become a turning point in the sociological, anthropological, and educational studies (Schatzki, Knorr Cetina, Von Savigny, 2001).

Theories based on the perspective of sociomaterialism have provided an arena in which it can reflect on the nature and on the role of materiality and its relationship with social phenomena.

Sørensen (2007; 2009) disapproves educational research as it has widely ignored aspects of materiality and bodily knowledge for many years. Similarly, T. Fenwick (2012) argues that very often, material aspects have been investigated and studied making them as immaterial things. This happened mainly to give more attention to social, political, and cultural aspects. Schatzki (1993; 1996a) considers the body as one of the four essential key elements for the study of professional practice. However, body has often avoided in educational research.

Despite the importance of the bodily practice in the definition of professionals’ work, it cannot forget the importance of theory in placing practice in a «coherent narrative» (Taras, 2012: 2), as a dramaturgy of phenomena. As M. Taras argues «theory provides the coherence and the logic for the practice» (2012: 2). If theory creates the coherence for the practices and the practices can provide information on professionals’ knowledge and way of knowing, what is interesting is the investigation of the relation of professionals’ perceptions and practice.

Although many studies had been focusing on the contents and on the purposes of feedback (Merry, Price, Carless, Taras, 2013) in this project the focus is on the traits of the “act” of feedback.

This contribution aims to study teacher’s use and conceptions of feedback focusing the attention on the role of body in teaching practice. Particularly, the body will be considered the glue and the filrouge through which the practice is explored and understood. Here the setting is the HE context and teachers’ work. Specifically, attention will be paid to a particular aspect: the use of feedback.

As one of the conclusions of their survey about lecturers’ beliefs on assessment, Davies and Taras (2016) consider communication as an element that can affect the understanding of assessment. This consideration is one of the starting points for this project as the body could be considered a crucial element in the communication (in supporting or not verbal ways to communicate intentions).

Research questions:

- How teachers use their body during the feedback?

- What the exploration of body in the practice of feedback tells us about their knowledge?

- There is coherence between teachers’ perception of feedback and their use of body in the practice?

12 teachers from the University of Sunderland (UK) were observed during their lesson; 6 of them come from the Department of Dance, Drama and Music and the other 6 come from the Departments of Education, Science and Social Sciences. Seven of teachers are female (two from Education and five from Dance); four male teachers come from the Education field and only one male teacher comes from Dance’s Department. The exploration of the body during the feedback practice will be done thanks to two steps. The first one will provides field observation during the class. Specifically, the observation of movements will follow principles and guidelines of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Then special attention will be paid on four aspects: the space, the time, the weight, and the flow. In order to adapt Laban’s principles to our aims, their interpretation will be contextualised. Then four criteria that guide teachers' observation were created accordingly with the interaction of LMA's principles and the key element of effective feedback identified in literature review. The second step will be aimed to a deep understanding of what are teachers’ beliefs, perceptions, and understandings on feedback and how these correlate with data gathered from the observations. Questions that guide this step are: what do teachers think about feedback? Which are for them the elements that could characterise an effective feedback? How they consider their feedback in practice? The first part of the questionnaire includes three general questions about feedback. The first one was related to their definition of feedback. The second part of the questionnaire is about the practice of feedback

To conclude the analysis of this case study on the exploration of body within the feedback practice some issues were been identified. Specifically were been identified two types of issues: the first one concerns the relation teacher-students during the feedback practice; the second one concerns the own internal coherence of teachers between what kind of verbal feedback they provide during the lesson and what the act bodily at the same time. Following this categorisation were found six issues relate to the relation teacher-students and other four issues found are related to the teacher’s coherence between body and voice. After this first “pilot” study some limits and further possible research paths could be discussed. Some lecturer found difficulties in the understanding of the questionnaire. Even if the author thinks that question must leave space for interpretations, maybe it could be take into account a change in some way to be more clear. A face to face semi-structured interview could be more useful to explore aspects such as body and movements in the teaching practice. Levels of the observation grid tried to link the contents of the feedback provided during the lesson and body moments’ characteristics. This grid has four levels. Maybe more levels could better explore this relation. This study was primarily useful as it was a try to adapt the approach of LMA for the study of teaching in HE. As deeper explored in my PhD research project, this new approach for the investigation of educational practices can open up new understanding of teachers work as well as new paths for teacher education at any level.

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