Since the late 90's, the Research Group for Comparative Subject Didactics based in Geneva has developed video-based classroom observations in order to capture the mutual adjustments of the teacher and the students in co-constructing knowledge content. The importance of observation & analysis protocols including a hierarchical system of data treatment was highlighted by Schubauer-Leoni & Leutenegger (2000). A central feature of video-based analyses in French-speaking didactical research is the construction of synopsis recapitulating classroom events in a chronological order (Leutenegger, 2003; Tiberghien et al, 2007, Sales Cordeiro & Ronveaux, 2009). Stemming from sequential analysis of discourses, structures of synopsis for didactical surveys significantly differ according to the purpose of the research and theoretical perspective lying in the background, and the temporal scales of analyses invoked in the study (Lemke, 2000). I will survey different synopsis constructed for analyzing the directions of joint actions in classrooms at meso-scale as well as some categories used for coding the meaning-making process in micro-scale analysis (Ligozat, Wickman & Hamza, 2012). In particular, I will show that for same category being used for coding the teaching actions within a lesson, the didactical interpretation of these actions remains dependent upon the progression of the content.