This research project explores the unseen, silencing and effective invisibilization within the observers’ subject positions in the process of classroom observation practices in Colombia. Also, the research tries to sustain such practices carried out by observers are not simply normalized (formats, rubrics, and data), but represent more than a process of instrumentalization, functioning into social practice, where the observers are involved in an asymmetrical power-relations situation where an expert reasoning system within school contexts prevails merged with reflection and criticism.

It is important to mention that this project is based on the observers’ subject position. There is a lot of literature about classroom observations, but little has been said about the observers’ subject positions during this practice. The observer is the person who analyzes, judges, criticizes, offers feedback, and supports English language teachers in a strategy of Classroom Observation (gathering information, assessment, or quality processes in Education programs).

For a long time, the practice of classroom observation has been considered as an improvement and help action for educational processes at a general level and in the field of ELT. However, this practice has been standardized and it is presented without any problem within English language teachers. Likewise, the role of the observer is not judged and is rarely explored in the field. This is one of the reasons why this research represents situations that have not been handled, where observers’ subject position facilitates understanding into the dynamics of the practice of classroom observations, sometimes seen as a colonial mechanism of control and other times, as a judgment procedure. The observers from their own negotiations, feelings and struggles will give us a more detailed view to what happens in the classroom observations and understand why they observe, who observes and by whom is it observed.

The theoretical framework of this project is framed by lines of thought which emerged from the state of the art study. The position of the observer subject, top-down events, and the invisibility of the observer's subjectivities are identified in this research project.

The objectives will determine a clear and consistent relationship with the description of the problem and, specifically, with the questions to be solved. Furthermore, the methodology will detail the procedures, techniques, activities, and other methodological strategies involved in the unseen, silencing, and effective invisibilization within the observers’ subject positions in the process of classroom observation practices in Colombia.

This project aims to highlight what is hidden in the position of the observers’ subject positions, what is not seen in the data, what is behind the eyes of the observers, their particular situations in observation, which will possibly provide insights to the ELT field.