Sustaining Action Research

A Practical Guide for Institutional Engagement

Anne Burns, Emily Edwards, Neville John Ellis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9780429560293
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book is a practical guide for English language teachers and teacher educators seeking to carry out and promote teacher action research within their institutional context. Based on contemporary theory and a reflexive and social approach to teacher professional development and learning, it offers readers structured methodologies and concepts, wide-ranging hands-on activity sets, and focused suggestions for appropriate and sustainable ways to implement action research across an institution. Experts Anne Burns, Emily Edwards and Neville John Ellis close the book by presenting ideas for conducting teacher research through reflective practice, exploratory practice and action research.

PART 1From research to implications

DOI: 10.4324/​9780429265273-1

Introduction to Part 1

Over the last two decades, the interest in the idea of teachers becoming researchers has increased dramatically in the field of language teaching. In some situations, language teachers may be introduced to action research (AR) through pre-service or postgraduate teacher education programs; in other cases, they begin investigating their classrooms through local or regional in-service courses or workshops and projects organised by national professional associations. Yet other teachers are encouraged to involve themselves in AR by their schools or teaching colleges. Whatever the various ways that teachers come to conduct AR, there is typically some kind of starting point that needs organisation on the part of an individual, or group, of teacher educators, trainers or professional development personnel within an institution.

As the three authors of this volume, for several years we have all been involved in one way or another in initiating and facilitating AR courses or programs with a variety of institutions or professional bodies. We have noticed that while there are now several books and articles in the field of language teaching offering advice and guidance for teachers wishing to do AR, there are few, if any, that provide support for those wishing to facilitate AR for groups of teachers within institutions. To this end, the aim of this volume is to bring together both theoretical and practical frameworks that can assist individuals, institutions and groups within and across institutions wishing to initiate and, more importantly, sustain AR. We begin, in Part 1, by discussing the theoretical concepts on which our framework for guidance is based. We then go on to provide a range of practical activities that readers can use (Part 2), followed by suggestions for implementing these ideas within institutional systems (Part 3). We conclude in Part 4 by offering ideas for continuing into further research.

From time to time throughout the book, we illustrate theoretical and practical points by referring to scenarios of teachers working in different locations and programs. The teachers we feature are fictional (and their names are pseudonyms). They are based on our own experiences of working and being in contact with teacher-researchers internationally. These examples are created for the purpose of clarifying our ideas, but we hope that, as a reader, you may be able to relate to some of these experiences. In the meantime, here we introduce you to the teachers you will encounter in other parts of the book. When referring to them, we will use boxed descriptions and an arrow so that you can easily find the examples.

YILDIZ FROM TURKEY

Yildiz works as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher in Turkey, where she currently teaches adults and teenagers at a large, private English language school affiliated with a university. Her manager is very supportive of teacher professional development opportunities, and teachers at the school often have considerable input into the curriculum and materials design, as well as some access to conference funding. Yildiz recently completed postgraduate studies in TESOL, which included a unit on teacher research. As one of the assessments for that unit, she wrote a proposal for an AR project, so she is familiar with the approach and process of AR. Some of Yildiz's colleagues at the language school have conducted AR themselves, having taken part in a regional AR program a few years ago.

MATEO FROM PERU

Mateo works in a large primary school in Peru. The English classes at his school were introduced as the result of new policies from the Ministry of Education to encourage bilingualism in English and local languages, and students now get two hours a week of instruction, delivered in 40-minute lessons. Because of the commitment of Mateo, his principal and his colleagues, the school is beginning to build up resources and activities for language teaching. Mateo uses every opportunity he can to attend professional development sessions in his region, and over the last few years, has learned a lot from workshops run by trainers from universities in Peru, international publishers and other organisations, such as The British Council. He often shares his experiences with the other English teachers at his school, and they discuss how they could implement some of the ideas from these sessions.

BRETT FROM AUSTRALIA

Brett is a very experienced English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher who works in a college of further education that provides classes for adult immigrants and refugees. The classes are funded by a government body and the teachers have to follow the required national curriculum. Brett draws on a range of resources developed by the teachers at his college aimed at helping students to meet the learning outcomes. There are some opportunities within the college to attend professional development sessions, but these are sometimes of a general nature and Brett and his colleagues don't always feel they are targeted to their experience and interests. The head of Brett's program is open to suggestions from the teachers about the kind of professional development they would like to experience.

MEI LIN FROM CHINA

Mei Lin is a teacher at a secondary school in a very large city in China. She has taught students at all secondary levels but has recently had a lot of experience with students in the middle grades. The school has strong links with a nearby university which has recently run workshops to promote teacher AR. Mei Lin attended the workshops as she was curious to learn about AR. She is now eager to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the university to be part of a local AR community of teachers. Her principal is supportive of this idea as the school is in the process of transitioning to a newly mandated English curriculum, which will involve teachers in adopting new teaching approaches. He anticipates that Mei Lin's participation with the university researchers could help to provide professional input for her and her colleagues.

Action research as transformative practice

AR has been described as a powerful means of improving and transforming practice at the local level (Burns, 2017c; Cohen et al., 2018; Somekh, 1995). Particularly since the early 1990s, it has become a popular tool for teachers and managers in schools to research their own institutions (Burns, 1999; Ellis & Loughland, 2016; Groundwater-Smith et al., 2016) and many education authorities embrace the concept of AR as part of their professional learning agenda (Campbell and McNamara, 2009; Ellis & Armstrong, 2014). But, what exactly is AR, and what does it look like in operation?

What is action research?

AR is a research approach whereby the practitioner in the field, with ‘insider’ knowledge, closely investigates and reflects on his or her practice in order to bring about improvement and transformative change. This approach to research is very different from a more traditional notion of research where an ‘outsider’, such as a university academic, who might only have a limited engagement with the research site, conducts the research from an ‘objective viewpoint’. Consequently, AR is conducted by ‘insiders’, that is, teachers in a school, rather than by ‘outsiders’. Thereby, a key feature of AR is that ‘the research process is initiated and carried out by the practitioner’ (Nunan, 1992, p. 3) within and in relation to his or her own social context. The practitioner is the researcher and thus maintains ownership of the inquiry.

The action researcher could be any individual working within an organisation or functioning in a community who wishes to undertake research in order to make a change to their social contexts, such as a nurse in a hospital, a social worker at a community centre or a member of a youth club. In an educational context, AR might involve: a single teacher closely examining his or her own practice in the classroom; a group of colleagues who share a common research interest they wish to investigate or members of school management involved in implementing institution-wide change – the end-goal always being deeper understanding of teaching and learning and improvement and change to practice. A team of teachers from different schools might also collaborate to investigate their shared practice. While an action researcher might work individually, in many instances, he or she would work collaboratively with others on the research project. Members of the community, such as students in the classroom, other colleagues, managers, or even parents, can also be participants in the research. At all times, AR focuses on the participants’ own practice. It is not research done by an external researcher on others. The research site is always the local context, the real-life field of practice.

Reflection on the part of action researchers on their own work is an essential component of the process and it has been argued that AR bridges the perceived gap between theory and practice (Thorne & Qiang, 1996; Ulvik et al., 2018). Such a gap exists when a teacher is unable to see how the knowledge taught in an academic environment or presented in a book or journal applies to their day-to-day practice or a real-life situation. AR simultaneously involves taking action while doing research and generally follows a cycle of planning, implementing, acting, observing and reflecting – the ‘self-reflective spiral’ (explained in more detail later in Part 1 in ‘The action research program or project’). The action researcher, or team of researchers, selects a research focus, may access the literature to gain an understanding of the related theory, identifies a research question, collects and analyses data, reports results and takes informed action. Furthermore, AR is a continuous and ongoing process, rather than a one-off experiment or intervention, with the aim of sustaining transformative practice over time. It is always envisaged that AR will result in change, improvement and understanding in the local condition or setting that is being researched.

AR can take on slightly different forms as it is adopted and adapted to suit the needs of teachers working in different schools, sectors or education systems (Edwards & Ellis, 2020; Somekh, 2011; Somekh & Zeichner, 2009). It can therefore be remodelled in different contexts. Nonetheless, the key features of AR, summarised by Burns (1999) in a synthesis of the scholarly literature, are:

1. AR is contextual, small-scale and localised – it...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• PART 1 From research to implications
• PART 2 From implications to application
• PART 3 From application to implementation
• PART 4 From implementation to research
• Reference list
• Index