Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
56
result(s) for
"Allwright, Dick"
Sort by:
Exploratory Practice: rethinking practitioner research in language teaching
This paper is an introduction to the rest of this Special Issue of Language
Teaching Research devoted entirely to Exploratory Practice (EP), a form of
practitioner research. It is also an introduction to EP itself, telling the story of
the development of its practices and its principles over the last ten or so years.
Readers already familiar with EP may wish to go directly to the other seven papers
in this issue, for illustrations of EP in practice, for research about EP, and for a
more thorough review of the relevant research literature (see especially the papers
by Miller and by Perpignan).
The case for EP presented below is based on a perceived need for practitioner
research to be rethought: to be refocused on understanding, and
ultimately on a concern for the quality of life in the language classroom, for both
teachers and learners. The paper includes, in Section VII, a brief introduction to
the other papers in this volume.
Journal Article
Developing Principles for Practitioner Research: The Case of Exploratory Practice
Exploratory Practice (EP) has been developed over the last 15 or so years as an approach to practitioner research that is devoted to understanding the quality of language classroom life. It started in reaction both to academic classroom research and to Action Research, the practitioner research model most in vogue at that time in our field. At first looking for an alternative to current academic classroom research practices on largely ethical grounds, EP developed over time primarily as a set of principles rather than as a set of classroom practices. The emphasis on principles relates to their potentially global reach, whereas emergent practices seemed to be essentially local in nature. Of course, the principles were coming from the experience of years of local action, endlessly and intensively discussed in global terms. These principles address (more or less implicitly) the issues at the heart of this special issue of The Modern Language Journal: the technical, epistemological, and ethical dimensions of research on second language learning. In this article, I will therefore set out the principles of EP in direct relationship to these 3 dimensions. For EP, the ethical and epistemological dimensions are the most critical, with the emphasis on understanding rather than problem-solving. I find the common emphases on practical problem-solving and making measurable improvements in student achievement not only unhelpfully shortsighted but also potentially counterproductive. I argue instead for a return to the traditional research aim of understanding, and for focusing our work for understanding on quality of life (rather than quality of output) as the ultimate value. This focus also prompts us to address the ethical issue of the researcher-researched relationship, and to insist that the learners, as well as the teachers, should be seen as classroom practitioners developing their own understandings of language classroom life.
Journal Article
From Teaching Points to Learning Opportunities and Beyond
The teaching point persists, and will no doubt persist further, but this article reviews decades of thinking to challenge it as prime unit of planning for language teaching and proposes instead the learning opportunity as a unit of analysis with major implications for planning. This proposal leads me to advocate practitioner research (specifically Exploratory Practice) as a vehicle for practitioners (teachers and learners) to plan and work together to deepen their understandings of life in the language classroom. Describing first the persistence over recent decades of the teaching point mentality, I then review the major challenges to it over the same period. The most significant comes from 1980s academic classroom research, which casts doubt on the practical value of teaching point-based teaching and presented classroom language learning as inherently idiosyncratic and unpredictable. But it also offered a relatively optimistic view of what learners may get from lessons via the myriad learning opportunities that arise. The notion of the learning opportunity is then presented in its very considerable complexity, not to justify further academic research but instead to justify thinking of what planning might contribute to practitioners' own teaching and learning lives, primarily via planning for understanding.
Journal Article