Parvaneh Tavakoli
London Metropolitan University
February 2012
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Relationship between research & practice
◦ Ideally: Complementary and supportive role of
research and practice
◦ In reality: A gap between the two (from Chastain &
Stern in 1970s to Ellis 2009, Erlam 2008 & Borg
2010)
◦ Allwright (2005: 27): ‘damaging split between
researchers and teachers’
◦ Belcher (2007: 397): ‘already a significant, perhaps
growing, divide between research and pedagogy in
our field’
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Borg (2010): Teacher research engagement
◦ Engagement in research (doing) and with research
(reading & using)
◦ Teacher research is a minority activity in the field
◦ Many barriers to teacher research
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Ellis (2010): Second language acquisition, teacher
education and language pedagogy
◦ Examining the nature of SLA-LP nexus
◦ Creating a framework to probe into these relationships
◦ Bridging the gap by adopting certain principles in
teacher education programs
New values and obligations to highlight impact
of research on practice
Classroom
Researchers
SLA
Researchers
Language
Teachers
Language
Educators
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Many L2 teachers are uncertain about the value of
theory, reluctant to employ research findings in
their classrooms, have little incentive to read
research output (McDonald et al., 2001)
What researchers uncover in their investigations
may not be of relevance and importance to
language teachers (Han, 2007)
Teachers and researchers follow two different sets
of agendas (McDonough, 2006)
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Preoccupied with
teaching
Own practical
knowledge
Concerned with local
and specific cases
Interested in implicit
and procedural
processes
Insider
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Preoccupied with
learning
Possess technical
knowledge
Concerned with
general and/or
generalizable cases
Engaged in explicit and
declarative processes
Outsider
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Mainstream education
◦ Dewey’s proposition
◦ Stenhouse’s Curriculum Project
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Second Language education & TESOL
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Exploratory Practice (Allwright, 2003, 2005)
Action Research (Burns, 1999-2011)
Key publications: TESOL Quarterly & ELTJ
Plenary talks & conference themes (Ellis, 2009)
Local & international research projects (Erlam,
2008; Borg, 2010)
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Aims of the research
Methodology
◦ Sequential mixed-method
◦ Part 1: Questionnaire (quantitative & qualitative)
◦ Part 2: Interview (semi-structured)
◦ Part 3 & perhaps Part 4
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Participants
◦ 70 TESOL teachers in England
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Data
◦ 60 completed questionnaires
◦ 10 interviews
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Analysis
◦ Percentages, t-tests, correlations
◦ Content analysis
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What are teachers’ views on the relevance,
significance and association of research to
practice? Do they perceive a gap between the
two?
In what ways do teachers engage with research
activities?
What are the main factors influencing teachers’
use of research and their views and beliefs about
it?
What are teachers’ expectations from research
and how do they think this gap can be bridged?
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A large number of Ts (70%) consider research
useful
Ts are generally optimistic about the help they
can receive from research
They are less positive about how much of a
teacher’s teaching should be based on research
They believe Implementing research findings in
a class was not that practical
They agree there is a gap between teaching and
research (about 80%)
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In what ways do teachers engage with
research activities?
◦ Some have read a research article or used some of their
research training, but very few have attended a conference or
done research in their class.
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What are the main factors influencing
teachers’ use of research and their views and
beliefs about it?
◦ A positive correlation between teachers academic
qualification & attending a conference
◦ A positive correlation between teachers’ qualification and
their positive views on the supportive role of research
◦ Negative correlations between length of time Ts were
qualified and their perceptions of whether research was
supportive of and helpful to their practice
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Research is not supported institutionally
Different Interpretations of research
Research to provide practical insight
Research to start, not end in classroom
Role of teacher training programmes
Researcher vs. practitioner: The two different
communities of practice
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CoP: a conceptual perspective to bring theory and
practice together
CoPs are groups of people who share a concern or
passion for something they do and learn how to do it
better as they interact regularly.
Three characteristics of CoPs:
◦ Domain, Community, Practice
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CoPs are focused on a domain of knowledge and over
time accumulate expertise in this domain. They
develop their shared practice by interacting around
problems, solutions, and insights, and building a
common store of knowledge.
three dimensions of the relation by which practice is
the source of coherence of a community
◦ Mutual engagement, Joint enterprise, Shared repertoire
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In what ways teachers’ beliefs and attitudes
contribute to the existing gap between
teaching and research in TESOL?
Can Wenger’s CoP as a conceptual framework
help better understand teachers’ beliefs and
attitudes about the gap between research and
practice?
Can Wenger’s CoP offer help to identify ways
of bridging the gap?
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Identity
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Issues of identity, experience & learning
◦ J: it (the Trinity Diploma) was something I had to do,
a chore, but it didn’t change my teaching, I’m
basically the same teacher as before.
◦ R: I think it’s more a case of like, it’s more a case of
the hands on experience, you know, if you have a
problem in class you’re not going to look it up in a
textbook or read about it, you’d ask someone who
with more experience or you just learn how to how
to deal with the situation.
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Identity & trajectories
◦ E: yeah, no I think um as long as the researcher
hasn’t been too long out of the classroom then
you can have more respect for them. (peripheral
trajectories)
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Identity, ownership of knowledge &
professionalism
◦ C: I think teachers are creative people. I mean I’m
always kind of looking for tips on how to make
improve my lessons. The Internet is great I can, if I
want a lesson I Google it.
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R: The kind of research I do is if I want to teach something, and
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P: I wouldn’t be interested in reading it (a research article on
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maybe the way I’m teaching at the moment I don’t think is very
good or I think could be better, then I research like existing
textbooks or other stuff to try and find a better way to teach it
but it’s more like towards the practical sense of what the lesson
is going to be like, my worksheet for example.
vocabulary teaching/learning) unless it was on the table in the
teacher’s room and I didn’t have a newspaper, I might pick it up
and have a look through, um but it wouldn’t be something I’d be
rushing out to look for it to find, I mean if I’m being perfectly
honest.
E: When you work with your students on a day to day basis you
know what their needs are, that’s where I would look begin
research.
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Different Communities of Practice
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J: as a teacher coming from sort of, well, from a teaching
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The three conditions
context from a real teaching context, I wanted to know how
the content of the course can be transferred to the classroom.
◦ Mutual engagement
◦ Joint enterprise
◦ Shared repertoire
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B: The staffroom is the best place for ideas, um I mean with
all that experience why make things difficult for yourself.
E: if I wanted to find out something I’d ask someone, look on
the net but no, I wouldn’t go to the library.
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Participation & non-participation
◦ 'We not only produce identities through the
practices we engage in, but also we define
ourselves through practices we do not engage in'
(Wenger, 1998, p.164).
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Mediatory institutions to better connect the
two CoPs
◦ Teacher training programs
◦ National and International mediatory institutions,
e.g. The British Council
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CoPs are “shared histories of learning. Over
time, such histories create discontinuities
between those who have been participating
and those who have not. These
discontinuities are revealed by the learning
involved in crossing them … But practice
does not create only boundaries. At the
same time as boundaries form, CoPs
develop ways of maintaining connections
with the rest of the world” (p.101)
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The gap between TESOL research & practice continues
to remain a divide (in at least some local pedagogies)
Issues of identity, learning & ownership of knowledge
are central to teachers’ CoP. How can these be
employed to push the boundaries of these CoPs?
If “learning is a deepening process of participation in
a CoP”, do teachers ever find an opportunity to fully
participate in researchers’ CoP?
Mediatory institutions may be able to help by
encouraging multi-memberships (Wenger’s concept
of brokering?)
Restructuring TTPs to allow for both peripheral and
full participation (Kumaravadivelu’s, Plenary talk,
2011)
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Allwright, D. 2003. Exploratory practice: Rethinking practitioner research in
language teaching, Language Teaching Research 7(2): 113-141.
Allwright, D. 2005. From teaching points to learning opportunities. TESOL
Quarterly 39(1): 9-31.
Belcher, D. 2007. A bridge too far? TESOL Quarterly, 41(2): 396-399.
Borg, S. 2009. English language teachers' conceptions of research. Applied
Linguistics, 30(3): 358-388.
Borg, S. (2010). Language teacher researcg engagement. Language Teaching.
43(4): 391-429.
Burns, A. 1999. Collaborative action research for English language teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chastain, K. 1976. developing second-language skills: Theory to practice.
Chicago: McNally College Publication.
Ellis, R. 2009. Second language acquisition, teacher education and language
pedagogy. Language Teaching: 42: 1-20.
Erlam, R. 2008. What do you researchers know about language teaching?
Bridging the gap between research and language pedagogy. Innovations in
Language Learning and Teaching: 2(3): 253-67.
Stern, H. H. 1982. Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Tavakoli, P. & Howard, M. (2012). TESOL teachers’ views on the relationship
between research and practice. European Journal of Teacher Education.