Althea Raymond Irene Parvin

 Classroom research investigates what happens inside the classroom when learners and teachers come together  Teacher research usually does take place in classrooms, designed and carried out by a teacher  Action research Action research is an approach to collecting and interpreting data that involves a clear, repeated cycle of procedures. Action research might or might not be conducted in classrooms, and it might or might not be done by teachers.

 Goal: The broad goals of action research are to seek local understanding and to bring about improvement in the context under study (Bailey, 1998)  History: Action research was begun in the United States by Lewin (1946) in the 1940s as a means of addressing social problems.

Step-1 The researcher begins by planning an action to address a problem, issue, or question in his or her own context

 Step-2: The action, which is also called a small-scale intervention is then carried out  Step-3:The next step is the systematic observation of the out-comes of the action  Step-4:After observing the apparent results of the action, the researcher reflects on the outcome and plans a subsequent action, after which the cycle begins again

 McPherson (1997) provides a good example:  Research was conducted by a language teacher in her own ESL class for recent immigrants to Australia  1 st CYCLE: Tried various ways of grouping her students based on their proficiency levels. She found that the students appeared to have goals different from her own and sometimes resisted the group and pair work she had organized

 She gave the students more responsibility to select their own materials and activities. She was then able to observe them making their own learning choices, which she carefully documented. Allowing the students more choice was the first step toward resolving this issue.

 Although the rest of the class had begun to work well together, there were still two students who seemed to be marginalized by the ethnic group that was dominant in the class. McPherson implemented a strategy of deliberately calling on these two students and validating their contributions to class discussions. As the term ended, even these two students had begun to get more involved.

 Investigates  how teachers think about their work,  what skilled decision goes into effective teaching and  how novice teachers’ thinking and teaching develop over time (Wood 1996)

 TEACHER TELL RESEARCHERS  WHAT THEY WERE THINKING  WHAT MOTIVATED THEIR DECISION- MAKING AT THE TIME  RESEARCHERS USE SOME RECORD OF EVENT  AUDIO  VIDEO  TRANSCRIPTS OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION

 Defined as the effects of testing on teaching and learning  To see if there is any effect, baseline data is collected before the implementation of a new test  it may conclude that the new exam seriously influenced the content of the English lessons.  Alderson and Hamp-Lyons (1996) observed 2 teachers who taught EFL & TOEFL prep classes in US. What do you think was found with the TOEFL with respect to communicative teaching?

 Popular since 1980, teacher can use Action Research to investigate topics in their own classroom  Can be used as a tool for professional development  Hong Kong (1996) secondary teachers used action research to investigate their students’ reticence to use English in the classroom.  Adult language learners communication strategies  Result: use in language teacher education course which fed back into the ESL class.

 Teacher can play a significant role  Not as a subject but rather more inclusive view as a partner  No longer needs outsider to ensure objectivity in data

Many methodological resources (article and books) available to teachers and others who wish to conduct language classroom research. ie: step-by-step guides, clear examples, suggestions for teachers about how to record data while they are teaching Samway (1994).

 Doesn’t it take time? Doesn’t research require discipline and specialized training?  In addition, many teachers are not given financial or strategic support, release of time or recognition for conducting research.

 Bonus: The process can help them discover patterns, interesting new puzzles and answers.  Double bonus: Can get new ideas for teaching and for their investigations, as well as becoming better connected with the profession at large.  Triple bonus: By sharing results, they can get feed back from colleagues and learn and grow from their experience.