Becoming an ESL Researcher: A Personal Monologue

Abstract

This reflective paper narrates my research journey from a naïve researcher to a critic and from a behaviorist to a post-structuralist. It highlights the different philosophical, methodological, and theoretical dilemmas I faced in conceptualizing students’ experiences in an English as a Second Language program in higher education during my doctoral studies. This journey is divided into three phases: construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. In the construction phase, I conceptualized students’ experiences from my own established knowledge, which was grounded in my presumptions about teaching and learning. During the deconstruction phase, I questioned my understanding of knowledge and social realities. In the reconstruction phase, I interacted with Phenomenography, Activity Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Communities of Practice, and Bourdieusian Structuralism. This paper narrates these interactions, focusing mainly on the dilemmas I faced as a researcher. These reflections could be highly beneficial for new researchers who may face the same situations at different stages of their research careers.

On the issue of evaluating educational programs for additional professional education

“…It should be especially noted that most often, this problem is considered in theory, or only in part of the economic component, that is, "costs -results" [8][9][10][11]. In our opinion, evaluation of the effectiveness of educational programs must necessarily include quantitative and qualitative characteristics, as already mentioned earlier.…”