Being, understanding and naming: Teachers’ life and work in harmony

Wu, Zongjie

doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2005.08.003

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…This was most clearly articulated by Jenny, as she revealed uncertainty about how much to 'guide' the learners in her EP classes, and charted her shifting roles as she enjoyed reacting to the learners' contributions. Her story echoes the experiences of the teachers in Wu (2004), who, he tells us, had to find new ways of being in the classroom, new identities and new interpretations of their lifeworld. Beginning EP, or indeed any form of practitioner research, requires a reconceptualization of the world of classroom language learning, of pedagogy and of research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Language teachers making sense of Exploratory Practice

Hanks

2015

Language Teaching Research

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Judith Hanks is a Lecturer in TESOL at the University of Leeds, UK, where she teaches undergraduates, postgraduates, and supervises doctoral students. Her research interests include investigating the relationship between principles and practices in practitioner research, and the challenges of integrating research and pedagogy in language teaching. 2 Abstract This article critically examines the implementation of Exploratory Practice in anEnglish for Academic Purposes (EAP) context in a British university. The innovation involved challenges as well as opportunities for uniting learning, teaching and research. Particular emphasis is given to two teachers, who are the focus of this article: the story of one, 'Jenny', illustrates the processes of doing Exploratory Practice with learners of EAP, while the story of the other, 'Bella', provides insight into the notion of puzzlement, a central feature of the Exploratory Practice framework. For these practitioners, it was clear that the integration of pedagogy with locally relevant, small-scale research activity, held a wealth of opportunities for language learning and teaching. KeywordsExploratory Practice, integrating research and pedagogy, practitioner research in EAP I IntroductionExploratory Practice (EP) is a form of practitioner research in language education which aims to integrate research, learning and teaching. Developed in the early 1990s (Allwright, 1993;Allwright & Bailey, 1991;Allwright & Lenzuen, 1997), at least partly in response to dissatisfaction with more traditional forms of classroom based research, EP promotes the idea of teachers (and learners) puzzling about their language learning/teaching experiences, using "normal pedagogic practices as investigative tools" (Allwright, 2003, p. 127). This move takes teacher research (Johnson & Golombek, 2002;Stenhouse, 1975), action research (Burns, 2010;Carr & Kemmis 1986), and reflective practice (Edge, 2011;Schön, 1983Schön, , 1987) a step further. By incorporating research into pedagogy, EP seeks to address the issue of the demands of research pulling practitioners away from their teaching and learning responsibilities.This is an account of how two English language teachers made sense of EP; the dilemmas, challenges and opportunities they faced as they tried implementing EP for 3 the first time into their practice. I worked alongside the teachers and learners to investigate the processes of initiating EP in an EAP context taking an EP approach myself. My intention is to take a critical look at the principles and practices of EP, considering the tensions at play when EP is implemented for the first time in a new context. Hence my own questions surface throughout the article, alongside those of the participants, to provide a multidimensional picture of the EP principles in action. II Exploratory Practice: a principled frameworkOver the past two decades, EP has been developed in discussions with teachers from around the world (Allwright, 2003(Allwright, , 2005Hanks, 2009;Slimani-Rolls, 2003Wu, 2004;Zhang, 200...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Language teachers making sense of Exploratory Practice

Hanks

2015

Language Teaching Research

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“…analyzed the written assignments (monographs) of 15 teachers, students and work colleagues which described their engagement with PEPAs and EP, concluding that we need to acknowledge the academic affordances of such work, while also embracing a 'meta-reflexiva' (Miller 2012: 337) dimension to quotidian professional lives. Wu (2004Wu ( , 2005Wu ( , 2006 investigated practitioner responses to the agentive possibilities of implementing curriculum change in LTE in China. His analysis merged activity theory, philosophy, narrative inquiry and critical realism through an EP lens.…”

Section: Educational Contexts Includedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wu (2004, 2005, 2006) investigated practitioner responses to the agentive possibilities of implementing curriculum change in LTE in China. His analysis merged activity theory, philosophy, narrative inquiry and critical realism through an EP lens.…”

Section: Ep: Global Reach Uptake and Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a more critical eye observes that although published texts are assigned to academics (whose contracts oblige them to publish regularly), the original instigators frequently identify as teachers (Lyra, Fish Braga, & Braga, 2003; Perpignan, 2009a, 2009b) or teacher educators (Miller & Moraes Bezerra, 2005; Rowland, 2011; Crane, 2015). In my case, I was a teacher and teacher educator when I began researching/publishing (Hanks 1999) as were Gunn (2003), Miller (2003) and Wu (2004).…”

Section: Learners and Teachers As Co-researchers Integrating Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Theorizing is rooted in classroom practice, thus ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘top-down’. Reminiscent of Bourdieu's (1991) contention that language is both social and political practice, the process of language learning, teaching and research, is seen as not merely individual or individualistic, but involves others in time-and-space continua (Wu, 2004; Costantino, 2018). Research, pedagogy and language combine as people engage in this social practice, e.g.…”

Section: Developing Ep Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From research-as-practice to exploratory practice-as-research in language teaching and beyond

Hanks

2019

Lang. Teach.

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Practitioner research is a flourishing area with a significant body of theoretical and empirical research, but often researchers remain isolated, unaware of impactful work by colleagues in related fields. Exploratory Practice (EP) is one innovative form, uniting creative pedagogy and research methods. The potential contributions have hitherto been neglected. EP's emphasis on puzzling and understanding is a means of demystifying occluded practices which place learners, teachers and researchers as co-investigators at the heart of the research-practice nexus. EP's radical positioning of learners as co-researchers, alongside teachers, teacher educators and others, means crossing boundaries – (re-)negotiating identities, in language learning/teaching/researching – thus raising epistemological challenges for the field. The contribution of this state-of-the-art article is to provide a meta-analysis of these themes and challenges, critically analysing the complexities involved as the paradigms of research, practice and practitioner research shift from research-as-practice towards practice-as-research.

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Curriculum Making 1

Craig

2020

Curriculum Making, Reciprocal Learning, and the Best-Loved Self

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Being, understanding and naming: Teachers’ life and work in harmony

Cited by 20 publications

References 20 publications

Language teachers making sense of Exploratory Practice

Language teachers making sense of Exploratory Practice

From research-as-practice to exploratory practice-as-research in language teaching and beyond

Curriculum Making 1

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