Foreign Language Educators’ Exposure to Research: Reported Experiences, Exposure Via Citations, and a Proposal for Action

Abstract

This article reports on 2 connected studies that provide data about the flow of research to foreign language (FL) educators in majority Anglophone contexts. The first study investigated exposure to research among FL educators in the United Kingdom using 2 surveys (n = 391; n = 183). The data showed (a) some limited exposure to research via professional association publications and events, (b) negligible direct exposure to publications in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), (c) barriers to exposure caused by poor physical and conceptual access, despite generally positive perceptions of research, and (d) the importance of university-based teacher educators for research-practice interfaces. The second study investigated the potential for indirect exposure to research from 7 professional publications over 5 years in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We systematically reviewed the extent to which these professional publications referenced 29 SSCI journals that aim to publish pedagogy-relevant research. In our corpus of 8,516 references in 284 articles in professional journals, the mean proportion of references to all 29 SSCI journals, combined, was 12.43% per professional article. The overall mean number of references to each SSCI journal was 0.17 per professional article. The emerging picture is rather bleak, and we propose action from academic journals and researchers to promote a more international, systematic, and sustainable flow of research.Keywords: perceptions of research; research-practice interface; consumption of research; citation; professional journals; teacher knowledge; teacher education THE DESIRE TO FACILITATE THE FLOW of information between research and practice is well established among journal editors (via 'Aims and Scope' sections), researchers (via articles and books), research associations (via mission statements, conference themes, invited plenaries), teachers (via professional associations, journals, conferences), and policy makers (via infrastructure, grey literature, schemes to incentivize researcher-practitioner communication). One way of enriching research-practice interfaces is via engaging practitioners in doing action

Perfecting Practice

“…This is not simply a distinction between "lab" and "classroom" studies (Plonsky, 2013). Even in classroom studies, teachers question the relevance of research carried out with different age groups, different learning goals, different proficiency levels, and different first/second language combinations (Gore & Gitlin, 2004;Lightbown, 2015;Marsden & Kasprowicz, 2017;Sato & Loewen, 2019;Spada & Lightbown, 2019).…”

Empirical Feasibility of the Desirable Difficulty Framework: Toward More Systematic Research on L2 Practice for Broader Pedagogical Implications

“…At the same time, we would like to clarify the extent to which existing (or future) research on L2 practice can speak to pedagogical implications, because we concur with Rogers and Leow that “pedagogical implications should receive serious consideration as part of any discussion of such L2 practice and/or future ISLA [instructed L2 acquisition] research” (p. 311). Furthermore, researchers are responsible for better communicating research findings to teachers (Marsden & Kasprowicz, ; Paran, ; Sato & Loewen, , ).…”

Untitled

“…This burgeoning body of literature witnesses long-held debates addressing the divide between SLA theory and second language pedagogy reflecting lack of attention to teacher research (e.g. Borg, 2007Borg, , 2009Borg, , 2015Borg & Sanchez, 2015;Çelik, & Dikilitaş, 2015;Lyster, 2019;Marsden & Kasprowicz, 2017;Mehrani, 2015Mehrani, , 2016Tavakoli, 2015;Yuan, Sun, & Teng, 2016). These debates result in what Yuan et al (2016), among others, refer to as the necessity of "a teacher research movement" (p. 220) in the field of English language teaching (ELT), including English as a research and practice.…”

“…Relatively recently, Marsden and Kasprowicz (2017) investigated the positive role of educators' engagement in SLA research. Their findings indicated limitations and barriers of educators' research, and the positive effect of the educators' indirect exposure to articles from professional journals.…”