Abstract
Classroom-oriented research is an odd category in at least two important ways. Firstly, it may seem very odd to any reader who is a newcomer to the field to discover that research on language education apparently needs to mark out a special area that is self-consciously ‘oriented’ to the classroom. It would surely not be unreasonable to assume that a thoroughgoing classroom orientation could be taken for granted, leaving non-classroom-oriented research to be the special case needing separate treatment. However, after several decades of work attempting to establish the classroom as the obvious focus for research attention, it is salutary to note that Nunan’s 1991 review revealed that of the fifty carefully selected ‘classroom-oriented’ research studies he surveyed (‘carefully selected’ for their overall representativity of the field over twenty-five years) only fifteen drew their data ‘directly from the language classroom’ (p. 255). If we accept Nunan’s analysis, and if we believe that there is a compelling prima facie case for research in this area to focus on what happens in classrooms, then we are forced to conclude that, for all practical purposes, the argument is not yet won.
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Allwright, D. (1997). Classroom-Oriented Research in Second Language Learning. In: Tucker, G.R., Corson, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4419-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4419-3_7
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