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Exploratory Practice for Language Learning and Teaching

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Critical Issues in Teaching English and Language Education

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Abstract

This chapter first introduces the critical agenda of the teacher research movement in the 1960s and 1970s which challenged the taken-for-granted position of teachers as mere technicians, consumers of academic research and implementers of other people’s ideas. This movement called for teachers’ emancipation as decision makers capable of engaging in research that brings valuable insights and nuanced and context-specific views into their classroom practice to contribute to their advancement and that of their schools and universities. Second, it discusses the ongoing debate on teachers’ lack of research engagement and lack of interest that both academic researchers and teachers show in their mutual work, as well as the gap between theory and practice that this situation has generated in language teacher education. Then, exploratory practice (EP), an innovative form of practitioner research (PR), is put forward to bridge this gap by empowering teachers to work alongside their learners as co-partners to understand better their practice. Finally, it provides the methodology and outcomes of a longitudinal language practitioner research (LPR) project conducted in England with the aim of enabling six neophyte language teacher researchers to implement EP in their classrooms. Their published narratives demonstrate that, given an appropriate model of development, teachers are able to contribute to their professional development.

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Further Reading

  • Slimani-Rolls, A., & Kiely, R. (2018). Exploratory practice for continuing professional development. An innovative approach for language teachers. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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  • This book reports on a two year-long investigation of how a group of six three ELT and 3 MFL teachers developed their thinking and practices while implementing the principled framework of Exploratory Practice (EP) in their classrooms in collaboration with two researchers as facilitators in this process.

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  • Hanks, J. (2017). Exploratory practice in language teaching. Puzzling about principles and practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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  • This book traces the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of the EP framework and uses case-studies, vignettes and narratives from teachers and learners across the world as they experience EP.

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  • Allwright, D., & Hanks, J. (2009). The Developing language learner: An introduction to exploratory practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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  • Allwright and Hanks supplement EP with five propositions about learners that they present as key developing practitioners of learning to enhance the classroom participants’ learning processes and enrich their human relationships.

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  • Hall, G. (2017). Exploring English language teaching. Language in action (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

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  • This book provides a single-volume introduction to the field of ELT from an applied linguistics perspective. It addresses four central themes in English language teaching: classroom interaction and management, “method, postmethod and methodology”; “learners”; and the “institutional frameworks and social contexts” of ELT, all of which are related to and help explain the emergence of EP.

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  1. Regent’s Univetsity London, London, UK

    Assia Slimani-Rolls

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  1. Assia Slimani-Rolls
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Correspondence to Assia Slimani-Rolls .

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  1. Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Salah Troudi

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Slimani-Rolls, A. (2020). Exploratory Practice for Language Learning and Teaching. In: Troudi, S. (eds) Critical Issues in Teaching English and Language Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53297-0_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53297-0_9

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