Action Research In Teaching English As A Foreign Language

As a reflective aPproach to teacher development, Action Research (AR) isespecially credited as providing an opportunity for professionals includingboth teachers and teacher educators to investigate their own classroompractice and improve it, and hopefully bring favorable changes to theirclassrooms. It emphasizes the role of critical reflection and always involvesa problem- hypothesis- resolution cycle or spiral during which teacherresearchers exert efforts to explore teaching and learning.Most AR projects reported are conducted collaboratively by classroomteachers who take a M.Ed. or M.A. course (for example, in Wang, 1996 &Queen's University AR group, 1997). The benefits of the approach make itworthwhile for me, a novice teacher and postgraduate student, to initiate amini-action research study, and document inquiries based on classroomobservation, diary, questionnaire and interview This experience serves todemonstrate how AR can help novice classroom teachers better understandwhat they are doing in their classroom teaching practice and achievepersonal professional development.