On Action Research And The Joint Development Of Both College English Teachers And Students

Action research, having undergone the process of changing, is an approach to improving language teaching, which encourages teachers to be engaged in their teaching practice with the advanced methods. In fact, action research can be regarded as one of the profitable ways to investigate the teaching experience. This kind of research links together theory and practice, teaching and research to keep a productive and continuously developing sequence, not a random one. Action research has now become more and more popularized in the field of foreign language teaching. It is of crucial importance for both teachers and students to promote their own development in language teaching and learning. Based on Titone's glossodynamic model and Dewey's "Five Steps of Thinking", the definitions, the features, types and development of action research are systematically analyzed. Representative cases of action research at home and abroad are illustrated in this dissertation and the significance and the limitations of action research are also revealed with the close investigation and theoretical studies in this field. Action research has experienced three stages ever since it was applied to the domain of language teaching: scientific action research, practical action research and critical action research. The theory of action research has the following features: the participatory nature, the collaborative nature, the dynamic and cyclical nature as well as the scientific nature. These features have already made their contributions to many practitioners with this approach as an alternative to the traditional research in language teaching. Based on the previous cases of action research and the consideration of the current state in this field in our country, a more appropriate pattern of action research is suggested. Teachers should attach more importance to the collaboration with students rather than pursuing help from the exterior institutions only. Although action research has its own limitations in time, resources and cultural background, it can help to promote teachers'professional development, to form the teachers'and the students'reflective ways in their language teaching and learning practice, to enhance teachers'sensitivity to identify and solve the problems they may find in their...