Exploring Our Teaching Through Action Research: Process And Practice

How to put language theory into practice? How to study and improve classroom teaching? These are questions puzzling foreign language teachers for a long time. Action research, which is based on a "self-reflection" model, is strongly advocated by many educators in recent decades. It is considered as a bridge between theory and practice, beneficial not only to teaching, but also to teachers' self-development.What is action research? How does the concept come into being? Is it a theory proposed by certain experts or just a method? What significance does it hold to foreign language teaching? What would happen if it is used in a specific class? What problems and findings would arise? These are the questions that this dissertation is aimed to explore.The concept of action research can be traced back to the early 20th century. The American socio-psychologist Kurt Lewin first coined the concept and the process of action research in his book Action Research and Minority Problems in 1946. It is Stephen Corey and others at Teachers College of Columbia University who introduced the term "action research" to the educational community in early 1950s. The English educator, Lawrence Stenhouse and his successors' work had a major impact on the acceptability of action research as well as on the development of the concept of "teacher-as-researcher". Action research has long been a tradition in some foreign countries, but is relatively new to English language teachers in China. Nevertheless, it has been adopted in teacher education programs in recent years. For example, the Sino-British MA-Certificate TEFL program at Beijing Normal University takes action research as an important and fundamental part. With the proposal of the "learner-centered" model of language teaching in China, more andmore teachers regard their classrooms as the best places for reflection and research. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to be much more deliberate in documenting and evaluating their efforts. Action research is one means to that end.Action research takes the features of both qualitative and descriptive approaches because of its practical nature and focus on immediate concerns. Its process involves an "observation, plan, action, reflection" spiral in which teacher researchers exert efforts to explore and study teaching and learning and to write reports about the reflections and findings. It is important that language teachers be familiar with classroom research methods, such as how to collect and analyze data. The data collection methods involve classroom observation, teachers' diary, questionnaire and interview.The purpose of action research is "reform in class": improving the teaching effects by the teachers' self-reflection. As a classroom based method and an evaluation tool, action research helps teachers to reflect, making the teaching process into a research process. It should be viable in all aspects of language teaching. Some case studies home and abroad (J.Mcniffl988; Nunan2001; WangQiang2002) has demonstrated the feasibility and practicability of action research. But only by practical use in one's specific class could the generality and the effectiveness of action research be clearly displayed. The methodology of action research is exemplified by the teaching practice of helping the students to improve their participation in classroom activities in one specific class. The problems are identified, and possible solutions are proposed. It is also concluded that collaborative action research is more effective than action research conducted individually. If there are no apparent changes in an action research cycle, then the focus of the next process should be on finding out what block the class from change.There are theoretical background and rationale for action research, but action research is an effective tool for language teachers to solve practical problems rather than a systematic theory. The reflective aspect, which is the core of action research, is useful to classroom teaching and the teachers' professional and personal development, but is it applicable to the study of learning strategies, as well as to the reform of FLTand China's education? These are the questions need further exploration. But what is undeniable is that action research is of special significance to language teachers who are often overburdened by their teaching tasks because it offers an effective way of combining teaching and researching.