Fay, R. and Dawson, S. (University of Manchester), Cultures of practitioner research: extending Exploratory Practice from language education to researching multilingually collaboration. Paper presented at CultNet 2015, 17th-19th April, 2015, Durham University.

1. Cultures of practitioner research:
extending Exploratory Practice from
language education to
researching multilingually collaboration
Richard Fay and Susan Dawson
CultNet, April 2015
With support from, and behalf of, the RMTC Hub of the
Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the
Body, Law and the State project (AHRC) (AH/L006936/1)
language education to
researching multilingually collaborationresearching multilingually collaboration
Cultures of practitioner research:Cultures of practitioner research:
extending Exploratory Practice from

2. Exploratory Practice
fostering a culture of inquiry
‘It is an indefinitely sustainable way for
classroom language teachers and learners,
while getting on with their learning and
teaching, to develop their own understandings
of life in the language classroom’.
(Exploratory Practice website, 2008)

3. Classroom culture and
Exploratory Practice
• reality of teachers’ lives
• reality of classroom life
Puzzles
Why do I worry
that students
never learn
anything in my
class?
Why do I worry
that students
never learn
anything in my
class? Why don’t
teachers use
the syllabus?
Why don’t
teachers use
the syllabus?
Why I can’t make one
paragraph with good
grammar?
Why I can’t make one
paragraph with good
grammar?
Why we learn
English?
Why we learn
English?
Why I don’t want
to speak with
others?
Why I don’t want
to speak with
others?

4. What is Exploratory Practice?
1 Put “quality of life” first
2 Work primarily to understand language classroom life
3 Involve everybody
4 Work to bring people together
5 Work also for mutual development
6 Make the work a continuous enterprise
Suggestions
1Minimize the extra effort of all sorts for all concerned
2Integrate the “work for understanding” into the existing
working life of the classroom.
(Allwright, 2005: 360)
The principles of
Exploratory Practice
Collegiality
Sustainability

5. • RM@Borders project
• RMTC Hub
• discourse of shadowing, observing, of
researching the researchers, etc  ethical
dilemmas
• epiphany  extending ‘EP’ to ‘E RM-ly P’
• Ways of Working document
The extension of EP to
RM-ly

6. Exploring RM-ly Practice
Exploratory RM-ly Practice can provide a
sustainable way for all RM-ly project
researchers (including those in the CATC Hub
and in the five case studies), while getting on
with their project activities, to develop their
own understandings of life in the RM-ly field of
activity.

7. Playing with the idea…
• What curiosity(ies) can you … identify … regarding
the Researching RM-ly practice strand of the project?
• What data has been naturalistically produced as you
have begun exploring this/these curiosity(ies) so far?
• What curiosities can you identify with regard to
other aspects of your research(er) practice(s)?
• Might an EP frame be helpful with regard to these
other areas of your researcher development?

8. Richard’s initial curiosities
• How are we (in the RMTC Hub) interact with the
other researchers as we begin to address the
Researching RM-ly practice strand of the project?
• How are we (in the RMTC Hub) managing the first
stage of the project, i.e. how will we manage the
Literature Review stage?
• How are we (in the RMTC Hub) interacting with the
CATC Hub and how will our research agenda and
practices interact with theirs?

9. Richard’s Ugandan
fieldwork curiosities
• Why does the interdisciplinary collaboration
in the Case Study 1 constellation (psychology,
creative arts and critical applied linguistics)
seem to work so well?
• Why is English not a 'local language' in this
Lira/Ugandan context?
• What are the implications (for the Free-Listing
methodology) of the local researchers’
differing levels of oracy and literacy in Lango?

10. • Nature of the puzzles or ‘curiosities’
‘Why am I uncomfortable with these as EP
puzzles?’
- framing
- scale
- time frame
- generation
• What does it mean to work for understanding?
Rm-ly EP vs.
Classroom EP
How can
…?
How can
…?
How will
…?
How will
…?
What
is/are
…?
What
is/are
…?

11. Quality of Life
Rm-ly EP vs.
Classroom EP
RMTC
Hub
CATC
Hub
Case
Studies
StudentsTeacher
• Common aim
• Diverse experiences
• Diverse expectations
PI

12. Taking Stock
Will our extended use of EP enable us -
collaboratively, sustainably, and with
consideration of quality of life issues
including ethics – to develop insights into
the Researching RM-ly practice strand of
the overall project (and, perhaps other
strands also) and, thereby, make a
contribution to the objectives of the
project more generally?

13. What is being ‘extended?’
What exactly is being extended? What
maintained? What dropped? What
challenged? And what liberties have we
taken? And how do we justify these
‘changes’? In what sense is our proposed
use of EP for exploring RM-ly practice still
recognisably EP? Is ‘extension’ the most
useful image for this process? Or
‘transfer’? Or might ‘translation’ be more
helpful? Or are we perhaps guilty of
‘appropriation’?

14. Moving forward …
• Collaboration – since qua non?
• Practices, puzzles, curiosities, RQs
• Cascades of curiosities
(Nazmi)

15. Curiosities seeking to better
understand …
• … RM-ly practice
– to better understand … the RM-ly practice evident
in each case study and beyond; and the wider
issues of what it might mean to be languaged in a
world of discrimination, inequality, violence,
vulnerability etc.
• … Multi-/Inter-disciplinary research
collaboration
- to better understand … the collaborative nature
(possibilities, complexities, and demands etc) of our
project; and the researcher development
(possibilities, complexities, challenges etc) within

16. Concluding Thoughts