3. Action research
• Choose an article from a journal in the list below which addresses a teaching issue
relevant to your learners.
• Read up on the issue starting with the article’s reference list, and use it as the
starting point for your action research cycle.
• Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique
appliquée:
http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/CJAL/index
• English Teaching Forum http://americanenglish.state.gov/english-teaching-forum
• Journal of Second Language Teaching and Research http://pops.uclan.ac.uk/
index.php/jsltr/index
• The Asian EFL Journal: http://asian-efl-journal.com/
• TESL E-J: http://www.tesl-ej.org/
4. Replication study
• Choose an article from a journal in the list below which addresses a teaching issue
relevant to your learners.
• Conduct a similar study with your learners.
• Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique
appliquée:
http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/CJAL/index
• English Teaching Forum http://americanenglish.state.gov/english-teaching-forum
• Journal of Second Language Teaching and Research http://pops.uclan.ac.uk/
index.php/jsltr/index
• The Asian EFL Journal: http://asian-efl-journal.com/
• TESL E-J: http://www.tesl-ej.org/
5. CLIL study
• Apply CLIL principles to a teaching unit on a literary theme or cultural notion
which is appropriate for your learners.
• Working with your tutor and any other colleagues, plan and teach the unit, then
analyse it using the critical incident technique described in Coyles, Hood and
Marsh (2010).
• Coyle, D., Hood, P., & Marsh, D. (2010). CLIL: Content and language
integrated learning. Ernst Klett Sprachen.
Online resources!
• Morgana, V. (2012). Teaching literature to teens: Unpacking CS Lewis.
• Loras, V. Literature in class.
• Millin, S. (2013). The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
6. Politeness research
• Our doctoral student Aisha Siddiqa is working on a study in interlanguage
pragmatics (how we learn to use a foreign language appropriately). She will be
collecting data in collège and lycée English classes, using a questionnaire (cartoon
situations to which pupils record oral responses) and filming class interaction.
Her research questions are:
1. What kind of input do classroom learners get in France?
2. How well are learners able to formulate requests and refusals?
3. What opportunities do they have for production? Do they use these opportunities?
Do they create others?
4. Does any of this vary over time? (does it change with grade level?)
• Students interested in this option will collaborate with Aisha on data collection and
analysis to answer these research questions for their own classes.
7. Videoconferencing
• iTILT 2 is an EU funded projet (Erasmus+) involving language
teachers and researchers in a number of European countries.
• We are working on videoconferencing using interactive
whiteboard (IWB) technology to interact with learners in another
country.
• Students interested in this option will need access to an IWB and
be prepared to invest in collaborating with researchers and other
teachers to design and implement task-based
videoconferencing sessions.
• Their research papers will document their involvement in the
project and their analysis of its results for their own learners.
10. Course activities/requirements
1. journal article analysis (replication study)
2. analysis of classroom activity
3. analysis of learner language
4. professional network activities
11. 1. Journal article
Write a post where you give
• The full reference of the article (APA style) plus link
• An exact copy of the abstract
• An outline of the paper where you reproduce the headings and write a sentence or
two in your own words explaining what information is provided. Make sure you
include a) literature review or background, b) research questions, c) method, d)
analysis, results and discussion, and e) conclusion, even if the paper does not use
these headings.
• Your reaction in terms of how well you think the study was conducted. You can
consider the pedagogical interest of the question that was researched, the design
of the study (participants, method), the way the results were analysed, and the
reliability of the findings. It’s not appropriate to agree or disagree with the findings
based on your own language learning or teaching experience, but you can discuss
whether the study and its results are relevant to your own teaching context.
12. 2. Classroom activity
Write a post where you describe a teaching activity you
have used with your class.
Upload your teaching materials, give your plan and
recount your implementation in class, including what
worked well and where you had difficulties.
Analyse your activity in terms of the task-based
language teaching framework: were your activities tasks?
Did the learners treat them as such? How could you tweak
your activity in future for better results with a similar class,
or for different learners?
13. 3. Learner language
Upload some anonymised samples of learner
productions from your classes.
Conduct an analysis similar to those described by
Tarone once we have worked on this in class.
14. 4. Professional network activities
Take charge of your tutor group on EFOR: help
your tutors to access the platform and work out the
best way for you all to communicate
Read and comment on other students’ blog posts,
and make your own posts in response. Use links to
help others follow.
Follow some ELT blogs, and look on Facebook and
Twitter for relevant sources for teaching materials,
ideas, advice and further training opportunities.
