SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The Action Research Communities for language teachers (ARC) project set out to contribute towards quality enhancement in the language classroom and the empowerment of language teachers through the application of action research approaches. As members of an ECML project team (European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe), we had the opportunity to hold a workshop during the first year of the project. During the workshop on action research the 30 nominated language teachers and teacher educators became acquainted with AR approaches and developed cross-national projects. In parallel, we have been working on the development of specific AR tools to support teachers taking their first AR steps. Participants subsequently presented their action research at a project network meeting in May 2018. In this presentation, we consider the teachers’ progress with their action research and the extent to which it has helped them to develop a voice for articulating and reflecting on classroom practice and for bringing about pedagogical change. As well as discussing their achievements and successes, we explore the challenges encountered by the teachers in collaborating with one another, using action research methods, writing up their outputs and distinguishing between focused lesson planning and action research. We conclude by reflecting on the ways in which the teachers have been supported on their journeys to action research and in developing their voices by the AR tools developed for their specific use by the project team and by the critical friendship of the wider project network. We would like to demonstrate selected tools in an interactive way. This will be the starting point for the discussion.