Research And Autonomy

Professor: Jeisson Rodríguez Bonces
Workshop: Reflective Teaching and Autonomy II

RESEARCH AND AUTONOMY

a. How could you define each type of research mentioned by the teacher? What would their characteristics be?

I think this teacher labels or defines “taxonomy” for research: Informal, formal and more formal according to the style and type of research; also the instruments implement tocollect data, dedication, time spend to observe and analyze the phenomenon, format, and other requisites of professional or not professional research.

According to Seliger and Shohamy (1989: 7) the basic components of research in our daily lives can be summarized as follows:

1. - There is a phenomenon that is not clearly understood.
2. - To try to understand it, the phenomenonis observed and analyzed.
3. - In this process we ask questions about the phenomenon: Why, how, when ... does it happen? What's the connection with other events? Etc.
4. - Several guesses, answers and possible explanations are anticipated intuitively.
5. - One (or some) of the anticipated explanations that most probably explain(s) the phenomenon (hypothesis) is/are considered.6. - We check the hypothesis in other situations: collect more data and test to what extent the hypothesis can be maintained.
However and here is the connection with the question, even though we may be able to posit a close connection between scientific research and research in every day life, there are important differences, as Seliger and Shohamy have pointed out (1989:10):
Thedifferences between knowledge arrived at through common sense and intuition on the one hand, and scientific research on the other, can be expressed by concepts such as "organised", "structured", "methodical", "systematic", "testable" and specifically by the notion of disciplinary inquiry.
It is also important to differentiate between the different types of research we may decide to do:
• Basic ortheoretical research: This aims to construct abstract theoretical models which explain second language teaching and learning.
• Applied research: This applies the theoretical models provided by basic research to different fields of study (e.g. education).
• Practical research: This makes a practical utilization of theoretical research and applied research, for example, by testing classroomhypotheses, controlling variables, offering pedagogical principles based on classroom experience, etc. It should be noted that practical research is based on the premises established by theoretical and applied research, and it is influenced by them when it is developed in classroom situations.
b. Would you call the “more formal” type of research in a different way? How would you do so?

Iwould call it “professional research or academic research”, since it follows a more rigid structure. It has a most conscious expression of opinion, observation, analysis and interpretation.


According to this experience, let’s reflect about the following questions:

a. Do you think you do research in your classroom at some point? If so, how do you carry it out?

I think so; however I am notconscious a lot about it. It is assumed that teachers can improve their knowledge and skills, not necessarily by following a particular method or the findings provided by "official" research, but rather by cultivating an enquiring attitude towards our own teaching contexts. As we know, each teaching context is different and needs to take a range of factors into account, from individual students'characteristics to those of the teacher, the classroom context and the community with its local educational and intellectual traditions. And every language lesson is necessarily different and unique as it is jointly constructed by the teacher and the learners (Allwright 1991). Generally, when I reflect about my teaching practice, my role as a language teacher, my students’ attitude in front of the...