Wallace, 1998 :: Action Research
It's hard for me to believe that reflection doesn't come easily to all teachers. I feel like that's the one thing I'm doing right in my class - reflecting on what works and doesn't work, modifying the course as I go ... I can think of many things I need to work on as a teacher, and I'm trying to become better. I know part of that is because I'm learning, and this is my first job. But I also think it is part of my personality to be introspective about the teaching process, and to be aware of what's going on. It's learning how to apply that reflection that I'm finding the most difficult.
Wallace groups action research as part of reflection, and acknowledges that one doesn't have to do action research to be a reflective teacher. In the next breath, however, he implies that one must take part in action research to be an effective reflective teacher. I am surprised to find myself agreeing with him to some extent. Giving "other kinds of research" a passing glance, he acknowledges the worth of reading journal articles, and going to conferences, as part of professional development, but the odds of finding exactly what I need for my class at exactly the right time are slim to none. If I have a specific problem in the classroom, it isn't an efficient use of my time to research journals and books to find data that I will then have to process and synthesis before applying it to my situation. Nor would it be efficient to attend conferences in the hopes that one of the presenters will just happen to touch on what I need for my class. I see conferences and journals as a way to make connections and keep up with what's going on in the field, and these are valuable. But they are not going to immediately apply to my own classroom, and they could never tell me as much about my class as my students.
I liked that Wallace gave some consideration to peer consultation as part of reflective teaching. One of the most helpful resources I have for my class right now is the conversations I have with Connie and Aaron while carpooling, when we discuss our individual teaching situations. I think "informal discussion," as Wallace calls it, could have been treated with more seriousness, as it is possible to find effective solutions during that process. The reflective cycle through action research seems a lonely process, and I'm sure that informal discussion should be part of it.
As for making reflective decisions based on beliefs and principles, that sounds a lot like intuition to me. I keep hearing and reading that language is not intuitive, and that seems to trickle down into "don't rely on intuition when teaching language" as well ... but I cannot abandon my intuition so freely. Intuition is an integral part of reflection. I reflect not only on my mental impressions, but my emotional ones as well. How can I reflect without feelings, and what are feelings but intuitive and emotional impressions? If I were dealing with cold, impersonal data, I could leave intuition aside, but I am dealing with real people, with real needs.
I suppose the inquiry-based approach needs to look cold and methodical so we can make pretty little charts to demonstrate it, but I don't think it's as simple as it looks in this article. I also think it is way more time-consuming than articles ever care to mention. It's a great idea, and I don't dispute that. Realistically, it is an unfortunate fact that most ESL teachers are adjunct, and just don't have time to plan, much less do action research (certainly not if action research has to be documented). Given such time constraints, how do we make sure teachers know that action research is all it's cracked up to be?
posted by E.M @ 10:11 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home