Action Research

Martin Parrott

Action research is not so much something that we do in addition to our teaching

as something that we integrate into it. In many ways it is a state of mind it is a
scepticism about assumptions and a willingness to put everything to the test. It is
something which should take very little time and which does not necessarily need
to be made public. It is a way of ensuring that we continue to learn even as we
teach. It helps to stave off staleness and routine.

Red ink

I dont know when I stopped using red
ink to correct homework, or whether I
ever used it in the first place.
Somewhere along the way I had
absorbed this idea that using red ink
was a bad thing. I even told CELTA
course participants not to use red ink
and, in that irritating way that teacher
trainers sometimes do, produced an
instant pseudo-rationale to support my
prejudice: People find red ink
threatening. They associate it with
negative experiences at school.
I had two fountain pens; one with
black ink and the other with blue. If
students wrote in black, I used my blue
pen to underline and annotate; if they
wrote in blue, I used my black pen.
And I was rather proud of being so
resourceful.
Ten years or so into my career and for
the nth time, I was asked by a student
why I did this: But Martin, wouldnt
it be easier for us to read your
corrections if they were written in
red?. Out came the same platitude
about red ink being threatening. This
time I noticed looks of amused
indulgence pass among the students.
Who would like me to use red ink?, I
asked. Hands shot into the air.
From then on I asked each of my
classes what colour they would like me
to use in marking their homework.
Most students preferred red, and no
one seemed to find this in the least
threatening. I began to use red as a
matter of course, but I would still ask
my classes which colour they
preferred: red came out on top each
time. I asked my colleagues what
colours they used to mark homework,
and strangely enough I discovered that
my prejudice was by no means unique
to me. I encouraged them to ask for a
show of hands in their classes, and in
almost every case the result was the
same as in my own classes. Without
knowing it, I had discovered action
research.
The best thing about this example of
action research is its simplicity it
took a few seconds to carry out and
involved no time in preparation of
materials or computation and
interpretation of data. Something had
happened to make me question my
assumptions I did a little bit of
research and modified my practice
(and my assumptions) accordingly. I
also extended the original piece of
research by asking other colleagues to
replicate my experiment a sequence
of events (question assumptions; do
research; modify practice; extend)
which corresponds quite closely to the
classical four developmental phases
of action research:
Phase I: Develop a plan of action to
improve what is already happening.
Phase II: Act to implement the plan.
Phase III: Observe the effects of action
in the context in which it occurs.
Phase IV: Reflect on these effects.
(See Nunan p12)
Action research as a way of learning
about our learners
My red ink anecdote is one example of
learning about what learners like, and a
simple show of hands is one of the
easiest and most effective tools of
action research: Who wants to be
corrected more? Who wants me to
correct their mistakes? Who likes
mistakes to be corrected by other
students? Who likes working in pairs?
Who likes written homework?
Short questionnaires can also be very
useful to find out in more detail what
our students like and dislike handing
out paper in the last five minutes of the
lesson and asking the students to write
down what they learned, what they
enjoyed or what they found useful in
the lesson. If we use
journals/reflection books we can ask
for feedback on specific issues, and
can follow up questionnaire results and
feedback in journals with brief
interviews to clarify what individuals
have said. Institutions often ask for
feedback of some sort from students at
the end of their course. But at the end
of the course is too late if we want to
take students attitudes and preferences
into account, if we wish to make
changes to our teaching and to evaluate
or reflect on these.
Action research as a way of learning
about the effectiveness of our
teaching
Test-teach-test is seen as a model for
presenting new language, as a way of
diagnosing what needs to be taught and
as a way of demonstrating the
relevance of what we teach to the
learners. We can also integrate a
modified test-teach-test approach into
our teaching in order to evaluate the
effectiveness of what we do. The tests
need to be simple, and often we can
just bring our practice activity forward
and use it as a test.
Example 1: I started testing classes on
their ability to discriminate minimal
pairs before using exercises and
activities designed to aid their
discrimination. Then I repeated the
test later and found that a worryingly
large number of the students had made
no progress at all and, in all the years
that I have been carrying out exercises
of this kind, presumably the same has
been the case.
Example 2: I have always had a hunch
that presenting vocabulary up-front is a
waste of time, and that students learn
vocabulary more effectively if they
research it themselves. I asked the
students in an elementary class
individually to write down the names
of everything they could find in a
kitchen and I collected in their sheets
of paper. I then taught them the
names of ten items. A week and then a
fortnight later I repeated the write
down the names of everything you can
find in a kitchen exercise to see how
many items they had retained. I did a
similar exercise with a second
elementary class, but this time I simply
asked them to use their bilingual
dictionaries to find the names of ten
kitchen objects for homework instead
of actually teaching the vocabulary.
Over a period of time I repeated this
procedure with classes at different
levels and with different areas of
vocabulary, each time keeping a record
only of the total number of new words
remembered after one and two weeks.
Of course my original assumptions
were wrong (they often are) not that
up-front teaching scored better in this
instance, but on the basis of my
research it became apparent that across
the whole range of students neither
approach seemed to be more effective
than the other. The point was that
certain students seem to learn much
better in one or other of the approaches
and so now I consciously vary my
approach (grudgingly waving
flashcards about when no one is
looking). And I keep on trying to
repeat the experiment.
Action research as a way of
monitoring and evaluating
innovation
Im someone who tends to react to
innovation with dread and a gut
reaction of it wouldnt possibly work, Action research as a way of learning
and I have always envied people who
greet new ideas with enthusiasm. At
both ends of this particular scale there
are problems, however. Stick-in-the-
muds like me are in danger of
fossilising, while over-eagerness to
jump onto the latest bandwagon can
cause the students to be subjected to
unprincipled and inappropriate
teaching.
Action research can help both kinds of
people simple but systematic
evaluation of innovation can help
stick-in-the-muds to incorporate
principled change into their teaching
and, at the other end of the scale, can
act as a brake on the over-application
of whizzo ideas.
The secret is partly to start evaluating
before the innovation is introduced,
and partly to make the evaluation
indirect. I remember being taken to
task by a colleague for sneering at wall
dictations. For a week I asked my
(executive) class to describe what they
had learned in the first ten minutes of
their lessons in their journals. On the
Friday I began the lesson with my first
ever wall dictation, expecting that
students would say that the beginning
of the lesson had been silly and a waste
of time, wondering if any of them
would seize on what I understood the
objective of the procedure to be
developing accuracy in listening and
pronunciation. What I discovered was
that they thought that the exercise had
been a useful way to help them
remember vocabulary. I asked a
colleague to replicate this with a
general English class at a lower level
the result was much the same. No one
thought there was anything remotely
silly about the activity and I have now
absorbed the (judicious) use of wall
dictations into my teaching.
about our teaching
There is a great deal that we can learn
about the way we teach through simple
observation of different kinds.
We can record our lessons and take the
tape home to listen to.
Do I really talk so much? Or so
slowly? Do I really answer so many of
my own questions? Or ask so many
questions in the form of statements?
Do I really sound so patronising when
I check instructions or so bullying
when I correct pronunciation?
If I want some data thats more
objective, I can actually count the
number of questions I ask in the form
of statements as compared with those
in which the auxiliary precedes the
subject, and arrive at a precise ratio. If
I want, I can consciously try to change
this in my lessons, make a second
recording and compare the ratio here
with that in the previous lesson. I can
change the way I give instructions and
correct pronunciation and ask the
students if they have noticed a
difference; ask them which way they
prefer.
We can also video our lessons. It
seems to me that teachers who do this
sometimes get hung up on wrong
things they become self-conscious
about gestures and verbal mannerisms
(O.K.?) that actually pass unnoticed in
class. More revealing, I think, is to let
the camera play on the faces of the
students.
How come I didnt notice how bored
Gretchen and Sumi were in the role
play? Or how confused Hiroko and
Renaldo looked during my
presentation of the present perfect
continuous that I thought had broken
new records for clarity and simplicity?
How come I didnt notice the number
of students who said absolutely
nothing in the pair work exercise?
If we had the luxury of peer
observation, we can use observation
schedules. For example, we can ask a
colleague to draw a plan of the
classroom and to record all the
interaction that takes place in the
lesson. The evidence is undeniable
and invariably surprising.
Who do I give the lions share of my
attention to is it to one or other side
of the room? Is it to the men or to the
women? The attractive ones or the
less attractive ones? The stronger
students or the weaker ones?
I can repeat the exercise another day or
in another class. Is a pattern
emerging?
Why did no one ever tell me that I give
more than twice as much attention to
the attractive South American men and
middle-aged Italian women as to
anyone else? Did Else from Finland
really speak to absolutely no one at
any time in the lesson?
The basic methodology of action
research
I have tried to provide examples of the
basic tools of action research in the
preceding sections. To summarise,
these are:
questionnaires (to be filled in by
students or by other teachers)
journals
interviews
tests
audio recordings
video recordings
objective observation schedules
(something to keep those CELTA
observers quiet!)
Some pay-offs of action research
Action research lends itself to sharing
of experience and ideas among
colleagues, and can often open up
dialogue on issues that otherwise tend
to remain under the carpet. In
particular, it is often both helpful and
revealing if two or more teachers carry
out the same piece of research,
compare the results and discuss the
implications. It can help to kindle and
maintain enthusiasm, and if it involves
regular evaluation of teaching, it can
also help to promote confidence
(knowing what the problems are is
better than worrying about what they
might be!).
Some dangers inherent in action
research
The greatest danger in my experience
is that we are over-ambitious: that we
collect too much data or that the data is
too complicated to process easily.
The following hints are intended to
offset this danger:
generally ask no more than two or
three questions in a questionnaire
avoid asking anyone to put
statements in rank order
(impossible to process)
try to use questions to which the
answer is yes or no, or which
involve choosing (circling or
ticking) three or at most four
options
if you have a large class, pre-select
students whose
questionnaires/journals etc. you will
use in your research (and, for the
purposes of the research, ignore all
the others)

The second danger is that of over-

generalising on the basis of findings.
To go back to my red ink anecdote, it
is tempting to assert that students do
not find the use of red ink threatening.
I think we need to be very careful to
avoid assertions like this. All we can
reliably conclude is that the students I
asked seemed not to find red ink
threatening. The aim of action
research is not to arrive at universal
truths but only to learn more about
ourselves (at the moment), our
teaching (at the moment), our learners
(at the moment) and their learning (at
the moment).

Further reading

Understanding Language Classrooms

(David Nunan, Prentice Hall) inspired
me to take action research seriously.

Chapter 2 of Tasks for Language

Teachers (Martin Parrott, C.U.P.)
provides a very short introduction to
the topic, and the book contains 12
classroom-based tasks, which are
effectively ready-made action research
projects.