Dr AnnaMaria Pinter – The Possibility of Working with Children as Co-researchers In Language Classrooms

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Lucy Muirhead

It’s been a long time since I’ve taught children so I must admit I was out of the loop when I sat down to listen to Annamaria Pinter’s talk at the FoELT conference which was about training children as researchers. Drawing on the important work of Mary Kellett (2010), she began by comparing the traditional view of children as passive, vulnerable and unable to make decisions, with the argument that children are in fact experts of their own lives and that their opinions should be listened to and acted on. She pointed to the UN Child Rights Act, Article 12 which states that “Every child has the right to express their views, feelings and wishes in all matters affecting them and to have their views considered and taken seriously…” (Unicef.org). It’s hard to argue with that but I was still sceptical that children could be researchers. The children may be experts in their own lives but the teachers are experts at teaching children and the researchers are experts at research. I wondered whether the children would have much to offer in those two areas.

I was fascinated as Annamaria told us about the project that she’d done in India with a group of teachers and young learners. There were two aspects: first of all, the teachers were encouraged to seek the views of their students, and secondly, the children learnt how to become researchers in their own right.

The first stage focused on classroom teaching. The children were invited to suggest what they should learn about, to initiate activities and to attend workshops. This is all part of learner-centred teaching but it was included in the project to subsequently help the children on their research journeys. One example of the children’s input was a suggestion to have a book corner. They wanted to be able to choose a book for themselves, but also to have the freedom to put it back if they didn’t like it. I thought this was a really nice idea as it addressed the need for children to read but also gave them a sense of agency. By choosing a book for themselves and also being able to put it back if they didn’t like it, I imagine that gave them a feeling of control and made them more likely to go up a second and a third time.

At the start of the project, not surprisingly there were some concerns and resistance from the teachers, but by the end, the comments were very positive. One teacher reported that the involvement of the children had created more of a bond between her and her students. She said it had helped to overcome differences in social status. It helped other teachers to get over some of their own prejudices. Another teacher found that she was able to create resources through the ideas of the students by getting them to bring in objects from home. The project was seen to have enriched the under-resourced classrooms and helped the teachers to learn how to reach their children. I really liked how a simple, clever shift in focus like that could open up new possibilities.

The second stage of the project was about transforming the children into researchers in their own right. First, the children were given a reason to get involved by being told that their work was going to go up on a website and not just sit in someone’s drawer. Then they were taught research terminology which they practised using games. They had been told that the terms were difficult to learn and understand… which made the children even more keen to learn them. The next stage was that they were given child-friendly questionnaires as models. Once the results were in, the children analysed the data. Now they had the motivation, the terminology, the concept and the experience and were then given the task to design their own questionnaires. Annamaria said they found it really motivating to see the results and that, in contrast to many adults, their favourite part was the analysis of data and creating the pie charts. Actually, I remember enjoying that part as a teenager, but I was certainly never given the opportunity as a child.

Annamaria’s project was an example of research WITH and research BY; two of the four categories Kellett had identified:

- ON: Children are seen as passive and unknowing objects. There’s no need to get their consent.

- ABOUT: The research is done with a desire and attempt to understand the children but is still done from an adult’s perspective.

- WITH: The views and collaboration of children are actively sought.

- BY: The research is done entirely by the children.

While I can now clearly see the benefits of the latter two, I can still also see a place for the first two. Indeed, consent is important, but I would imagine there’s a place for conducting ON or ABOUT research depending on the topic and the purpose. When it comes to research involving children, we wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But what I really liked about Annamaria’s project was that it seemed to bring out the best in the children and also enabled the teachers to learn from them.

My experience of teaching children was in Italy in the early 2000s and we used a series of books that as a new teacher I absolutely loved. They very much followed the PPP method with small sets of vocabulary repeated over and over, and a few easy grammar points practised in different ways. They had varied activities to keep the children interested, and stories which I photocopied onto A3 paper and read out loud. I thought those books were so great that I still have the first one, along with the accompanying cassettes(!). But on reflection, I realise that the children and I could have done much more. Annamaria says that materials for young learners traditionally tend to be regimented, vocabulary is limited and there is not opportunity for spontaneous communication. That was certainly true of my favourite book. Maybe I’ll put it back in the corner and choose a new one.