At the Future of English Language Teaching Online Conference (FoELT) on 17 October 2020, Monika Wierzanska-Villar of Regent's University presented on 'Do I need to attend another CPD session? Action Research as a powerful alternative'.
The ELT industry worldwide has a strong tradition of CPD and the most dominant approach has been top-down, i.e. an approach that places teachers in the role of consumers of knowledge that is imposed on them and that they are expected to implement in their classrooms (Borg, 2015). This approach is usually realised by various institutions, such as private language schools, public schools, universities etc. by offering to their teaching teams a series of one-off workshops where new ideas, information and practical classroom skills are presented (Borg, 2015).
Current perspectives on professional development expose a lot of disadvantages of the conventional, training-transmission model of CPD (Borg, 2015). Borg (2015) points out that teachers usually have limited opportunities to contribute to the content and process of such CPD, they are not in charge of their development but dependent on others, e.g. their line managers, their institutions, governmental bodies, etc. and they are not necessarily able to find immediate applications of the knowledge gained there in their own contexts and classrooms.
Action research is a combination of two different but related activities – action and research (Burns, 2013). It is often defined as ‘a form of self-reflective inquiry carried out by practitioners, aimed at solving problems, improving practice or enhancing understanding’ (Nunan, 1992: 229).
In this presentation, Monika talked about action research as a bottom-up alternative to top-down CPD activities. Drawing on her MA research, she presented AR as a tool teachers can use to investigate their classroom practice and gain insights into what is happening in the classroom and why.