Scott Thornbury - Writing methodology texts: bridging the research-practice gap
Scott Thornbury UB LAALCM Seminar
Wrting methodology texts: bridging the research-practice gap
Scott's talk was an updated and extended version of a presentation previously given at the IATEFL and ELTRIA conferences in 2017. As ever, full of insights and food for thought and packed with references for those who want to explore the topic further.
Scott’s statement, ‘It’s a well-known fact that teachers don’t read research’, is borne out by some of the very research teachers aren’t reading (e.g. Marsden & Kaprowicz, 2017). The interesting question is: why not? Participants in the session, themselves a mixture of teachers and researchers, volunteered answers such as lack of time, (in)accessibility, relevance, insufficient background knowledge, etc. These answers chime with study findings, for example, Borg (2009).
Apart from the practical and physical considerations listed above, the lack of interaction and limited communication between the research and practitioner communities may be caused by the fact that the two groups simply speak different languages, somewhat ironic given our field. Academic papers are written, for the most part, with an academic audience in mind (Bartels, 2003; Farrell, 2016). Ellis and Shintani (2014) don’t pull any punches when they conclude ‘The theoretical discourse of SLA typically makes no attempt to be accessible to teachers.’ A sentiment echoed by Rose, in this slide from Scott’s presentation.
As well as different discourses, the two groups may also have separate agendas. Brown (1994) points out that research, by its very nature, ‘yields findings that are subject to interpretation rather than giving conclusive evidence’, while Han (2007: 392) advises researchers ‘that as much as their studies are generalisable, pedagogy is largely local…'. All of which may contribute to frustration for teachers who are looking for answers to their questions. There seems to be little attempt to ‘particularize’ academic research to make the information ‘usable for particular teachers' (Clarke, 1994). Given these conditions, it is hardly surprising that Marsden and Kaprowicz’s (2017) study found that teachers have negative perceptions of research, and may even treat it with suspicion (Farrell, 2016). Consequently, for many, if not most practitioners, experience is the main source of professional development, with research, for those who are interested, as a valuable supplement (Ur, 2012).
This evident gap between the Research and Practice communities drew Scott to an analogy in Carroll (1996: 97-98) of the ‘county agent’, who delivered the results of research to farmers, literally in the field.
This ‘agent’ specialized in communicating research findings to the practitioner. Carroll goes on to point out, ‘The major problem that would be encountered… is the shortage of persons qualified to do this kind of educational liaison.’ (1966: 97-98). In the field of language teaching and ELT in particular, this role has been assumed by the writer of methodology texts and teachers’ guides. Four of the best-known and most popular core texts of this type, written by Brown, Harmer, Scrivener appear in Scott’s slide below.
Scott introduced his talk by referencing a comment he made in a talk at the IATEFL conference in 2017, which generated a huge amount of discussion on social media, as can be seen in the following tweet.
Scott’s statement, ‘It’s a well-known fact that teachers don’t read research’, is borne out by some of the very research teachers aren’t reading (e.g. Marsden & Kaprowicz, 2017). The interesting question is: why not? Participants in the session, themselves a mixture of teachers and researchers, volunteered answers such as lack of time, (in)accessibility, relevance, insufficient background knowledge, etc. These answers chime with study findings, for example, Borg (2009).
Apart from the practical and physical considerations listed above, the lack of interaction and limited communication between the research and practitioner communities may be caused by the fact that the two groups simply speak different languages, somewhat ironic given our field. Academic papers are written, for the most part, with an academic audience in mind (Bartels, 2003; Farrell, 2016). Ellis and Shintani (2014) don’t pull any punches when they conclude ‘The theoretical discourse of SLA typically makes no attempt to be accessible to teachers.’ A sentiment echoed by Rose, in this slide from Scott’s presentation.
This evident gap between the Research and Practice communities drew Scott to an analogy in Carroll (1996: 97-98) of the ‘county agent’, who delivered the results of research to farmers, literally in the field.
This ‘agent’ specialized in communicating research findings to the practitioner. Carroll goes on to point out, ‘The major problem that would be encountered… is the shortage of persons qualified to do this kind of educational liaison.’ (1966: 97-98). In the field of language teaching and ELT in particular, this role has been assumed by the writer of methodology texts and teachers’ guides. Four of the best-known and most popular core texts of this type, written by Brown, Harmer, Scrivener appear in Scott’s slide below.
Scott highlighted how widely used these texts are in pre-service teacher training courses (some are onto their 5th and 6th editions), and therefore how influential they may be in forming new teachers’ initial personal language teaching theories. What little research that has been carried out into the content and use of these texts reveals divided opinion. Stern, admittedly back in 1983 before the above texts were written, described the failure of teachers’ guides to ‘make a clear distinction between firmly tested knowledge, research evidence, widely held opinion, personal views of the writer, and hypotheses or speculations to be tested’. Ellis and Shintani, however, are less critical, and distinguish between Pedagogic Discourse, which is ‘practical’ and ‘accessible’ to the teacher, and Research-based Discourse, which follows academic conventions to describe, report and validate research findings, frequently, they conclude, ‘couched in language that is not accessible to outsiders.’ (2014: 2).
In order to explore these themes, Scott sent a questionnaire to the influential writers of methodological texts mentioned above: Doug Brown (DB), Jeremy Harmer (JH), Jim Scrivener (JS) and Penny Ur (PU), asking the following questions:
The following is an overview of Scott’s selection and summary of some of the most relevant answers.
Q2 (Importance of linking research to practice)
This question revealed a broad spectrum of opinion on the importance of research. At one end of the continuum, DB not only felt that research-informed teaching is ‘Imperative!’, but also encouraged teachers to engage in their own classroom research. Occupying the middle ground, PU found that research could be ‘a useful support and can provide interesting insights, but it’s certainly possible to write helpful and valid professional guidance for teachers with no research references whatsoever’. At the other end of the spectrum, JS demonstrated some of the ‘suspicion’ mentioned by Farrell (2016):
I’ve never found much formal “research” very helpful to my own classroom work. I am not “anti-research” but I do carry a suspicion of many statistical studies in teaching.
My teaching is not applying linguistics. Rather, it is about tuning in to people and attempting, moment by moment, to help create a space where learning can happen. I more often look at the literature to see if it can help me understand what I have already noticed myself.
Q3 (Keeping abreast of new developments)
Scott’s respondents (and Scott himself) acknowledged the difficulty of this, given the sheer volume of research output. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his earlier observations about SLA findings, JS mentioned the benefits of reading research from outside the immediate field of Applied Linguistics. JH referenced journals, books, conferences and seminars as potential sources of information, and also pointed out the increasing usefulness of social media. This topic was revisited in the Q & A at the end of the talk: developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN) on platforms such as Twitter can point you in the direction of articles and news related to your areas of interest.
Q4 (Selecting and prioritizing topics)
DB, being the most research-engaged of the four writers surveyed, had very explicit criteria for selection:
Q5 (Agenda?) and Q6 (Impartiality?)
Both PU and JH mentioned the need to be objective, while observing the tension that may occur when research output contradicts your own classroom experience. As an illustration, Scott referenced recent research data, which indicate that vocabulary items are not learned best in lexical sets. This contradicts a pervasive classroom practice used by teachers, materials writers and curriculum designers in language teaching. As a writer, or editor, the challenge is to find the balance between incorporating robust but counter-intuitive research findings without flying in the face of long-standing teacher beliefs and expectations.
Q7 ([Mis]representation of findings)
How much can or should research findings be filtered and interpreted in order to make them accessible to teachers (‘dumbing down’)? JH observed that there is inevitable pressure from publishers to make the text accessible. As with the previous question, the writers tread a fine line between respecting the rigour of the research and potentially putting teachers off unduly.
PU, however, seems to worry less about this point, as she explains in her refreshingly honest answer, reproduced below:
Q8 (Explain the success of their books)
Both JS and JH mentioned finding a ‘voice’ that practising teachers recognize and understand. Scott returned to the theme of ‘pedagogic discourse’ mentioned earlier and points out a number of discourse features which identify these writers as members of the same community of practice as their audience. He suggested examples such as the frequent use of ‘we’ throughout the texts, combined with modality: ‘we can’; ‘we should’; ‘we need to’; ‘I think’; ‘One possible solution’, all of which signal a non-assertive, inclusive attitude to the reader. These considerations may be useful for researchers who wish to share their findings with the teaching community, as observed by Magnan (2007), ‘Pedagogical recommendations might be made in rhetoric that suggests informed questioning (‘Might this observation suggest that …?) rather than declarations (‘Teachers should …’).
The following slide summarises the conclusions that Scott drew from his research:
In an interview by Alan Maley in the journal The Teacher Trainer, N.S. Prabhu stated that the “the problem in teacher training is finding a way of influencing teachers’ thinking without seeking to replace their existing perceptions”. In other words, as Scott pointed out, replacing ‘folk pedagogy’ with evidence-based concepts. Donald Freeman calls this ‘renaming the experience’: helping teachers to ‘talk the talk’ and interpret their own experiences through a scientific lens, thus bridging the gap between research and practice.
References
Bartels, N. 2003. ‘How teachers and researchers read academic articles.’ Teaching & Teacher Education, 19. p. 737
Borg, S. (2009). ‘English language teachers’ conceptions of research.’ Applied Linguistics, 30 (3), p. 370.
Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents, p. 75.
Carroll, J. 1966. ‘The contributions of psychological theory and educational research to the teaching of foreign languages.’ In Valdman, A. (ed.) Trends in Language Teaching. New York. McGraw-Hill.
Clarke, M. A. (1994) ‘The dysfunctions of the theory/practice discourse.’ TESOL Quarterly, 28/1, p. 20.
Ellis, R. & Shintani, N. (2014) Exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. London: Routledge, p. 331.
Farrell, T. (2016). Review of Teacher-Researchers in Action, by Dikilitaş et al (eds.) ELT Journal, 70/3, p. 352.
Han, Z. (2007) ‘Pedagogical implications: genuine or pretentious?’ TESOL Quarterly, 41/2, p. 392.
Freeman D. (1996) ‘Renaming experience/reconstructing practice: Developing new understandings of teaching,’ In Freeman, D. & Richards, J.C. (Eds.). Teacher Learning in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (p. 238).
Magnan, S.S. (2007). ‘Gauging the scholarly value of connecting research to teaching.’ TESOL Quarterly, 41(2) p. 402.
Marsden, E. & Kasprowicz, R. (2017) ‘Foreign language educators’ exposure to research: Reported experiences, exposure via citations and a proposal for action.’ Modern Language Journal, 101 (4), p. 632
Stern, H.H. (1983) Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 478.
Ur, P. (2012) ‘How useful is Tesol academic research?’ The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/oct/16/teacher-tesol-academic-researchuseful
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