If we want to treat learners as practitioners of learning, alongside teachers as practitioners of teaching, and therefore capable of reaping the developmental benefits of practitioner research, how can we best proceed? For Allwright and Hanks the answer lies in Exploratory Practice - an inclusive form of practitioner research developed largely in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and in Lancaster, England, that enables both learners and teachers to develop their own understandings of their learning and te
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[show more]aching lives.
After arguing that developments in the field of applied linguistics have fallen short of establishing such a perspective on learners, and reviewing current research models, the authors propose seven principles for a truly inclusive extension of practitioner research - Exploratory Practice.
Five full chapters document, through learner and teacher narratives from around the world, how Exploratory Practice can engage learners as developing practitioners of learning, and enhance the learning process by enriching human relationships in the classroom.
[show less]General Editors' Preface
Acknowledgements
General Introduction: Learners and What We Think of Them
PART I: THE DEVELOPING VIEW OF THE LEARNER
Introduction to Part I
Assessment and the Learner
Method and the Learner
Teacher Training and the Learner
Learner Variables and the Learner
Second Language Acquisition Studies and the Learner
PART II: RESEARCH MODELS: WHAT WE HAVE AND WHAT WE NEED
What the Past Has Provided
Going Beyond Experiments: Descriptive Classroom
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[show more] Research
The Research We Now Need: Principled and Inclusive Practitioner Research
PART III: INCLUSIVE PRACTITIONER RESEARCH IN PRACTICE
Introduction to Part III
Getting Started
Conducting Investigations
The 'Web of Life' of the Rio de Janeiro Exploratory Practice Group
Sharing Developing Understandings Beyond the Classroom
PART IV: SOURCES AND RESOURCES FOR INCLUSIVE PRACTITIONER RESEARCH
Postscript
References
Index
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