Action Research for Language Teachers is a practical guide for teachers who wish to develop their professional expertise by investigating their own teaching in a systematic and organised way. It is also invaluable for teachers or trainee teachers who have to produce a professional project or dissertation as part of a training programme. It will help teachers to design and implement a research project which is derived from their normal practice, with results which should be of direct relevance to them. It is user-friendly and includes exemplar articles and extracts which show how the research techniques can be implemented, 'Personal review' sections which help readers to think about the ideas being discussed and relate them to their own situation, commentaries which follow up issues raised in the 'Personal review' sections, chapter summaries, and a glossary of all technical terms.
1 Why action research?; 2 Selecting and developing a topic; 3 Collecting the data; 4 Field-notes, logs, journals, diaries and personal accounts; 5 Verbal reports; 6 Observation techniques: recording and analysing classroom skills; 7 Interviews and questionnaires; 8 The case study approach; 9 Training and evaluation: teaching materials; 10 No teacher is an island: some approaches to sharing ideas; Concluding remarks; Glossary of research terms; Suggestions for further reading; Bibliography; Index
