2 Improving second language education through Intensive German Weeks: An action research collaboration between teachers and researchers
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Katherine Mueller
Abstract
Teachers in Canada’s Bilingual Programs recognize the need to design lessons to promote oral language use since students often develop strong listening skills in the target language but are reluctant to speak it. One Bilingual Program in the province of Alberta has introduced Intensive German Weeks at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to focus on oral language use of K-6 students. This action research over four years brought together the teachers of the German bilingual team and two language education researchers to study their learning about specific pedagogical strategies and to engage in professional learning. The teacher-researcher collaboration resulted in reciprocal learning from the use of strategies from the Neurolinguistic Approach. In this chapter, three teachers from the German Bilingual team and the two researchers reflect on the benefits and challenges of the teacher-researcher collaboration in the first three years of the study. The team developed common understandings around theory and practice, research design and ethics. They managed challenges that emerged around communication, constraints in time and funding, as well as the intrusion of the Covid- 19 pandemic. Understandings of language education theory and practice as well as teacher-researcher collaboration have emerged from this study.
Abstract
Teachers in Canada’s Bilingual Programs recognize the need to design lessons to promote oral language use since students often develop strong listening skills in the target language but are reluctant to speak it. One Bilingual Program in the province of Alberta has introduced Intensive German Weeks at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to focus on oral language use of K-6 students. This action research over four years brought together the teachers of the German bilingual team and two language education researchers to study their learning about specific pedagogical strategies and to engage in professional learning. The teacher-researcher collaboration resulted in reciprocal learning from the use of strategies from the Neurolinguistic Approach. In this chapter, three teachers from the German Bilingual team and the two researchers reflect on the benefits and challenges of the teacher-researcher collaboration in the first three years of the study. The team developed common understandings around theory and practice, research design and ethics. They managed challenges that emerged around communication, constraints in time and funding, as well as the intrusion of the Covid- 19 pandemic. Understandings of language education theory and practice as well as teacher-researcher collaboration have emerged from this study.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1: Addressing challenges in the classroom
- 1 Combining theory and practice: Findings from a collaborative project on oral task design 11
- 2 Improving second language education through Intensive German Weeks: An action research collaboration between teachers and researchers 29
- 3 An affordance-focused approach for working with authentic materials: A practice–research initiative 41
-
Part 2: Learners as collaborative agents
- 4 Reciprocity and challenge in researcher–student collaborative labour in a multilingual secondary school 59
- 5 The organic processes of learning in an exploratory collaborative action research (CAR) project 71
- 6 Managing linguistic diversity in an Irish primary school: Reciprocal collaboration in practice and research 85
-
Part 3: Collaborative research in professional development
- 7 Collaboration, reciprocity, and challenges: Professional development-in-practice 101
- 8 Teachers and researchers collaborating to develop effective language education: The project Observing Interlanguage 119
- 9 Learning to become an English teacher: Collaboration, context and the self 133
-
Part 4: Collaborative research and national policy
- 10 From research to a national curriculum: The case of a lexical syllabus 151
- 11 Tensions in collaborative research with teachers in the context of language education policy change in Finland 165
- 12 National graduate schools in language education: Dimensions of collaboration and reciprocity 179
-
Afterword
- 13 An ethical perspective on collaborative research 197
- Contributors 207
- Index 211
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1: Addressing challenges in the classroom
- 1 Combining theory and practice: Findings from a collaborative project on oral task design 11
- 2 Improving second language education through Intensive German Weeks: An action research collaboration between teachers and researchers 29
- 3 An affordance-focused approach for working with authentic materials: A practice–research initiative 41
-
Part 2: Learners as collaborative agents
- 4 Reciprocity and challenge in researcher–student collaborative labour in a multilingual secondary school 59
- 5 The organic processes of learning in an exploratory collaborative action research (CAR) project 71
- 6 Managing linguistic diversity in an Irish primary school: Reciprocal collaboration in practice and research 85
-
Part 3: Collaborative research in professional development
- 7 Collaboration, reciprocity, and challenges: Professional development-in-practice 101
- 8 Teachers and researchers collaborating to develop effective language education: The project Observing Interlanguage 119
- 9 Learning to become an English teacher: Collaboration, context and the self 133
-
Part 4: Collaborative research and national policy
- 10 From research to a national curriculum: The case of a lexical syllabus 151
- 11 Tensions in collaborative research with teachers in the context of language education policy change in Finland 165
- 12 National graduate schools in language education: Dimensions of collaboration and reciprocity 179
-
Afterword
- 13 An ethical perspective on collaborative research 197
- Contributors 207
- Index 211
