ARTICLE

1. LANGUAGE
TEACHING
RESEARCH
Language Teaching Research
Lessons about learning:
15(2) 254–267
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1362168810388726
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language research
Luke Rowland
Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
Abstract
This is an account of how one class of English language learners compared and contrasted their
language learning experiences with English language teaching (ELT) research findings during a five-
week Intensive Academic Preparation course at an Australian university. It takes as its starting
point the fact that learners, unlike teachers and researchers, are rarely, if ever, encouraged to view
language research as a potentially valuable resource. Using an exploratory practice approach
(Allwright, 2003, 2005; Allwright & Hanks, 2009), the class examined and discussed both the
structure and the content of three language teaching journal articles during regular English lessons.
The comparisons the students made between their own language learning experiences and the
research in the articles helped us to recognize three important characteristics of the learners in our
class: (1) their pride in their personal knowledge of English language learning, (2) their understanding
of themselves as individuals within the language learning process, and (3) their obvious concern with
how their wider lives impact upon their learning approaches. Most importantly from a pedagogical
standpoint, I witnessed my students develop as reflective, critical language experts in their own right
through this experience of engaging with both the processes and the products of language research.
Keywords
exploratory practice, learners as researchers, learner voices, learner reflections, learner beliefs,
learner agency, learner empowerment
I Introduction
At the beginning of my post-graduate study (Rowland, 2008), as I surveyed the literature
on English language teaching and learning, I came across two comments that caught my
Corresponding author:
Luke Rowland, Kanda University of International Studies, 1-4-1 Wakaba, Mihama-ku, Chiba-shi, 261-0014, Japan
Email: lukerowland@hotmail.com

2. Rowland 255
attention. The first declared that learning ‘is accidental, individual and private – the
opposite of teaching, which is deliberate, public and most often directed to groups’
(Prabhu, 1999, p. 53). Although this description of learning and teaching was immedi-
ately interesting to me, I soon wondered what my students would make of it. Would they
find it as interesting as I did? Would it provoke some discussion amongst them? Did they
consider learning to be ‘accidental, individual and private’? After considering the pos-
sibilities, I realized that the more immediate question was not what my students would
make of this comment but instead whether they were ever actually likely to encounter it
to be able to form an opinion of it.
To explain this situation further, comments, ideas and research findings inside ELT
literature form part of a communal discussion on language teaching and learning that
teachers and researchers traditionally ‘claim as their domain’ (Cotterall, 1999, p. 493; see
also Wharton, 2006). This is not to say that all teachers and researchers necessarily agree
with each other but that they are at least invited to be involved in the discussion and to
support or challenge ideas as they see fit. In contrast, students – despite their obvious
language learning credentials – seldom get the chance to enter the supposedly public
discussion on language learning and to confirm or question the ideas and research con-
tained within ELT literature.
The second comment that drew my attention involved a researcher’s response to a
learner’s opinion on the subject of peer collaboration in the classroom. While the learner
stated that he or she could not learn anything from his or her peers, the researcher sug-
gested that the ‘learner may need to be guided to re-orient his or her own expectations of
what the [peer] group can do for him or her’ (Slimani-Rolls, 2003, p. 228). Certainly,
such situations are common within language teaching/learning, and it is well documented
that language learners hold many such beliefs that do not correspond with what research-
ers or teachers consider to be true (see Cotterall, 1999; Mori, 1999; Barcelos, 2000;
Kalaja & Barcelos, 2003). However, what I took from this comment (and from my own
experience as a teacher) is that, for right or wrong, the usual teacher/researcher response
to any mismatch between what learners believe and what research indicates is to re-orient
the learners in some way as suggested above. This re-orientation can include many things
but rarely does it involve plainly and explicitly sharing research findings with learners
for them to compare their own learning experiences to.
In summary, through my interaction with the literature on language teaching and
learning, as well as through reflection on my own teaching experiences, I began to appre-
ciate that access to information within ELT literature is a privilege regularly accorded to
researchers and sometimes to teachers (at least those fortunate to have good library
resources available to them), but rarely to learners. The idea that we, teachers and
researchers, tend not to share research information more explicitly with learners was an
intriguing one. Thus, I saw an opportunity within my own initial foray into research to
treat learners more as equal partners in the classroom by openly presenting them with
language research findings, encouraging them to compare these findings with their own
experiences of learning, and letting them draw their own conclusions. Essentially, I was
interested in whether there could be any value for me and my class in explicitly discuss-
ing language research in our lessons together, and whether we could learn anything from
comparing learner experiences with language research findings.

3. 256 Language Teaching Research 15(2)
II Learners as researchers
Furthermore, as I wholly agreed with Freeman (1996) that ‘for too long research has
remained alienated from the lives of those in classrooms’ (p. 109), I thought it important
to not only connect my learners with the products of research (i.e. research findings) but
also involve them in its processes. This idea is at the heart of Reason’s (1994) argument
for new approaches to human inquiry, in which he asserts that ‘research in the West
[traditionally] … sees science and everyday life as separate and the researcher as subject
within a world of separate objects’ (p. 9). In his view, this tendency to separate creates
unhelpful, artificial divisions within research between the people, processes and prod-
ucts involved. Reason calls for a bridging of these divisions and suggests especially that
‘we can only truly do research with persons if we engage with them as persons, as
co-subjects and thus as co-researchers’ (p. 10; emphasis in original).
This idea of collaborative research was appealing to me because it would help to
avoid replicating the very thing I wanted to explore: the disconnect between language
learners and language research. Therefore, I decided to act as a teacher-researcher for
this investigation and to involve my own class of learners in the study. By inviting my
learners to participate in this research project, I hoped they would begin to realize their
potential as legitimate investigators of their own learning situations at any time, both
now and in the future.
III Method
1 Context of the study
The study was carried out with a class of English language learners attending a five-week
Intensive Academic Preparation (IAP) course at the English language centre of a large
Australian university. The IAP course is run on demand, usually several times a year, for
full-fee paying, higher-level English language learners and is not formally assessed. This
is because the learners attending the course must have previously fulfilled all their entry
requirements for university and are generally choosing to do five weeks of elective study
to hone their academic and English language skills while awaiting the start of their award
courses. Their level of English proficiency, using the International English Language
Testing System (IELTS) as a guide, is approximate to an IELTS 6.5 or greater. The IAP
curriculum outlines critical thinking, evaluation of research, debate, written arguments,
journal writing, personal reflection and group tasks as integral aspects of the course. It
seeks to prepare learners for both the academic and cultural demands of studying at a
tertiary level in Australia.
2 Participants
There were six learners from China, Thailand and Korea attending the IAP course at the
end of 2007: four women (Mary, Emily, Anna and Meg) and two men (Jeff and Simon).
These are all pseudonyms. Mary, Emily, Anna and Meg were all English language teach-
ers in their own countries and were in Australia to observe teaching methods as well as
to improve their own language skills. Meanwhile, Jeff and Simon were both going on to

4. Rowland 257
different post-graduate award courses at the university after the IAP course; Jeff was
enrolled to do a Master in TESOL, while Simon was about to undertake a Master of
Business Administration.
Briefly, I believe it is necessary to sketch my students in a little more detail. This
is because I invited them to be participants and collaborators on this research project,
and this is their study as much as mine. By providing a little background on my learn-
ers, I also hope it is possible for the reader to appreciate how this study was tailored
to meet both the language and social needs of these particular students in this particu-
lar course.
The four women all had fairly advanced levels of English and were teachers of English
in their home countries. Importantly, their position as teachers back home may have
explained their occasional unease at being regarded as learners in Australia. This became
obvious at our first meeting, and I realized that our IAP lessons together would in some
way need to address these students as both teachers and learners of English. It was hoped
that by giving them opportunities to read language research and to discuss language
learning these teachers/students would feel validated in a sense.
Another consideration was that Jeff and Simon had been studying at the language
institute for 15 weeks by the start of the IAP course. This meant that they had already
completed certain English for Academic Purposes courses, and they expressed some
reservations at having to do similar things again in the IAP class (i.e. essay and report
writing, listening to recorded lectures, etc). Their concerns were understandable, but at
the same time I wanted to prepare them for the post-graduate studies they were about to
begin. Being a post-graduate student myself, I understood how familiarity with certain
text types, such as journal articles, could alleviate the stress surrounding the large amount
of reading required during a higher degree, and so I felt that this would be a good area for
Jeff and Simon to focus on in our IAP lessons.
3 Research approach
The research approach used in this study was Exploratory Practice (EP) (Allwright,
2003, 2005; Allwright & Hanks, 2009), which is a set of guiding principles encouraging
teachers and learners to investigate their own research questions as co-researchers. EP
views teachers and learners as research ‘participants’, rather than research ‘subjects’
(Doyle, 2007, p. 85), and welcomes them into the research enterprise in the belief that
classroom practitioners often require something different from and offer something
different to the products and processes of traditional research. As mentioned above, I hoped
that an EP approach would help this class (myself included) produce understandings and
findings that would be directly and primarily relevant to us.
4 Data collection and analysis
EP suggests that practitioners use regular pedagogical activities as data collection tools
in keeping with the desire to integrate research into the everyday classroom routine
(Allwright, 2003, 2005). With this in mind, I gave my learners sets of questions to dis-
cuss in groups of three during our lessons. These questions focused on the learners’ past

5. 258 Language Teaching Research 15(2)
experiences of language research and their ideas about the foci, purposes and audiences
of such research. The students then wrote group summaries of their discussions, high-
lighting the main points and any differences of opinion within the group and presented
these orally to the class. By doing these things, my class got the opportunity to practise
language skills (e.g. group discussions, summarizing and oral presentations) while also
providing me with a very natural opening to introduce the general research topic to our
class (i.e. learner access to language research).
Over the second, third and fourth weeks of the course, we read and discussed three
language teaching journal articles that focused on vocabulary notebooks (McCrostie,
2007), peer feedback (Rollinson, 2005), and writing skills (Rao, 2007). After looking at
the structure of the articles and discussing some of the ideas presented within them, I
encouraged my students to concentrate on the literature review section of each article so
that they could compare and contrast their own experiences with what research sug-
gested. The students typed their responses and emailed them to me.
Importantly, as this was an EP study, my learners were also involved in the data
analysis. In the final week of the course, I redistributed to the class the students’
emailed comments (in anonymous form) so that we could analyse this data for com-
mon themes. Having read through the student comments during the course, I also pre-
sented the class with a number of themes that I felt were present in the data. The
learners were encouraged to discuss how valid ‘my’ themes appeared to them and to
add and discuss any other themes or ideas they thought appropriate. As a member of
the class, I joined in the discussion at times, but I was mainly interested here in giving
my students a chance to discuss and assimilate the ideas that they produced. Although
my students’ participation in the analysis was limited, it was crucial in helping them
develop their own understandings about language learning and language research. It
was also beneficial in showing them that research does not necessarily have to be off-
limits to them and that teachers and learners can work together to understand language
learning.
5 Rationale for research approach and data collection/analysis
As previously mentioned, I initially selected an Exploratory Practice approach to better
connect my learners with research processes and products. However, this was not the
only reason for choosing EP. From a pedagogical standpoint, taking an EP approach also
allowed me to integrate our research into our regular lessons so that exploration and
pedagogy were feasibly combined in our classroom. For example, the specific ELT jour-
nal articles I used in class for introducing research findings to my learners also provided
me as a teacher with clear examples of the common structural aspects of journal articles
that I felt my students should become familiar with for their future studies and careers.
In this way, we made use of both the content and the structure of the articles, which inte-
grated our research and pedagogical purposes well. Overall, through the integration of
the data collection and analysis into our regular lessons, the students were given the
opportunity to reap the double benefit of exploring their learning situation (through our
research together) while at the same time improving their language skills (through our
teaching/learning together).

6. Rowland 259
IV Findings
Over five weeks of lessons, my learners compared and contrasted their language learning
experiences with research findings reported in language teaching journal articles. We
used three different articles consecutively during the course, one of which I have chosen
to focus on here: ‘Examining learner vocabulary notebooks’ (McCrostie, 2007). I have
decided to focus solely on this one because the learners’ comments about this article
clearly display the themes that occurred in their responses to all three articles. I asked my
learners to respond to the following prompt:
Please read the ‘Previous research’ section (pp. 246–47) of the ‘Examining learner vocabulary
notebooks’ (McCrostie, 2007) article. Pay special attention to the literature research findings
we highlight in class and compare/contrast the research with your own experiences of
vocabulary learning and vocabulary notebooks.
First, we worked together in class to identify and discuss four of the research findings
that were offered in the literature review section of the article. This was a way of ensur-
ing that everyone understood what each of the findings implied. As the prompt explains,
the learners were then asked to compare/contrast these ‘literature research findings’ with
their own experiences. They did this orally in groups firstly and then in individual written
pieces.
Literature research finding 1: ‘Most researchers and teachers collectively agree that the
recording of new words in vocabulary notebooks of one form or another should be promoted.’
(McCrostie, 2007, p. 246)
The majority of my learners generally agreed with this finding; for example, Mary
declared that ‘the vocabulary notebook is very useful for my English study,’ and Meg
stated, ‘my vocabulary notebook played an important role in expanding my vocabulary.’
Others however were more sceptical and seemed to base their scepticism in their own
language learning experiences. Emily, for instance, commented that her ‘experience of
keeping vocabulary notebooks when [she] was a university graduate did not prove to be
much fruitful.’
One notable point that a few of the learners made, which was not addressed in the
article, was the importance of the practicality of vocabulary notebooks. For instance,
Mary emphasized that her vocabulary notebook ‘was very small and portable’. Again,
this point seemed to be grounded in the learners’ wider lives and experiences; essentially,
some of my students felt that if a vocabulary notebook was too big or heavy, it would
become ‘a burden’ (Meg) for a learner. In turn, if a vocabulary notebook became a bur-
den, it would not be used because of its impact on that learner’s life, regardless of how
beneficial it may be in a pedagogical sense.
Literature research finding 2: ‘experts generally concur with the recommendation that learners
should record information beyond a word and its meaning including information such as
example sentences, antonyms and synonyms, pictures, and pronunciation information.’
(McCrostie, 2007, p. 246)

7. 260 Language Teaching Research 15(2)
Most interestingly here, Emily professed her agreement with literature research find-
ing 2, while at the same time acknowledging that she had never recorded words in such
an elaborate fashion herself. In fact, in complete contrast to what research suggested, she
admitted that she had kept a vocabulary notebook in the past in which she had simply
written ‘long lists of individual English words together with the words’ definitions given
in Chinese’ (Emily). Regardless of this apparent mismatch in the past, as a teacher I felt
that Emily was certainly benefiting from this interaction with language research in the
present; quite simply, when reading the research, she was in effect examining her own
practice. Moreover, I felt that this was true for my whole class. Reading the articles in our
classes was leading my students to substantial amounts of reflection on their own lan-
guage learning practices, and I saw this as a very tangible benefit of having my learners
engage with language research.
Meanwhile, other learners offered alternative ways of recording words in their vocabulary
notebooks and once more they justified their practice with an explanation of how they made
learning fit in with life. For example, Mary chose to record words in her notebook in the easi-
est way possible (‘most of the vocabularies in my notebook are just easily noted down of their
Chinese meanings’; Mary). Similarly, Meg aimed to make her vocabulary notebook ‘simple
and clear’, in stark contrast to what literature research finding 2 was suggesting:
I do not think an English learner should record everything … as some researchers recommended.
A vocabulary notebook should, on the contrary, be simple and clear. I only wrote down the new
word, the Chinese meaning and the pronunciation if it was not regularly pronounced. That is
what I did, and I reckon it really worked! (Meg)
The focus of the final two literature research findings was on the question of how learn-
ers should select the words for a vocabulary notebook.
Literature research finding 3: ‘it is often suggested that learners should choose the words for
their notebooks independently.’ (McCrostie, 2007, p. 247)
Literature research finding 4: ‘Other authors argue for a more prescriptive approach and
maintain that learners should consult frequency lists in conjunction with their personal needs.’
(McCrostie, 2007, p. 247)
Both of the learners who addressed literature research finding 3 (Jeff and Meg) were
of the same opinion as the researchers, agreeing that learners should choose their vocab-
ulary independently. They readily explained that each learner needs to be the sole arbiter
of such a decision because only learners themselves know exactly what they do not yet
know (‘When it comes to the words I record, I choose them by myself. Even though
teachers let me know them, I won’t record them if I already know them’; Jeff), and that,
importantly, this is different for each individual learner (‘I agree that learners should
choose the words for their notebooks independently. A teacher cannot do this for the
students since every [student] is different’; Meg).
Literature research finding 4 raised the ire of Meg in particular. She felt that it would
be a ‘waste of time’ to consult frequency lists before selecting a word for a vocabulary
notebook. Using her own experience once more to dispute the research, Meg gave the

8. Rowland 261
impression that a learner’s decision to note down a word is not always dependent upon how
frequently that word is used in the language. She emphasized that there is room within
vocabulary notebooks – and thus within the learning process itself – for ‘rare words, or
even clichés’. A stronger reading of her comment below would suggest that there must be
room for these things if learning is not to be reduced to a mere mechanical process.
I do not agree with the argument that learners should consult frequency lists when they decide
whether to take down the word or not. That would be a waste of time! … When I took down a
new word, I never considered whether it was frequently used or not. As a matter of fact, some
words I kept in my notebook were rare words, or even clichés. But by and by, I came to grasp
a fairly large vocabulary. (Meg)
V Discussion
This study was concerned with the possible value of discussing language research with
students and the question of whether my class could learn anything from comparing their
experiences with research. Although the project was primarily motivated by its potential
benefit to the actual participants, I believe that the findings may be of value to other
practitioners, especially those interested in the ideas of learner agency, learner perspec-
tives and participatory approaches to research. Accordingly, in this section, I have tried
where possible to link the main themes that came out of the study to current literature.
One important, very recent resource for anyone interested in Exploratory Practice par-
ticularly is Allwright and Hanks’ (2009) book, The developing language learner: An
introduction to exploratory practice, in which I have found some obvious parallels with
ideas that came out of my own EP experience, especially surrounding the ‘five proposi-
tions’ (p. 7) about learners that Allwright and Hanks present.
1 The value of discussing language research with students
a The value of reflection: Overall, my learners’ comments indicated that there certainly
was some value in discussing language research in our lessons together. Although some
of the students were more than satisfied with their own language learning approaches and
were at times dismissive of what research suggested (see, for example, Meg’s comments
throughout), they were all at least challenged by the research articles to consider their
learning behaviours and situations and to state and defend their opinions regarding these.
The abundant data that was generated through our group discussions and in the students’
written pieces is evidence enough that my learners engaged in extensive reflection on
their own learning practices.
Similar to Auerbach & Paxton’s (1997) comments made after their investigation of
bringing reading research into the classroom, I am also convinced that ‘what was most
important … was immersing students in discussion and reflection [of research]’ (p. 257).
By encouraging my students to consider where language learning research intersects
with their own learning experiences, this study helped us all to gain greater perspective
on the wider arena of language learning in which our own daily, localized struggle with
the English language (teaching or learning) takes place.

9. 262 Language Teaching Research 15(2)
b The value of empowerment: The empowerment of my learners was another indicator of
the value of discussing research with students. I use the term ‘empowerment’ here similarly
to Haque (2007), who identifies it as the shifting of ‘individual relations between teacher and
student within the classroom’ (p. 93), and I would further extend this definition to also include
the shifting of relations between researcher and learner. Indeed, my learners’ comparisons of
their own learning experiences with the literature research findings and the distinctions they
drew between the two are testament to the fact that we were together recognizing and explor-
ing our classroom as ‘a site of contestation’ (Pennycook, 2000, p. 102).
To explain further, I believe that during this study my learners began to find a voice
with which to join and to some extent critique the communal discussion on language
learning. What is more, their voices were heard by an audience of their peers and their
teacher in our group discussions, and, further, they were aware that their comments were
to be included in a thesis and possibly other publications, albeit anonymously. In a way,
they were encouraged for once to be the ‘experts’, whose opinions on the subject of
language learning were considered to be as valid as any researcher’s. Through both their
involvement in the research process and through our prioritization of their experiences of
learning, they now became ‘generators of understanding, not just consumers of it’
(Allwright, 2003, p. 119). In line with Allwright and Hanks’ (2009) ‘five propositions’
about learners, I felt that my students were in this instance being recognized by me and
by each other as people ‘capable of taking learning seriously’ (p. 7, proposition 3).
2 Learning from comparing experiences with research
a Developing learners’ personal knowledge: At times my learners had very different ideas
to what was suggested in the articles. Meg’s comments, in particular, were often confron-
tational. For example, she described the advice about consulting word frequency lists
before noting down a word in a vocabulary notebook as a ‘waste of time’ and commented
on another occasion that she would keep her ‘small vocabulary notebook no matter what
the article says about it’. Once more with reference to Allwright and Hanks’ (2009) ‘five
propositions’, when my learners rejected the research and instead proffered their own
ideas about learning, they were exhibiting the characteristics of proposition 4: ‘Learners
are capable of independent decision-making’ (p. 7). Meg’s comments particularly showed
that learners ‘are not going to be always told precisely what to do, when to do it, how to
do it and who to do it with’ (Allwright & Hanks, 2009, p. 6).
Yet, whenever my learners did dispute the research, it is also important to note that they
used their own experiences as support for their position, rather than, for example, explain-
ing that they had read different advice or been instructed by past teachers to do things
differently. I believe this is important because it shows learner recognition of, and even a
sense of pride in, their ‘personal knowledge’ (Snow, 2001, p. 8; see also Wu, 2006).
According to Snow, this is ‘knowledge based in one’s own experience and practice’ (p. 8),
and in her discussion of the nature of knowledge, Snow offers that personal knowledge ‘is
an irreplaceable source of wisdom’ (p. 8). However, she does go on to qualify that per-
sonal knowledge is not enough in and of itself. Just as we did together in this study, Snow
advocates that, for personal development to happen, personal knowledge ‘must be com-
pared to knowledge from other sources, connected with knowledge based in research, and

10. Rowland 263
interwoven with knowledge derived from a theoretical perspective’ (p. 8). By being asked
to state, and, to a certain extent, defend their personal knowledge in relation to ELT litera-
ture research findings, my learners were engaged in a process of development along the
lines of what Snow describes.
b Understanding learners as individuals: Individuality was another key theme to come out
of the data and one which matches precisely with Allwright and Hanks’ (2009) idea that
learners are ‘unique individuals who learn and develop best in their own idiosyncratic
ways’ (p. 7, proposition 1). Furthermore, not only were my learners often contrasting
their language learning experiences with the literature research findings, but while mak-
ing these comparisons they also showed a strong awareness of the role individual experi-
ence plays in distinguishing them from each other. Comments, such as the following
capture this idea perfectly: ‘every learner has his/her special learning skills. So do I. My
way of learning is always the best for me since it suits me the best’ (Meg). We discussed
this during the data analysis stage and the students were unanimous in their demands that
they be seen and treated as individuals. For me, the real question that arose from this,
however, was just how conscious teachers and researchers (myself included) are of the
importance to learners of learner individuality.
For instance, over recent years and with the rise of what has been called the ‘social
turn in the field of Second Language Acquisition’ (Block, 2003, p. 1), teachers and
researchers have become interested in ideas such as whether groups of learners – whole
classes or even schools – are possibly ‘capable of demonstrating inquisitiveness or moti-
vation as an aggregate, not only as a collection of individuals’ (McGroarty, 1998, p. 601).
Yet, from my learners’ perspectives in this study, it would seem that although we may
teach students in classes and mostly research them in groups, perhaps ultimately they
reject being construed as exhibiting meaningful commonalities, as this in a way detracts
from their individual efforts towards language learning. If truth be told, one of my learn-
ers, Anna, even chided me on not sufficiently ‘mentioning the [learners’] individualities’
enough during our IAP classes together.
Admittedly though, this understanding of the learner as an individual does have some
support within recent sociological conceptions of language learning. For instance,
Lantolf and Pavlenko’s (2001) discussion of ‘activity theory’ (p. 143), a contemporary
interpretation of the ‘sociocultural theory of the mind’ (p. 143), highlights the importance
of agency, or the individual’s influence over his/her particular situation, within language
learning. Lantolf and Pavlenko describe activity theory as ‘a theory of real individuals
rather than idealised abstractions’ (p. 143) in which ‘learners have to be seen as more
than processing devices …. they need to be understood as people’ (p. 145). Similarly, in
his critique of the information-processing paradigm of language learning, Block (2003)
notes the overwhelming and unhelpful concern over the years ‘with the aggregate or
average human being’ (p. 97). By juxtaposing in my mind, my learners’ individual expe-
riences of language learning with the supposedly broadly applicable methods and ideas
proposed in the journal articles we read together in class, I got the sense that teachers and
researchers are often perhaps forgetting that we are always (and only ever really) dealing
with individuals and, furthermore, in stark contrast, that this point is constantly forefront
in our learners’ own minds. There was a lesson here for me as a teacher.

11. 264 Language Teaching Research 15(2)
c The intersection of learning and life: Finally, through our discussions and reflections on
language learning and language research, my class began to better appreciate how learning
and life intersect for students. By this I mean that from their emic perspectives (Firth &
Wagner, 1997; also Guba & Lincoln, 2004) on studying English, my learners produced the
idea that ultimately ‘learning has to fit in with life’ and not the other way around. For example,
one of my learners rejected the elaborate method of recording words suggested in literature
research finding 2 as not ‘simple and clear’ (Meg) enough. To me this indicated that if an
approach to learning makes a learner’s life too difficult, it is usually rejected. When I men-
tioned this idea to the students during our data analysis, they readily agreed and we then
went on to identify and discuss other examples of where life considerations took prece-
dence over learning for them. One such example was the importance of the size of vocabu-
lary notebooks, which Mary explained needed to be ‘small and portable’ with Meg
concurring saying that they should be ‘small enough not to make a burden in [her] school-
bag’. In essence, for my students, the value of a vocabulary notebook was considered
directly proportionate to its practicality rather than its intended pedagogical potential.
In sum, we identified that it was not enough for vocabulary notebooks to help learners
improve their language skills. My learners also required that their other basic needs and
desires relating to their everyday lives be respected and satisfied at the same time. McKay and
Wong (1996) frame this interplay of life and work perfectly when they offer that learners’:
specific needs, desires and negotiations are not simply distractions from the proper task of
language learning or accidental deviations from a ‘pure’ or ‘ideal’ language learning situation.
Rather, they must be regarded as constituting the very fabric of students’ lives and as determining
their investment in learning the target language. (p. 603)
VI Limitations of this study
It is clear to me, as I am sure it is to the reader, that this study was neither a perfect example
of traditional institutional research nor a model EP study. It should also be obvious that I
did have an ideal group of student-participants for a study focusing on language education.
After all, four of the six participants were teachers of English in their home countries and
one other was intending to study TESOL as a post-graduate degree after our English course
together. It would be fair to surmise that this led to high levels of interest in the topics of
language learning and language research on their part. In addition to this, my students were
all reasonably high-level English language learners and so were perhaps better able to
understand the language used in journal articles than lower level learners would be. I
acknowledge that this is an accurate assessment of the group and the situation overall.
Yet, although these points may be true, I would not agree that they necessarily limit
the viability of similar teaching/research projects in different contexts. In truth, I chose
to use journal articles as the vehicle to present research findings to these learners pre-
cisely because the group was so well suited to such an approach. In a way, their profes-
sional backgrounds and their intended areas of future study made the use of these articles
the obvious choice. Additionally, learning about the structure, language and style of
journal articles was also clearly related to the objectives of the IAP course and so this
method of sharing language research with the students dovetailed nicely with the IAP

12. Rowland 265
syllabus. Quite simply, I believe that if teachers of lower level learners are interested in
presenting language research to their students the mode of conveying the research might
have to be varied so that comprehension (both conceptual and linguistic) does not pose a
problem. For example, instead of using journal articles, a linguistically simplified list of
research findings could be drawn up and presented to the class for their discussion.
VII Conclusions
Overall, throughout this study my learners related their own learning experiences to litera-
ture research findings in a number of insightful ways, and the value of sharing research
products and processes with my class was generally confirmed. Our research together
certainly revealed a number of valuable themes concerning my learners’ perspectives on
learning English. From their spirited defence of their personal knowledge about language
learning, to their highlighting of ‘life before work’ as an important principle of learning,
my students certainly provided me with some understanding of what was really important
to them. In a way, they took me into their individual learning lives with their comments
and opinions, and I found that although we, teachers and researchers, might feel that we
are closely connected to these lives every day by virtue of our occupational proximity to
learners and learning, it is often the case that, in trying merely to provide broad language
learning strategies to our very individual and life-sensitive learners, we are in fact drifting
further and further away from them. Essentially, to paraphrase Allwright (2003, p. 120), it
seems that our work, as teachers and researchers, needs to become less focused on the most
efficient and effective ways to learn and more focused on those aspects of our students’
lives that promote or constrain learning.
Furthermore, I believe that my learners – who were actually mothers, fathers, wives,
husbands, teachers, university students, and foreigners in a strange new country – also
benefited and learnt from our work together. Having the opportunity to engage with both
the products and processes of research encouraged my learners to evaluate their own
language learning practices and to verbalize and defend their ideas and assumptions
about learning. The significant amount of reflection my learners engaged in when
comparing their experiences with research was also of value to their development as
language learners (for a similar argument, see Allwright & Hanks, 2009). In addition to
this, my learners also valued being recognized as language learning experts in their own
right; in this study their opinions were sought, discussed and respected even where they
differed from what research and outsider experts suggested. Considering all this, for our
five weeks together at least, I genuinely felt that my learners were able to join the com-
munal discussion on language learning and that for a short while they took their rightful
place at the table with teachers and researchers.
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