English Language Teaching in its Social Context

56 ROD ELLISmight profitably engage in interpretative research themselves (ibid. : 230 onwards), the bulkof his book is written from the standpoint of the researcher functioning as a gatherer ofknowledge and concerned with truth rather than from the standpoint of the practitionerconcerned with action.Researchers, then, follow agendas that arc set by the requirements of the researchtraditions to which they adhere. They also have their own social agendas. As members ofuniversity departments, researchers are expected to be producers of research and arerewarded according to the quantity and quality of the research they produce.To publish theymust satisfy their peers (i.e. other researchers), who function as reviewers for the journalsin which they seck to be published.Their research must demonstrate that it meets establishedcriteria of reliability and validity (i.e. that it is well designed and that the results warrant theconclusions made). Researchers are not obliged to make their research accessible to teachersor to demonstrate that it is relevant to them. Still less are they required to work with teachersto find ways in which research can be converted into action. Indeed, it may well be that inthe departments where the researchers work practical research receives less recognitionthan pure research.As we have seen, teachers have very different agendas and operate from a differentknowledge base. Whereas researchers are concerned in establishing the truth, teachers areinterested in finding out what works.Tcachcrs select tasks that they believe will contributeto their students’ learning but they are rarely able to investigate whether their predictionsare borne out. They determine the succcss of the tasks in other ways (e.g. by impressionisticallyevaluating whether the task stimulates active participation by the learners).Teachers work from practical knowledge. They use their experience of teaching (andof learning) in classrooms to develop a body of knowledge as habit and custom, as skillknowledge (c.g. how to deal with a student who dominates classroom discussion), ascommon-sense knowledge about practice, as contextual knowledge (i.c. regarding theparticular class they are teaching) and, over time, as a set of beliefs about how learners learnan L2. Polanyi (1958) refers to this kind of knowledge as personal knowledge. As Schon(1 983) has observed, and as we noted earlier, much of this knowledge is only evident in use(i.c. it is revealed in actual teaching but the teacher cannot articulate it) although some of itmay become espoused through reflection (i.c. the teacher can provide an explicit accountof it).Given these differences in goals and in what counts as knowledge, the gap betweenresearch and pedagogy and the gulf between researchers and teachers is not surprising.Zahorik (1 986), cited in Freeman and Richards (1 993), has identified a number of differentways in which teaching can he conceptualized. Scientifically based Conceptions emphasizethe development of models of effective classroom practice based on the results of empiricalresearch. This is the kind of conception we are likely to find in researchers. Alternativeconceptions are values-based (i.e. effective practice is that which takes into account theidentity and individuality of learners) and art--craft (i.e. effective practice is built up graduallythrough experience and reflection). It is these conceptions that we arc more likely to find inteachers. As a consequence, some teachers may feel that research is of little value to them,not just because it is difficult to access (a familiar complaint), but because it does not conformwith their own ideas of what teaching is and, therefore, does not address their concerns.Other teachers, however, may feel that their own Conceptions of teaching lack value andstatus in comparison to the scientifically-based Conceptions ofrcscarchcrs. As Bolitho (1 991 :25) notes, ‘teachers often take up extreme positions, often deferring blindly to theory orrejecting it out of hand as irrelevant to classroom issues’. In either case, the outcome isunsatisfactory’.