English Language Teaching in its Social Context

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 59The third type of action research is critical action research - research that is not onlydirected at improving practice but at emancipating those that participate in it. It is this kindthat most closely reflects Lewin’s original formulation. Crookes considers it more progressive.Teachersare required not only to understand local problems and identify solutions butto examine the underlying social causes of problems and what needs to be done about them.Teachers need to become aware that their capacities for reflection (an essential part of theaction research cycle) are influenced by social factors. They need to recognize that theirunderstandings of classrooms may be distorted.The mechanism for achieving this is discoursein the sense intended by Habermas (1 979) - free communication among participants whoshare equal discourse rights. In critical action research teachers need to take responsibilityfor carrying out research and for discoursing on it. The presence of an outside researcher,while not outlawed, is seen as dangerous because it is likely to undermine the social symmetryneeded to ensure collaborative discourse.Action research, then, bridges the gulfbetween the researcher and the teacher. Crookes(1 993) suggests that it overcomes the limitations of traditional research by ensuring that itsresults are relevant to the needs of teachers; by encouraging and supporting teacher reflectionand through this professional development; by encouraging teachers to engage in other hndsof research and use the results of such research; and, in the case of critical action research,by prompting teachers to address the unquestioned values embodied in educationalinstitutions. According to Carr and Kemmis (1986) action research providcs a basis fordeveloping truly educational theories through theorizing about practice.Action research is not without its critics, however. Hopkins (1 985) argues that the actionresearch practised in education has departed from Lewin’s original concept of externallyinitiated intervention for assisting a client system. He also suggests that the models of actionresearch such as that shown in Figure 3.1 may strait-jacket teachers making them reluctantto engage in independent action. These criticisms, however, do not seem to be especiallydamaging as there is no reason why educationalists should adhere to Lewin’s initial conceptionof action research nor is there any reason why teachers should not depart from the proposedcycle whenever they feel the nccd to do so. More serious are criticisms concerning theimpracticality of asking teachers to engage in research and the quality of the research theyproduce.Teachers do not always find it easy to undertake research. Nunan (1990), drawing onhis experience of working with teachers in Australia, lists a number of difficulties theyexperienced. Because the teachers were not used to observing each other teach, they foundcollaboration difficult.They tended towards excessive self-criticism when they first engagedin analysing their own classrooms.Their proposals tended to be rather grand and unmanageablein nature because they did not find it easy to identify specific research questions, aproblem often commented on in the literature (see, for examplc, Hopkins 1985, McDonoughand McDonough 1990). It proved extremely time-consuming to design properly formulatedprojects.The teachers were unclear as to how the research should be reported because theywere uncertain who their audience was. Finally, there was a host of problems to do with therange and scope of the research. Over time, of course, such problems can be overcome asteachers accumulate experience of how to do research, but initially the task they face canappear daunting.Another objection to action research concerns doubts about the quality of researchcarried out by teachers. Brumfit and Mitchell (1 990a: 9) argue that ‘there is no goodargument for action research producing less care and rigour (than other modes of research)unless it is less concerned with clear understanding, which it is not’. Implicit in this statementis a belief that many teachers will not be able to acheve the standards professional researchers