Why an investigative stance matters in intercultural language teaching learning: an orientation to classroom-based investigation.

Crichton, Jonathan

ABSTRACT

This paper develops the idea that classroom investigation can be an integral part of teaching and learning, an ongoing 'stance' that enables us to gather valuable information about teaching and learning that may otherwise go unnoticed. This information can in turn inform how teachers understand and develop intercultural language teaching and learning.

KEY WORDS

Intercultural language learning, classroom research investigative stance.

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INTRODUCTION

It may be natural to think of classroom investigation as something that can only happen 'in addition' to teaching and learning, something that can only be done after the learning needs of students have been met. Understood in this way, classroom investigations are not only seen as intrusions into teaching and learning in an ,already crowded curriculum, but also as requiring the teacher to take on the additional role of researcher. Moreover, traditional approaches to educational research have been difficult to apply to classroom practice (Hopkins, 2002, P. 35), and when teachers do conduct classroom research, this is often with a view to completing a particular project within an action research paradigm (Burns, 2005). This paper promotes a different view. It seeks to develop the idea that classroom investigation can be an integral part of the teaching process, an ongoing "stance' that enables us to gather valuable information about teaching and learning that may otherwise go unnoticed. This information, it is argued, is in turn crucial in informing how teachers understand and develop intercultural language learning for their students.

THE CLASSROOM AS A SITE OF INVESTIGATION

The emphasis on the value of investigating classroom practice has a history in education that can be traced back at least four hundred years (Hubbard & Power, i999, p. 5) and is supported by the literature on second language acquisition research. In relation to classroom-based research, the argument of scholars such as Allwright (1988), Chandron (1988), and Nunan (1989) that has become part of the vernacular of much language teacher education, is that language teaching needs to be informed in the first instance by an understanding not only of what ought to happen in classrooms, but also by what actually does happen. The force of this only becomes fully apparent when we recognise the implications of three further points: that the lesson is a social event, that teaching and learning are social activities, and that (as in all social interaction) there is no definitive interpretation of what 'it" is that is going on.

Understood in this way, the language classroom is not just a place where language is taught and learnt. Crucially, the classroom is itself 'peopled' (Candlin, 1999) and as such is a dynamic and complex sociolinguistic space in which meanings are variously interpreted by the teacher and students at every point in the lesson. This is not incidental to teaching and learning, but is a fundamental condition of the whole process. As Chandron (1988) has made clear, this variability of interpretation derives not from any inadequacy on the part of the teacher or students but from the fact that the lesson is, quintessentially, a complex social event in which 'no matter what the teacher does, learners derive information about their behaviour from the teacher's reaction, or lack of one, to their behaviour' (p. 133).

In this respect, the interaction between teachers and students, and students with each other is dependent on the perceptions that each individual brings to the constant mutual monitoring that is a condition of all social interaction (Goffman, 1959). As social actors, it is through their selection and use of particular 'methods' (Garfinkel, 1967) of talk, behaviour, and appearances that teachers and students competently enact their roles in the classroom. But to engage in interaction is not only to perform. We must also interpret others' performances - as their audience. To interact competently as audience and performer at the same time, we perform 'reflexively' (Garfinkel, 1967). That is, as an audience we continuously interpret the methods others are using in order to decide what methods we should use as performers, and simultaneously we are interpreted by others so that they can decide what methods they will use, and so on. How participants participate as audience and performers depends on their particular understanding of what 'it' is that is going on (Goffman, 1974, p. 9).

The teacher and students engaged in the teaching-learning process thus form a dynamic social group in which the students' interpretation of the teacher 'will depend on how the [teacher's behaviour] is perceived rather than on what it 'is' or is intended to be ... [and the teacher's] behaviour, in turn will depend on how they perceive the learner or learners they are dealing with' (Allwright, 1988, p. 211). Such perceptions, and the interplay of interpretations and interactions that they inform, generally go unnoticed, remaining tacit and taken for granted, though they constitute the in viva accomplishment that is classroom interaction and contribute substantially to participants' rived experience of language teaching and learning.

This emphasis on teaching and learning as being socially situated creates an imperative for teaching to be informed about what actually goes on in classrooms because, as da Silva (2004, p. 164) argues, we cannot assume 'the importance of the teacher's intentions, while relegating the learners to the role of more or less successful interpreters of those intentions'. Indeed, without such an understanding it is hard to imagine how one should respond to questions concerning what teachers ought to do. Developing this understanding doesn't require a mode of investigation that focuses on teachers, but one that is conducted by teachers themselves in an ongoing way. Such an approach would take as its focus not only the teacher's practices but also the interplay between these and how the teacher and students routinely interpret what is going on in these practices.

In the literature on teacher-initiated, classroom-based research there has been a significant focus on the promotion of research as a means of enhancing teaching practice (see, for example, Burns, 1999, 2005; Freeman, 1998; Nunan, 1989; Osborn, 2000; McKay, 2006; Rossiter, 2001). However, though the value of such research is unarguable, teachers are typically expected to develop a research agenda in addition to their routine teaching practice, an agenda that involves developing an investigation or a more generally focused 'reflection' (Osborn, 2000). This agenda is in turn motivated in response to particular problems or questions and employs research methods and considerations that are not usually associated with teaching practice. Examples include the advocacy of the 'teacher as researcher' (Nunan, 1989) and the promotion of 'action research' as ways of initiating and linking classroom-based investigation and change. In one of the most influential works on teacher-initiated, classroom-based research Nunan (1989, p. 16) promotes such research as a means of addressing 'problems and issues that confront teachers in their daily work' and of leading teachers 'from practice to theory and back to practice again' in a 'professional growth spiral'. More recently, in a review of trends in action research, Burns (2005, p. 58) has explained that a combined interest in research and action defines this approach, in which participants are involved in a process of 'planned interventions where concrete strategies, processes, or activities are developed within the research context'. This is a process of planning in response to and with a view to addressing identified problems that represent a 'gap between the ideal and the reality that people in the social context perceive as in need of change'.

This brings us to the focal point of this paper: such orientations to teacher-initiated, classroom-based research exemplify the view of investigation as additional to what the teacher routinely does as a part of teaching. In contrast to this additive approach, the investigative stance proposed here envisages investigation as a natural part of effective teaching, a stance that acknowledges that the classroom is 'peopled' and foregrounds routine aspects of classroom interaction that are crucial to understanding and facilitating the teaching-learning process.

AN INVESTIGATIVE STANCE IN INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE LEARNING

Teaching necessarily involves being alert to what is going on in the classroom, noticing developments and changes, attending to emergent needs, comparing achievements at one point in time with what has happened before and what might happen after, reflecting on teaching practice and assessment, evaluating activities and plans, developing and drawing on curricula, and the host of other activities that occur in a lesson. These activities do not happen in isolation; they inform each other through the lesson, the day, the week, and over the longer term, acknowledging the perspectives and changing needs of students, teachers, and members of the broader school community.

Taken together, these activities involve noticing, analysing, interpreting, and making sense of the actions of teachers and learners, motivated by an ongoing interest in using information about classroom interactions to develop teaching and learning. It is this orientation that is referred to as an 'investigative stance'. Such a stance is not an add-on to the teaching-learning process but a way of teaching in which teachers are alert to classroom interactions and continuously notice, compare, and reflect on what happens in their classrooms and then apply the information they glean to modify their own practice and their own understanding of the nature of the teaching-learning process. That this stance is a natural extension of routine teaching practice is underscored by Burnaford, Fischer, and Hobson (2001, p. 29):

 Effective teaching is informed by
 personal knowledge, trial and error,
 reflection on practice, and
 conversations with colleagues. To be
 a teacher means to observe students.
 and study classroom interactions; to
 explore a variety of effective ways of
 teaching, and to build conceptual
 frameworks that can guide one's
 work.

In the broadest terms this stance reflects a professional interest in understanding what 'it' is that is going on in the classroom. Importantly, achieving such an understanding involves investigating the perspectives and behaviour of both teachers and students. This process needs to be systematic and accountable and involves

 ... careful listening observing and a
 good idea of where you want to go--
 combined with a focus on what is
 happening right now and a knowledge
 of how it all connects to what
 happened yesterday. Most important
 is the determination, in the midst of
 all this, to remain open to possibility.
 (Hubbard & Power, 1999, p. 35)

At the same time it involves drawing on

 ... the [kinds] of skills and classroom
 activities that already are apart of
 the classroom environment ... nor a
 split personality, but a more complete
 teacher. (Hubbard & Power, 1999, p. 3)

Such a stance invites both teachers and students to develop their understanding of classroom practice in ways that can inform teaching and learning. An investigative stance is not restricted to the teacher in isolation or to students as the focus. It opens the possibility of exchange, interaction, and dialogue among teachers and students, teachers and teachers, and students and students. It invites students and teachers to become aware of the value of investigation and to acknowledge the classroom itself as a site for exploration and discovery.

In intercultural language learning the importance of such a stance comes to the fore for three reasons:

* It facilitates program development and evaluation because developing teaching and learning practice requires an understanding of what the teacher currently does.

* In order to teach, plan, and assess interculturally there is also the need to understand students' perceptions of and interactions with language(s) and culture(s).

* In intercultural language learning teachers and students are primarily and routinely engaged in a constant sense of enquiry in an effort to understand how they perceive others and how others perceive them in the process of interpreting and making meaning--just as they do in communication in everyday life.

The first of these reasons reflects the more general point that any attempt to enhance teaching and learning requires an awareness of what we are changing and how to plan for this. The second and third reasons acknowledge intercultural language learning as an 'orientation' that

* recognises and develops students' capability to integrate in interaction in the target language an understanding of themselves as individuals who are already located in one or more languages and cultures and an understanding of the same in others, i.e. acting simultaneously as performer and audience

* focuses on how such an understanding affects and is affected in interaction with others

* invites students to stand back or decentre from their own linguistic and cultural perspective in order to consider the diverse perspectives of others

* understands that in intercultural interaction the ethical consequences are always heightened

* connects with contemporary curricula and pedagogy that emphasise students' initiative in making sense of their own learning. (Scarino & Crichton, 2008)

Individually and collectively these processes foreground the need to understand learners' perspectives, not in advance or post hoe, but in vivo, thereby acknowledging in an ongoing way that students' understanding of and experience with language(s) and culture(s) constitute the interpretive resources that they bring as language learners and users. In becoming aware of themselves as already located in language(s) and culture(s), in coming to understand the same in others, in discovering how others perceive them, and in acting on this understanding in interactions in the target language, students as well as teachers are engaged in an ongoing investigation of how they interpret and make meaning. It is in this sense that an investigative stance is central to the process and substance of intercultural language learning.

REFERENCES

Allright, R.L. 1988. Observation in the language classroom. London: Longman.

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Burns, A. 1999. Collaborative action research for English language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burns, A. 2005. Action research: an evolving paradigm. Language teaching, 38, 57-74.

Candlin, C.N. 1990. Researching and teaching for a living curriculum: Australia's critical contribution to praxis in language teaching and learning. Proceedings of the AMEP 50th Anniversary Conference, Melbourne (February). Canberra: Australian Government Printer.

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Nunan, D. 1999. Understanding language classrooms: a guide for teacher-initiated action. New York: Prentice Hall.

Scarino, A. & Crichton, J. 2008. Why the intercultural matters to language teaching and learning: an orientation to the ILTLP program. Babel, 43, 1.

da Silva, D.P. 2004 Teachers and learners: investigating the language classroom. In J. Greenfield (Ed.), Ensino das linguas estrangeiras: estrategias politicas e educativas, 163-176. Porto: Facultade de Letras, Universidade do Porto.

McKay, S.L. 2006. Researching second language classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Osborn, T. 2000. Critical reflection and the foreign language classroom. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Jonathan Crichton is a Research Fellow in the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures in the School of International Studies at the University of South Australia. His research focuses on the role of language in interactions that affect people's life chances in health, medical, educational, and legal settings. His e-mail address is jonathan.crichton@unisa.edu.au.