摘要：Currently there is considerable interest in action research (AR) in the language teaching field. The December 1999 issue of The Language Teacher, for example, was devoted entirely to this subject. Action research is now frequently promoted as a new way for teachers to develop professionally and to investigate their classroom practice. But, despite the growth of new publications now discussing action research, would-be teacher researchers are not always necessarily clear about what action research is, or how it relates to other kinds of applied research in the second language teaching field with which they may already be familiar.
