DICK ALLWRIGHT is now retired from teaching applied linguistics at Lancaster University, UK. Once an enthusiast for observational classroom research, he has in recent years developed Exploratory Practice, a form of practitioner research involving teachers and learners working together, during language lessons, to explore and develop their own understandings of their classroom lives. He is the author of Observation in the Language Classroom, and (with Kathleen M. Bailey) Focus on the Language Classroom: An Introduction to Classroom Research for Language Teachers.
JUDITH HANKS has been a teacher, teacher trainer, course director, director of studies, and a learner of languages for many years. She has worked in Italy, Singapore, London, Lancaster and is currently Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK. A founder member of the EPCentre Team, she has given a number of workshops, talks and presentations on Exploratory Practice and is particularly interested in Teacher Development and in Learner (under-) Performance.
 
 

General Editors' Preface Acknowledgements General Introduction: Learners and What We Think of Them PART I: THE DEVELOPING VIEW OF THE LEARNER Introduction to Part I Assessment and the Learner Method and the Learner Teacher Training and the Learner Learner Variables and the Learner Second Language Acquisition Studies and the Learner PART II: RESEARCH MODELS: WHAT WE HAVE AND WHAT WE NEED What the Past Has Provided Going Beyond Experiments: Descriptive Classroom Research The Research We Now Need: Principled and Inclusive Practitioner Research PART III: INCLUSIVE PRACTITIONER RESEARCH IN PRACTICE Introduction to Part III Getting Started Conducting Investigations The 'Web of Life' of the Rio de Janeiro Exploratory Practice Group Sharing Developing Understandings Beyond the Classroom PART IV: SOURCES AND RESOURCES FOR INCLUSIVE PRACTITIONER RESEARCH Postscript References Index

This book-length treatment of Exploratory Practice introduces five propositions about learners as practitioners of learning who are capable of developing their expertise through conducting research in and on their own classroom learning lives.