Original article published in:

Investigación en el aula en L1 y L2: Estudios, experiencias y reflexiones. Melba Libia

Cárdenas (Ed). Biblioteca abierta, Colección general Lenguas Extranjeras, Universidad
Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas
Extranjeras, pp. 131-145, 2009.

Revised version created by author on June 18, 2009.

A PATHWAY TO TEACHER AND LEARNER AUTONOMY: A STUDY ON

SOCIOAFFECTIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES

SUMMARY

The growing popularity of learning English as a foreign language generates a

substantial degree of sociocultural pressure for adults to learn or improve their language
skills. However, there are indications that many EFL learners do not seem to either have
appropriate beliefs, attitudes, anxieties, and motivations or make a good use of proper
language learning strategies. EFL teachers in general and Colombian EFL teachers in
particular should address these issues by engaging in critical reflections to provide their
students with appropriate activities to face up to the emotional difficulties of social
interaction and language learning, but more importantly, to open their own work to
inspection and to construct valid accounts of their educational practices. Action research
(AR) and reflective teacher-learning on socioaffective language learning strategies
appear to be powerful means for developing both teacher autonomy and learner
autonomy. Teacher autonomy is developed because new methodological and
pedagogical opportunities are opened up for teachers to develop an appropriate
expertise of their own. Learner autonomy is also developed because students can
become aware of and identify their strategies, needs and goals as learners in order to
reconsider and refashion approaches and procedures for optimal language learning. A
particular action research study examined these issues by focusing explicitly on
affective factors and socioaffective language learning strategies among learners in a
monolingual EFL classroom at the Centro Colombo Americano in Bogota, Colombia.
The results of the study suggested that explicit strategy instruction in socioaffective

1
language learning strategies is helpful in heightening learner awareness of the
importance of paying attention to their own feelings and social relationships as part of
their learning process. The results also showed that when teachers reflect on their
practical pedagogical know-how, it becomes rich personal pedagogical knowledge.

KEY WORDS

EFL, language learning strategies (LLS), socioaffective factors, critical reflection,

practice-as-inquiry, living educational theories, reflective practice, action research (AR),
teacher autonomy and learner autonomy.

INTRODUCTION

In the current economic climate of our countries and the growing integration of
the modern world, here appears to be a considerable degree of sociocultural pressure for
adult learners become proficient at English. However, EFL students seem to be unaware
of the impact that certain socioaffective and personal factors play in their success in
learning and speaking a foreign language (Rubin & Thompson, 1994). Most of them
tend to have poor or limited language learning strategies (LLS) such as literal
translation, rote memorization, inadequate note-taking, etc. (Griffiths, 2003).
Specifically, Colombian EFL students seem to lack the basic skills to start and maintain
their language learning process successfully. Many students, for instance, do not display
awareness of how to use a dictionary, knowledge about how to store basic vocabulary,
familiarity with the use of classroom instructions, etc. (Fandiño, 2007). Noticeably, EFL
students in general, and Colombian EFL students in particular, are not accustomed to
paying attention to their own feelings and relationships in class or taking note of their
use of language learning strategies.

The inadequate familiarity with LLS and the negligible awareness of

socioaffective and personal factors that EFL students have are issues that EFL teachers
need to address in order to aid their students successfully in mastering English; a tool
that can assist them in satisfying certain personal, social, professional and cultural

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needs, wants, and goals. With this aim in view, EFL teachers should ponder on the
impact of socioaffective factors and the importance of language learning strategies in
students’ learning process. If EFL teachers want their students to develop their inherent
potential to learn, socioaffective factors such as anxiety, motivation, self-esteem, beliefs
and attitudes can no longer be denied, the inner needs of the learners can no longer be
neglected (Andres, 2002). Similarly, teachers can enhance the language learning process
by making students aware of LLS, helping students understand good LLS, training them
to develop them and, ultimately, encouraging their use (Graham, 1997). Definitely,
socioaffective factors and LLS are issues that EFL teachers need to reflect on, not
simply to improve language teaching and education in the process, but also in order to
help students live more satisfying lives and be responsible members of society.

EFL teachers need to reflect on how to provide their students with appropriate
activities, materials and principles to face up to the emotional and sociocultural
demands of language learning. However, teachers’ efforts must go beyond merely
achieving instructional aims. Instead, teachers must strive to observe, question and
understand the teaching settings in which they work and the teaching practices they
follow. In other words, teachers’ reflections should be directed at bringing to light the
implicit rationale behind what, why, and how things are done in class and at examining
the beliefs and values that form or shape actions in class. This way, teachers can not
only focus on the learner as an individual with affective needs and reactions that must
be considered as an integral part of their language learning, but also open their own
work to critical inspection and construct valid accounts of their educational language
practices (Finch, 2000).

CRITICAL REFLECTION

In the last 30 years, several authors have assumed that teachers are researchers
who should permanently submit their daily practice to rigorous self-examination to
overcome their repetitive routine by continuously reflecting on and transforming their
practices (See Stenhouse, 1993; Elliot, 1994; McKernan, 1996; Kemmis, 1998, etc).
Educational research should aim to explain what actually happens inside the classroom,

3
the direct and indirect influence of internal and external factors related to the student,
the teacher and the ELT curriculum (Van Lier, 1998). At the heart of teachers’
educational research, there should be a focus on critically inquiring their own practice.
In other words, teachers should use educational research to think about their own
contexts, to analyze their judgments and interpretations and to distance themselves to
make the basis of their work open to inspection.

One way to critically open teachers’ work to inspection is what Donald Schön
called practice-as-inquiry. This inquiry occurs when the practitioner reflects both while
engaged in action and subsequently on the action itself as an attempt to make his or her
own understanding problematic to him or herself. The teacher-researcher strives to test
his or her constructions of the situation by bringing to the surface, juxtaposing, and
discriminating alternate accounts of reality. The point is to see the taken-for-granted
with new eyes to be able to come out of this experience with an expanded appreciation
of the complexity of learning, of teaching, and a stronger sense of how external realities
affect what the teacher-researcher can (want to) really do (Schön, 1983, 1987).

Another proponent of practice-as-inquiry is Jack Whitehead (1988). He regarded

it as a way to construct a living educational theory from practitioner's questions of the
kind: How do I improve my practice? Valid accounts of a teacher’s educational
development, explained Whitehead, should be accepted when teachers ask themselves
how to improve their practices, undertake to improve some aspect of their practice,
reflect systematically on such a process and provide insights into the nature of their
descriptions and explanations. With this standpoint, Whitehead did not deny the
importance of propositional forms of understanding. Instead, he argued for a
reconstruction of educational theory into a living form of question and answer which
includes propositional contributions from the traditional disciplines of education.

In a similar vein, Bernando Restrepo Gómez (2000) explained that teachers, in

fact, do research when they submit their daily practice to rigorous self-examination to
face and transform their everyday practices in ways that respond adequately to their
working environment, the needs of their students and their sociocultural agenda. To

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him, teachers as educational practitioners can use retrospection, introspection and
participant observation to clarify guiding theories and to specify pedagogical
interventions in order to re-signify and transform unsuccessful practices. He argued that,
if done systematically and consistently, the empirical doing of teachers can become a
reflective doing, a reflective practice. This “pedagogical know-how” can allow teachers
both to overcome their repetitive routine and to objectify their practices, which can
ultimately help them reflect on and transform their practices simultaneously.

ACTION RESEARCH

As stated before, EFL teachers should not simply aim at doing research to create
new or improved activities, practices and principles; they should do research to bring to
light their rationale behind those activities, practices and principles. In particular,
research should allow EFL teachers to engage in critical reflection about their set of
beliefs or expectations about what language learning is, how a foreign language is
learned and why certain practices or activities are acceptable or not in a foreign
language classroom. Evidently, the integration between teaching, researching and
learning requires a type of research that proffers reflection and self-examination to
teachers. This integration also requires a type of research in which teachers can search
for solutions to everyday, real problems experienced in classrooms, or look for ways to
improve instruction and increase student achievement (Finch, 2005). Based on these
requirements, EFL studies can and should use action research (AR) to provide for a type
of research in which teaching, learning, reflection and self-actualization can take place
in the classroom. Rightly, Martin Parrot (1996, cited in Madrid, 2000) defined AR as:

…not so much something that we do in addition to our teaching as something

that we integrate into it. In many ways it is a state of mind – it is skepticism
about assumptions and a willingness to put everything to the test… It is a way of
ensuring that we continue to learn even as we teach. It helps stave off staleness
and routine.

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 In AR, a variety of procedural plans have been evolved by different scholars. All
adopt methodical and iterative sequences of research. These sequences are meant to
offer a systematic approach to introducing innovations in teaching and learning. They
seek to do this by putting the teacher in the role of producer of educational theory and
user of this theory. The process of researching in AR brings theory and practice
together. According to Daniel Madrid (2000, p. 22), there are four classic
developmental phases of AR:
• Phase 1: Develop a plan of action to a) improve what is already happening or b)
identify and examine a "puzzle" or problem area in your teaching;
• Phase 2: Act to implement the plan;
• Phase 3: Observe the effects of action in the context in which it occurs, and
• Phase 4: Reflect on these effects.
These basic phases can be seen in the following diagram:

Develop a
Plan of Action

Reflect Act

Observe
Effects

Figure 1. Basic Stages of Action Research (Madrid, 2000, p. 22)

Based on the previous theoretical considerations, AR can be regarded as a

reflective activity dealing with issues arising from the formative quality of the curricular
experiences of the students and about the pedagogical conditions that make them
possible. In this endeavor, teachers can be learners interested in studying the curricular
and pedagogical considerations surrounding their practices and, at the same time,
researchers who regard their practices as provisional and unsatisfactory and who use
research to achieve changes that are educational worthy. Thus, AR can be the basis for
teachers’ personal and professional development and autonomy.

TEACHER AUTONOMY

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 Apart from systematization, documentation, understanding and knowledge, AR
provides teachers with autonomy. Here, I am in agreement with Richard C. Smith
(2000) on understanding autonomy not just as a generalized “right to freedom from
control” (Benson, 2000) or as “a teachers’ capacity to engage in self-directed teaching
(Little, 1995), but as a capacity for self-directed teacher-learning. Smith explained that
the idea that education should embrace teacher autonomy is not at heart a new
proposition – advocates of teacher development, teacher-research, classroom-research
and so on would appear to share this goal implicitly. To him, what might be a relatively
new idea is the emphasis on the development of autonomy through reflective teacher-
learning (2000, p. 95). This autonomy can be understood as a critical reflection that
teachers do on when, where, how and from what sources they (should) learn. This type
of autonomy mainly takes place when teachers monitor the extent to which they
constrain or scaffold students’ thinking and behavior, when they reflect on their own
role in the classroom, when they attempt to understand and advise students, and,
ultimately, when they engage in investigative activities.

Actual engagement in and concern with reflective teacher-learning appear, then,

to be a powerful means for developing teacher autonomy; particularly, when it is
explicitly linked to action research. Reflective teacher-learning and AR are essential for
teachers to construct autonomy. This autonomy takes place when teachers gain better
abilities and a greater willingness to learn for themselves. It emerges when teachers
develop an appropriate expertise of their own. The point I am trying to make here is that
teachers become autonomous when they use AR and reflective teacher-learning as a
methodology to develop a capacity to open their own work to inspection, to construct
valid accounts of their educational development and, ultimately, to foster learner
autonomy.

LEARNER AUTONOMY

As Little (1991, p. 4) explained, cast in a new perspective and regarded as

understanding the purpose of their learning programme, explicitly accepting

7
responsibility for their learning, sharing in the setting of learning goals, taking
initiatives in planning and executing learning activities, and regularly reviewing their
learning and evaluating its effectiveness, learners, autonomous learners, that is, are
expected to critically reflect on and take charge of their own learning. To Little, the
autonomous learner takes a (pro-) active role in the learning process, generating ideas
and availing himself of learning opportunities, rather than simply reacting to various
stimuli of the teacher. In other words, the autonomous learner is a self-activated maker
of meaning, an active agent in his own learning process. He is not one to whom things
merely happen; he is the one who, by his own volition, causes things to happen
(Rathbone, 1971, p. 100 cited in Candy, 1991, p. 271).

However, learner autonomy does not mean that the teacher becomes redundant
abdicating his/her control over what is transpiring in the language learning process.
Instead, learner autonomy involves a dynamic process learned at least partly through
educational experiences and interventions (Candy, 1991, cited in Thanasoulas, 2000, p.
115). What permeates this article is the belief that in order to help learners to assume
greater control over their own learning, it is important that teachers help them to
become aware of and identify the strategies that they already use or could potentially
use. In other words, autonomous learning is by no means teacherless learning. As
Sheerin (1997, cited in Benson & Voller, 1997, p. 63.) succinctly put it, “…Teachers--
have a crucial role to play in launching learners into self-access and in lending them a
regular helping hand to stay afloat”. Thus, the teacher's role is to create and maintain a
learning environment in which learners can be autonomous in order to become more
autonomous.

Learner autonomy can, then, be promoted through AR studies on language

learning strategies because, as Dimitrios Thanasoulas (2000) explained, learner
autonomy mainly consists in becoming aware of and identifying one's strategies, needs
and goals as a learner and having the opportunity to reconsider and refashion
approaches and procedures for optimal learning. AR studies on language learning
strategies can do just that. They can help students become aware of and familiar with
thoughts, behaviors, mental steps or operations to comprehend or retain new

8
information, to learn a new language and to regulate their efforts to do so. They can also
encourage them to assume greater responsibility for their own language learning and
help them assume control over their own learning process. AR studies on language
learning strategies can launch students into generating new or improved behaviors and
ideas in their learning process and into availing themselves of learning opportunities,
which ultimately brings about their own autonomy.

ACTION RESEARH ON SOCIOAFFECTIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING

STRATEGIES

A particular action research study examined critical reflection, teacher autonomy

and learner autonomy by focusing explicitly on affective factors and socioaffective
language learning strategies among learners in a monolingual EFL classroom at the
Centro Colombo Americano in Bogota, Colombia. The overall purpose of this action
research was to explicitly teach affective factors and socioaffective language learning
strategies in order to make them more accessible and usable for beginner EFL students
(See appendix B). Seventeen beginner EFL students participated in this action research
study. An initial semi-structured questionnaire and a rating scale gave first data on
factors and strategies that needed to be addressed. Observation and teaching logs
provided information about how affective-based instruction was conducted and how
students responded to it. A post-questionnaire was used to determine the effectiveness
and usefulness of this type of instruction.

This action research aimed at contributing theoretical findings and pedagogical

suggestions to the investigation of socioaffective matters in the ESL/EFL field. It did it
by first identifying and describing the beliefs, attitudes, anxieties and motivations of a
group of beginner students in a three-month course. Afterwards, it analyzed what
affective factors seemed to play a greater role in the language learning process of this
group of beginner students. Subsequently, it implemented strategy-based instruction on
socioaffective language learning strategies through affect-related activities. Then, it
assessed the usefulness of affect-based instruction. On the whole, this study sought to

9
promote a critical consciousness, which exhibited itself in new educational as well as
practical actions for beginner foreign language teachers, students and classrooms.

This study adopted Anne Burns’ (1999, p. 35) model of action research because
it allows for practical, but critical classroom enquiry and self-reflection which provide a
sound source for pedagogical planning and action (See appendix C). It also enables EFL
teachers to easily frame the local decisions of the classroom within broader educational,
institutional, and theoretical considerations. This study also followed and adopted
Whitehead’s (1993) set of reflective questions to help the teacher-researcher to be as
critical and reflective as possible because, as McNiff (2002) claimed, these questions
also entail a methodology of action research in which one wants to assess and reflect
about what one is doing (See appendix D). In doing this type of reflective research, one
is not only giving an account of oneself, but also one is showing that one can justify
what one is doing with good reason.

The results of the study suggested that explicit strategy instruction in

socioaffective language learning strategies is helpful in heightening learner awareness
of the importance of paying attention to their own feelings and social relationships as
part of their learning process. This increased awareness about the socioaffective
dimension of foreign language learning seemed to ultimately improve the frequency and
the quality of students’ participation and interaction in class. The results also showed
that when teachers reflect on their practical pedagogical know-how, it becomes rich
personal pedagogical knowledge.

I believe that action research studies on language learning strategies and

affective factors make it possible for EFL students to become agents in their own
learning process. Such studies can lead them to see that language learning is mainly the
result of their own self-initiated interaction with their teachers, their classmates, their
materials and their own personal, social, affective and cultural attributes. On the other
hand, this type of studies can allow EFL teachers to critically and systematically analyze
their students, identify potential problems, modify their teaching practices, and evaluate
the results. EFL teachers can even face and transform their daily practices in ways

10
which let them respond adequately to their students’ needs and sociocultural agendas. In
the end, action research studies on language learning strategies can help EFL teachers
and students realize that they can and should be active, reflective and autonomous
agents of their language teaching and learning processes.

CONCLUSION

Colombian EFL teachers should address issues of socioaffective factors and

language learning strategies by engaging in critical reflections. Not only can these
critical reflections provide their students with appropriate activities to face up to the
emotional difficulties of social interaction and language learning, but also they can open
their own work to systematic inspection and construct valid accounts of their
educational practices. Critical reflections in general and AR in particular appear to be
powerful means for developing both teacher autonomy and learner autonomy. On the
one hand, teacher autonomy is developed because new methodological and pedagogical
opportunities are opened up for teachers to develop an appropriate expertise of their
own. On the other hand, learner autonomy is developed because students can become
aware of and identify their strategies, needs and goals as learners in order to reconsider
and refashion approaches and procedures for optimal language learning. In the end, AR
certainly helps to bring out to the open the fact that teachers and students’ actions are
based on implicitly held assumptions allowing them to make explicit the justifications
for their actions and to question the bases of those justifications. The ensuing practical
applications that follow are, then, subjected to further analysis in a transformative cycle
that continuously promotes changes in the daily practices, activities and materials of the
EFL classrooms.

REFERENCES

Andres, V. (2002, March). The Influence of affective variables on EFL/ESL learning

and teaching. In The journal of the imagination in language learning and teaching. Vol.
7. Retrieved August 20, 2006 from http://www.njcu.edu/CILL/vol7/andres.html

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Benson, P. (2000). Autonomy as a learners and teacher’s right. In Sinclair, B., McGrath,
I. and Lamb, T (Eds.), Learner autonomy, teacher autonomy: New directions (pp. 111-
117). London: Addison Wesley Longman.

Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for English language teachers.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge university press.

Candy, P. (1991). Self-direction for Lifelong Learning. California: Jossey-Bass.

Fandiño, Y. J. (2007). The explicit teaching of socioaffective language learning

strategies to beginner EFL students at the Centro Colombo Americano: An action
research study. Bogota, 298 p. Master’s thesis. Division of advanced education,
University of La Salle, Colombia.

Finch, A. E. (2000). A Formative Evaluation of a Task-based EFL Programme for

Korean University Students. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Manchester University, U.K.
Retrieved August 10, 2006 from http://www.finchpark.com/afe/affect.htm

________. (2005). Action Research: Empowering the Teachers. Pleiades: Journal of

Teaching Young Learners of English, 1(1), 30-48. Retrieved August 4, 2006 from
http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/articles/index.pl?read=950

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Griffiths, C. (2004, February). Language learning strategies: Theory and research. In

School of foundations studies, Occasional paper, No. 1. AIS St Helens, Auckland: New
Zealand. Retrieved August 20, 2006 from
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Little, D. (1991). Learner Autonomy 1: Definitions, Issues and Problems. Dublin:

Authentik.

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________. (1995). Learning as dialogue: The dependence of learner autonomy on
teacher autonomy. In System, 23 (2), 175-181.

Madrid, D. (2000). Observation and research in the classroom. In Teaching English as a

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McNiff, J. (2002). Action research for professional development: Concise advice for
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Parrot, M. (1996). Tasks for language teachers: A resource book for training and
development. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rathbone, C. H. (1971). Open Education: The Informal Classroom. New York: Citation
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Restrepo, B. (2000). Maestro investigador, Escuela investigadora e Investigación. In

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Rubin, J., and Thompson, I. (1994). How to be a more successful language learner (2nd
ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Sheerin, S. (1997). An Exploration of the Relationship between Self-access and

Independent Learning. In Benson, P. and Voller, P. (Eds.), Autonomy and Independence
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Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New
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________. Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Presentation to the 1987 meeting of

the American Educational Research Association, Washington, D.C.

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Smith, R. (2003). Teacher education for teacher-learner autonomy. In Gollin, J., G.
Ferguson and H. Trappes-Lomax (eds), Sysposium for Language Teacehr Educators:
Papers from Three IALS Symposia (CD-ROM). Edinburgh: IALS, University of
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http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~elsdr/Teacher_autonomy.pdf

Thanasoulas, D. (2000, November). What is learner autonomy and how it can be

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http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html

Van Lier, L. (1988). The classroom and the language learner. Ethnography and second
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________. (1993). The growth of educational knowledge: Creating your own living
educational theories. Hyde: Bournemouth.

Appendix A
Affective Factors and Socioaffective Language Learning Strategies (Yamith Fandiño,
2007)

AFFECTIVE FACTORS SOCIOAFFECTIVE LANGUAGE

LERANING STRATEGIES
Beliefs The constructed Affective language learning strategies
assumptions, opinions,
conceptions and Lowering one’s anxiety: Using
expectations that EFL progressive relaxation, deep breathing or
learners have about meditation; using music, and using
themselves as learners, the laughter.
language, their classroom Encouraging oneself (self-reinforcement):
and the learning process.

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Attitudes The evaluative and Providing personal motivation by
socioaffective reactions, arranging rewards for oneself, making
thoughts and positive statements and taking risks
predispositions that EFL wisely.
students have toward Taking one’s emotional temperature:
language learners, English Listening to your body; using a checklist;
and its culture, the learning writing a language learning diary;
situation itself, and the discussing your feelings with someone
value of the learning else.
process.
Self-talk: Mental techniques that make
one feel competent to do a learning task
Anxiety A subjective state of Social language learning strategies
apprehension, nervousness,
and worry associated with Asking questions: Asking for explanation,
an arousal of the autonomic verification, rephrasing, or examples
nervous system which about the material; asking for clarification
occurs at the learner, or verification about the task; posing
language, classroom and questions to the self.
learning level when a
Cooperating with peers (others): Working
student is expected to
together with peers to solve a problem,
perform in a foreign
language. pool information, checking a learning
task, modeling a language activity, getting
Motivation The desire, the interest, the feedback on oral or written performance,
satisfaction, the persistence cooperating with proficiency users of the
and the effort that learners new language.
have to achieve tasks or Social-mediating activities (Exposing
reach goals satisfactorily at oneself to social activities in TL) and
the learner, language, transacting with others: Active
classroom and learning participation in learning tasks, start and
levels. maintain conversations (show interest, use
follow-up questions, make comments,
etc).
Empathizing with others: Developing
cultural understanding and becoming
aware of others thoughts and feelings.

Appendix B
Anne Burns’ Model of Action Research (1999, p. 35)

Exploring This is a very open and uncertain phase where teachers “feel their
way” into the research questions. It involves identifying and
agreeing upon a general idea or issue of interest.
Identifying This involves a “fact finding” process which enables the
researchers to refine their ideas about the general focus area and to
prepare for more systematic investigation. At this stage, a short

15
 period is spent recording and documenting observations.
Planning This phase involves developing a viable plan of action for
gathering data, and considering and selecting a range of
appropriate research methods. The plan is aimed at trialing a
particular course of action and collecting data on the outcomes of
this action.
Collecting data During this period, the procedures selected for collecting data are
developed and put into action. These might not be the only data
gathering events, but this period begins the process of going more
deeply into the issue being researched.
Analysing / This phase is considered as a combination of both analysis and
reflecting reflection. At this stage, the data are analysed using a systematic
process of analysis and interpretation according to agreed criteria.
Hypothesising / In this phase, teachers may be in a position to draw out hypothesis
speculating or predictions about what is likely to occur. These hypotheses are
based on the data that have been collected to this point, on their
analysis and on the reflections that have arisen from the analysis.
Intervening This phase involves changing classroom approaches or practices in
response to the hypotheses one has made. It may involve some
further deliberate experimenting with different or non-usual
teaching methods or testing out developing hunches or predictions
by moral means.
Observing This phase involves observing the outcomes of the intervention and
reflecting on its effectiveness. This involves a new set of teaching
strategies and activities and a recycling back into a period of
further data collection.
Reporting This phase involves articulating the activities, data collection and
results that have come out of the research process. Verbalising
these activities through discussion results in “problematising” the
analyses and observations by extending and critiquing them with
other members of the community.
Writing and This is a “summative” phase where the research questions, the
presenting strategies developed, the process of the research, and the analyses
and results observed are drawn together by writing up an account
in a report or article. This phase also aims at ensuring that the
research is presented to a wider audience.

Appendix C
Jack Whitehead’s Set of Reflective Questions (1993)

• What issue am I interested in researching? Ask yourself: What is especially high

in my mind at the moment? You should be practical and ask: Can I influence the
situation, or is it outside my scope?
• Why do I want to research this issue? You need to be reasonably clear why you
want to get involved. The reasons for our actions are often rooted in our values
base, that is, the things we believe in and that drive our lives.

16
• What kind of evidence can I gather to show why I am interested in this issue?
You need to gather data about the situation, and you can use a variety of methods
for this – journals, diaries, notes, audio and videotape recordings, surveys, attitude
scales, pictures, etc.
• What can I do? What will I do? You need to imagine ways in which you might
begin taking action. You might want at this stage to consult your critical friend or
validation group about how you could move forward. You need to consider your
options carefully and decide what you can reasonably expect to achieve, given the
time, energy and other resources you have.
• What kind of evidence can I gather to show that I am having an influence?
This is your second set of data, which will also turn into evidence by meeting your
nominated criteria. You can use the same, or different, data-gathering methods that
you used before. You should try to show, through this set of data, whether there is
an improvement in the situation, even though that improvement might be very
small.
• How can I explain that influence? You are aiming to show a development of
influence, an unfolding of new understandings and actions from people working
together in new ways, and their influence on one another, that is, how they learn
with and from one another. To gauge your impact on them, you need to get their
reactions or perceptions about their relationship with you.
• How can I ensure that any judgments I might make are reasonably fair and
accurate? If you say, “I think that such and such happened”, you can expect
someone to say, “Prove it.” The answer is that you can’t. You can’t prove anything.
You can, however, produce reasonable evidence to suggest that what you feel
happened really did happen, and you are not just making it up. You need that other
people consider your claim and agree that you have good reason for making your
claim.
• How will I change my practice in the light of my evaluation? You will probably
carry on working in this new way because it seems to be better than the way you
were working before. This does not mean closure. Each ending carries its own
potentials for new creative forms.

Author
Yamith José Fandiño holds a BA in philology and languages from the National
University of Colombia and an MA in teaching from La Salle University. He has
worked at different EFL institutes and has attended and participated in different
symposia and conferences. His research interests range from learner empowerment to
educational research. Currently, he is working at La Salle and Distrital universities in
Bogotá, Colombia.

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