Resumen de The challenges of researching language teachers: What research manuals don’t tell us
Valerie Hobbs, Magdalena Kubanyiova
Researching language teachers requires intensive involvement of both the researcher and the researched. Yet, the available methodological literature in the field often paints a blurred picture of the nature of such involvement and provides little advice on dealing with challenges inherent in this type of research. Our doctoral research projects aimed at exploring the impact of two different types of training courses on language teachers’ beliefs and practices in two markedly different contexts: preservice native-speaking ESL teachers in England and in-service non-native-speaking EFL teachers in Slovakia. And while almost all of the specific parameters of the two projects differed, the actual difficulties we experienced were strikingly similar. This paper therefore aims to extend the existing discussion of the problematics of conducting classroom-based research in the field of applied linguistics (e.g. Pica, 2005; Rossiter, 2001; Schachter & Gass, 1996; Spada, 2005) by discussing specific challenges of engaging busy language teachers in one’s research, sustaining their commitment throughout the project and handling the physical and emotional strain of the researcher. By offering a set of solutions for each of these issues we hope to enable and encourage potential language teacher education researchers to embark on this demanding but immensely rewarding endeavour.
