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RESEARCH PROPOSAL: Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan

Preprint · December 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13226.64967

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Rida Irfan
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 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 1

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan

Rida Irfan
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 2

Abstract

To propose this research my main aim is to see the Action Research process in Pakistani

classrooms. It will also point out the English language teaching and learning difficulties in

Pakistan and the ways that how Action Research provides solutions for such language needs in

our classrooms. Moreover this research will also analyze hurdles and problems of action research

in Pakistani language classrooms and will provide solutions in this respect.

Key words: Action Research, ELT, Classroom, Pakistan.

 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 3

1. Introduction

Action research is known by many other names, including participatory research,

collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning, and contextual action research, but

all are variations on a theme. Put simply, action research is “learning by doing” - a group of

people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see how successful their efforts were, and

if not satisfied, try again. While this is the essence of the approach, there are other key attributes

of action research that differentiate it from common problem-solving activities that we all engage

in every day.

Action Research generally involves inquiring into one’s own practice through a process of

self-monitoring that generally includes entering a cycle of planning, acting, observing and

reflecting on an issue or problem in order to improve practice. Action research can have ‘specific

and immediate outcome which can be directly related to practice in the teacher’s own context’

and is ‘an extension of the normal reflective practice of many teachers’ (Wallace, 1991). Within

second language education, action research has usually been associated with the study of

classroom actions rather than addressing social problems associated with language teaching.

Action research for language teachers is ‘an approach to collection and interpreting data which

involves a clear, repeated cycle of procedures’ (Bailey, 2001). Action research is conducted by

practicing language teachers because they themselves are valuable sources of knowledge

regarding their own classroom situations and as a result change can be implemented more

credibly because practicing teachers will find the results more credible and valid for their needs.
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 4

Action Research in Pakistani ELT classrooms

A good teacher is always a good researcher and also good learning can be possible only if it

is based on research. Classroom research is very effective tool to recognize the teaching-learning

problems inside the class. It is a systematic process which a concerned or an effective teacher

carries out inside the environment of his classroom to cater new strategies for solving the

problems which he and his students are facing. This process is known as classroom action

research in scientific terms.

In the traditional Pakistani pedagogical setup, teaching and research are treated as two

different things. Action research is a powerful tool that can empower teachers to understand their

students’ needs and they can plan their lessons, activities and syllabus according to this. But

unfortunately our teachers hesitate in doing such type of researches.

Due to the gigantic number of students from grade 6th to B.A. level who are having

compulsory English subject in their courses, it is become more important for our English

teachers to arrange this type of researches in their English classrooms. They need proper

guidance and training that how they can improve their English language teaching needs for their

students who will have to compete the increasing needs of English in their future years. So

Action Research is very important in the ELT scenario of Pakistan.

 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 5

2. Literature Review

Kurt Lewin, a professor at MIT, first coined the term “action research” in 1944. In his 1946

paper “Action Research and Minority Problems” he described action research as “a comparative

research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to

social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning,

action and fact-finding about the result of the action”

So (Kurt Lewin, 1946) has been credited with the development of the idea of action

research. The evolution of an action research agenda within education has been influenced by

people such as Kemmis (1983), Ebbutt (1985), Elliott (1991), Hopkins (1985) and others.

(Hopkins, 1985) offers good advice on teacher research when he advocates the development of

teacher's professional expertise and judgment. He provides a basis for the selection of classroom

research by teachers:

• the teacher's primary role is to teach and any research project must not interfere with or

disrupt this commitment;

• the method of data collection should not be too demanding on the teacher's time;

• the methodology used must be reliable enough to allow teachers to formulate hypotheses

confidently and develop strategies applicable to the classroom situation;

• the teacher should be committed to the research problem under study;

• teachers must follow ethical procedures when carrying out research; and

• class room research where possible should adopt a perspective where all members of a

school community build and share a common vision.

 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 6

Definitions of Action Research

“Action research is a process in which participants examine

their own educational practice systematically and carefully,

using the techniques of research” (Watts, 1985, p.118)

“Action Research is a systematic attempt to gain a better

understanding of the educational process, generally with

view to improvement” (Stern, 1983, p.59)

Over the last 20 years discussions of practitioner action research (AR) have become more

and more common in the English language teaching (ELT) literature (e.g. Nunan, 1989; Wallace,

1998; Edge, 2001; Burns, 1999). AR has also been increasing in teacher training and tertiary

education programs across the world and in some countries it is recommended as a part of

educational policy developments for teacher’s professional development.

Why should teachers do Action Research?

Good teachers and instructors don’t use the conventional and typical old teaching strategies.

They are always in search of innovative ideas of teaching to enhance their capabilities and to

increase their students’ interest in learning. When such teachers feel that what they are practicing

in their classrooms is not that much fruitful, they take a new initiative for effective teaching. For

this they do Action Research and it works because it involves the careful monitoring of planned
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 7

change in practice. First a decision is taken that what kind of improvement is needed and then

‘action’ is used as a research tool.

They also do it:

• To help them notice what they and their students really do, rather than what they think

they do.

• To get feedback as to the success or failure of what they are doing.

• To help them tailor teaching and learning to their learners and their settings.

• So that they are able to justify the teaching and learning choices they make.

• To increase their knowledge of learning and teaching and become authorities on teaching.

• To become less dependent on decisions made by people who are far away from their

learning and teaching sites, people like textbook writers and school administrators.

• To ensure that they don’t become bored with teaching.

The Action Research Process in ELT

Stephen Kemmis has developed a simple model of the cyclical nature of the typical

action research process. Each cycle has four steps: plan, act, observe and reflect. When

we see this model in the context of ELT we will discuss the each step in the following

way:

• PLAN

First of all language teacher will plan a lesson for his students. He will plan the certain

things according to the language strengths and needs of his students.

 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 8

• ACT

In the second step he will act upon according to his planning. He will put his efforts in it.

• OBSERVE

After that he will observe whether his input is productive enough to be able to get

required output from his students regarding to their language skills. If not then what are

the shortcomings in it and how they can be overcome.

• REFLECT

In the end he will get an overall reflection of his work and get a conclusion out of it that

whether his new strategy has worked positive with their language needs and after that use

these results in his teaching practices. In this way he completes the cycle of action

research.

Action Research in Pakistan

Our education system demands a vast research due to its unlimited problems and drawbacks.

We critically need Action Researchers in the form of our teachers who observe, plan, monitor

and reflect a positive research in their teaching classrooms for a positive feedback and outcome.

The lack of awareness among our teachers and lack of concern as well as poor managing

faculties and conventional examination system do not provide any space for such researchers.

Some years back the concept of Action Research was totally strange to our teachers but now

with the changing, fast electronic world some of them are aware of this term but only as a paper

knowledge. Teachers holding B.ed, M.ed or ELT degrees have know how of this research and

they do it in their classrooms but not in the systematic or proper way. They observe their
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 9

problems, try to tackle them but all they do in an improper way. They do not research

professionally as well as not try to get their work acknowledged or published. So in this way this

process remains limited and not flourished in our country.

Hypothesis

So my hypothesis will be:

“Pakistani teachers are unaware of Action Research process and those who know this are not

interested to follow this or not facilitated to carry on this process”

 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 10

3. Methodology

In order to get the clear picture of Action Research in ELT of Pakistan I will made a

questionnaire for English teachers of different Pakistani schools in which questions related to

this research will be asked to them. I have set the sample value of 100 teachers of English in

private school sector. So in this way I will be able to know that how much percent of our

teachers is aware of the action research process, how many of them are particularly doing this

and if not then what are the reasons behind this: lack of awareness or lack of time and resources.

Participants. The participants of this research will be 100 English teachers from different

private schools of targeted cities.

Research Design. The research design will probably be qualitative as I want to discuss results

descriptively. I will discuss in detail the problems and suggestions of teachers in my study. I am

planning to arrange personal meetings with some teachers to know about their concept of Action

Research. Along with this I have also designed a questionnaire for English teachers in which

questions related to this research will be asked to them. The questions are to the point and mostly

in the form of YES/NO answers. The set sample value is 100 English teachers of private sector

schools from Sargodha and Gujrat.

Instrumentation. The instruments for data collection are personal and face to face meetings

with some teachers and a questionnaire to be filled individually by every teacher in a sample.

Procedure. The results will be obtained individually. Each teacher will have to fill the

questionnaire according to his/her knowledge. There will be no group effort probably as I have
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 11

mentioned the brief and to the point introduction of my research as well as the introduction of

topic along with the questionnaire.

Limitations. No doubt that the topic of my research is a bit broader in its sense. Due to

shortage of time and lack of resources it is very difficult to reach in every school of Pakistan or

to take sample from every province. For this I have selected only two cities i.e Sargodha and

Gujrat of Punjab, Pakistan because it is feasible for me to conduct research within this area.

More over I have selected only private sector schools. This research can also be conducted

among government schools of Pakistan or specifically in Punjab if anyone wants to go in it

further.
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 12

4. References

Action Research – Introduction (http: //www.accessexellence.org/LC/TR/AR)

Action Research: A way to become Professionals in ELT (http:

//media.ablaonline.org/documentos/ad)

Improving Teaching through Classroom Action Research (http: //academiv.udayton.edu/Essays

forTeachingExcellence/tevo114n7)

Wallace, J. Michael(1991). Action Research for Language Teachers. United Kingdom:

Cambridge University Press.
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 13

5. Appendices

Appendix- A

Questionnaire on an ELT research

Research Topic:
“Action Research in Pakistani classrooms”

Teacher’s Personal Profile:

1. Name -------------
2. Teaching Experience ------------------ years
3. Education ----------------
4. Any Professional Degree: (please encircle)
• B. Ed
• M. Ed
• ELT
• None

Introduction to Action Research

Action Research generally involves inquiring into one’s own practice through a process of self-
monitoring that generally includes entering a cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflecting
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 14

on an issue or problem in order to improve practice. In education it is an attempt to gain a better

understanding of the educational process, generally with the view of improvement.
As all of you are English language teachers, thus for you it means that you observe a certain
problem in your English class room. It can be related to four skills of English language or related
to vocabulary, grammar, spellings or pronunciation problem of your students. The way how you
overcome the certain problem after observing it, how you plan the strategy for this, how you act
upon that strategy in order to improve your teaching practice and at last how you reflect upon
this. All this is come under Action Research process and if you are doing this in a systematic
way then you are an action researcher.

Here we have different questions regarding to the research process in our country. All of you are
expected to read them carefully and answer them honestly. All the information will be kept
secret so do not worry. Let’s start:

Qs. Are you aware of any kind of research in education?

• YES
• NO

Qs. Did you study any research methodology during your academic career?
• YES
• NO

Qs. Do you have any research project at any level?

• YES
• NO

Qs. Are you aware of Action Research process in language classroom?

• YES
• NO

Qs. During your teaching experience have you carried out any research on your students related

to their language difficulties?

• YES

• NO
 Action Research in ELT Classrooms of Pakistan 15

Qs. If yes, then has this research helped you in improving your teaching strategy?

• YES

• NO

Qs. If not, then what was the reason:

• You are not aware of action research.

• You are aware but you don’t have the time to conduct it.

• You are paid as teachers, not researchers.

• You are not trained enough in this respect.

Qs. What might be obstacles to carry on the process of action research in Pakistani classrooms?

• Lack of awareness.

• Lack of training to teachers in this respect.

• Least concern of teacher himself.

• Examination system.

Qs. How these obstacles can be overcome?

• By arranging workshops for teachers.

• By paying teachers as researchers.

• By providing space for such researches.

Thanks for co-ordination,

RidaIrfan

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