
Judith HanksUniversity of Leeds · School of Education
Judith Hanks
PhD
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Publications (80)
This chapter considers the critical roles played by reflection on a long-standing MA TESOL programme for experienced state system English teachers, most of whom continue to do some classroom teaching while studying on the programme. The programme takes place wholly in China and is jointly taught and assessed by UK and Chinese university staff. Succ...
This study examines how learners’ perceptions of their academic writing difficulties changed over the course of a four-week intensive English for Academic purposes (EAP) programme at a British university. The participants of this qualitative study were 14 Chinese undergraduate students who engaged in interviews and completed learning journal entrie...
Engagement in research is recognised as a transformative force for professional development in EAP. Consequently, for many EAP practitioners research and/or scholarship have been added as contractual requirements. However, many EAP professionals desist from engaging in this, as they wonder how to fit it into their workload. In this paper I consider...
In this chapter we examine the characteristics of multidirectional mutual mentoring in pre-service and in-service teaching, teacher education and research. We frame mentoring as affording opportunities for personal/professional dialogues, which enable practitioners to co-construct collegially agentive learning. Drawing on examples of teacher/learne...
Blog for ESRC Digital Futures at Work Data Observatory: https://digit-research.org/blog_article/technology_performance_management_teachers/
Classroom research has long been recommended as a fruitful avenue for English language teaching (ELT) in applied linguistics. Yet recognition of the value of practitioners exploring their own praxis has only recently come to the fore. In this plenary, I focus on Exploratory Practice, a form of ‘fully inclusive practitioner research’, in which learn...
This paper investigates the potential of learner-initiated exploratory practice (EP), which encourages learners to set their own investigative agenda based on their curiosity-driven puzzles. A case study was conducted in a remedial course for undergraduate students at a university in Japan. Data included student puzzles, posters, and reflective que...
Blog for Leeds Teacher Well-Being project: https://leedsteacherwellbeing.leeds.ac.uk/outputs/blog/what-difference-a-year-makes-changing-priorities-for-schools/
Blog for Leeds Teacher Well-Being project: https://leedsteacherwellbeing.leeds.ac.uk/outputs/blog/blog-4-remote-control-teachers-experiences-of-working-away-from-their-school-environment-during-the-spring-2020-lockdown/
Blog for Leeds Teacher Well-Being project: https://leedsteacherwellbeing.leeds.ac.uk/outputs/blog/what-do-teachers-experiences-of-moving-to-online-teaching-during-lockdown-tell-us-about-well-being/
This study examines second language (L2) learners' perceptions of their writing strategies on an intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme at a British university. The participants were 14 Chinese pre-undergraduate students who engaged in interviews and completed reflective journal entries. The results of the analyses indicate that af...
Blog for Leeds Teacher Well-Being Project: https://leedsteacherwellbeing.leeds.ac.uk/outputs/blog/blog-what-can-be-done-within-schools-and-colleges-to-support-teacher-well-being/
Teaching is an emotional business. Although negative emotions have been extensively studied, issues of teacher well-being and positive emotions are under-researched. Consequently, this study investigates teacher perspectives on their working lives, using positive psychology, exploratory practice and ‘sticky objects’ (objects that attract and retain...
In this briefing we look at what teachers say enables them to feel supported in their professional lives and to maintain good mental health, considering evidence from schools and colleges which are being run and led in a way which seems to avoid many of the problems reported elsewhere.
We present evidence from senior managers who say supporting and...
Blog for Leeds Teacher Well-Being project: https://leedsteacherwellbeing.leeds.ac.uk/outputs/blog/april-2020-burnout-in-teaching-widely-recognised-but-poorly-understood/
In this briefing we look at definitions of burnout, the causes of burnout in teaching, and some of the effects, drawing on our stakeholder meetings held in Summer 2019.
In recent decades, three forms of practitioner research have emerged: Reflective Practice, Action Research, and Exploratory Practice. While Reflective Practice and Action Research focus on teachers-as-researchers, Exploratory Practice positions learners as co-researchers, alongside teachers, teacher educators, and others. This article adds to those...
This paper probes the potential of practitioner research (specifically Exploratory Practice) to contribute to theoretical and practical developments in quality learning outcomes in language teaching for a globalized world. It considers approaches to learning, teaching and researching in language classrooms in diverse situations, and examines the wa...
Practitioner research is a flourishing area with a significant body of theoretical and empirical research, but often researchers remain isolated, unaware of impactful work by colleagues in related fields. Exploratory Practice (EP) is one innovative form, uniting creative pedagogy and research methods. The potential contributions have hitherto been...
This concluding chapter provides a summary of the themes in the previous chapters, and comments on our own developing understandings of the Exploratory Practice principles. We bring together our experiences as mentors, researchers, teachers, and learners engaging in practitioner research. We consider the growing impact of Exploratory Practice as it...
This chapter tells the story of our experiences of starting Exploratory Practice (EP) in a new and vibrant setting (Professional Development in Turkey and Northern Cyprus). We explore in-service language teacher education with the introduction of EP as an inquiry-based tool for professional development. Engaging teachers as learners of ‘doing-being...
This chapter introduces the theoretical concepts of Exploratory Practice. These include working for quality of life, understanding, puzzlement, collegiality, mutual development, sustainability and continuity, and integrating research into pedagogy. The Introduction gives an overview of the chapters contained in the volume, each of which applies one...
This edited collection explores the use of Exploratory Practice (EP) by language teachers in classrooms. Written by practitioners, the chapters showcase unique examples of each principle of EP, with topics ranging from mentoring practitioner researchers, to teaching and learning in EAP, and investigating curriculum development in language teaching...
This article considers the notion of integrating research and pedagogy through the principled framework of Exploratory Practice (EP) in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context. Taking a case study of a 10-week pre-sessional programme in the UK, I critically examine the challenges and the opportunities encountered by participants (learners an...
This book focuses on Exploratory Practice (EP), but in order to understand EP, we need to consider earlier influential movements in educational research. What are the questions, answered, unanswered, and unanswerable, that are raised here? To begin with, I consider a range of approaches to practitioner research, focusing particularly on two closely...
This chapter focuses particularly on collegiality, with a particular emphasis on Exploratory Practice (EP), and language education more generally, as a social practice. The stories presented here show the making visible (Iedema et al. 2013) of our everyday understandings, of working together to gain understandings from our practice as language teac...
Part Three invites you to consider your responses to Exploratory Practice (EP) in your own contexts. How might you, whether you are a learner, or teacher, or teacher educator, or educational psychologist (etc.), begin? What might you actually do to investigate? What can you (we) learn from what others have already done, and what are the pitfalls to...
This chapter is about understanding for practice – if you want to try Exploratory Practice (EP) (and hopefully this book has convinced you that it is worth considering), what do you need to think about? How to access those elusive puzzles that fly around our brains? How to capture life ‘as it flies’?
Despite the blossoming of research for and by practitioners over the years, we still understand little about the challenges that must be overcome, or the benefits that may be gained in this field of activity. As Zeichner and Noffke (2001), in their seminal article on practitioner research, maintain, there is a need for greater understanding of the...
It has become axiomatic that research into classroom language learning and teaching should be participatory, egalitarian, and empowering. Just how these three aims might be achieved, however, has been the subject of much debate. Over the decades, practitioner research has been increasingly recognised as a force for developing understandings of educ...
In this chapter I consider the use of Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activities (PEPAs) – how can we identify normal pedagogic practices that lend themselves to becoming investigative tools? Essentially, this chapter is about ‘making it happen’ – how can busy practitioners begin, and continue, to engage in systematic, purposeful, thoughtful inve...
In Part One, I looked at notions of ‘Research’ and ‘Practitioner Research’. I noted some of the issues with practitioner research that have been raised: practitioners (whether teachers or learners) lead busy lives, and there are common complaints that there is no time (or money) to enable them to engage in research. I then turned to Exploratory Pra...
In this chapter I first consider the notion of ‘research’ in education. What does it mean, and why does it matter? I then examine the proliferating field of practitioner research. This is a wide and varied field, however, so I progressively narrow the scope. Starting with the origins and influences of practitioner research, I consider the reasons f...
It has become axiomatic that research into classroom language learning and teaching should be participatory, egalitarian, and empowering. Just how these three aims might be achieved, however, has been the subject of much debate. Over the decades, practitioner research has been increasingly recognised as a force for developing understandings of educ...
In writing this book, I have sought to engage with Zeichner & Noffke’s call for investigations of the ‘the conditions that facilitate and obstruct the ability of educators to conduct research on their own practice: (2001: 324). The challenges of practitioner research are many and varied, and Exploratory Practice (EP) is not exempt. We grapple with...
This chapter, along with Chaps. 9 and 10, examines a number of ways in which practitioners have experienced Exploratory Practice (EP) in different contexts, with different groups of practitioners. In the following pages, we see EP inviting practitioners to use their research activities as a way of getting their work done as advocated by Allwright a...
Resting on the assumption that puzzling about an issue is more conducive to developing understanding than trying to solve a problem, Exploratory Practice (EP) recommends commencing with ‘puzzlement’, and encourages the practitioners themselves to investigate, rather than relying on external researchers, as a way of developing understandings. In 200...
Exploratory Practice (EP) focuses on quality of life and understanding, but why is this focus so important? What are the philosophical influences that make EP distinctive and why do they matter? This chapter and the following one will address these questions from two perspectives: to trace the history of the development of the EP principles, showin...
A driving force for this book has been to ensure that it not only establishes the history, and the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of Exploratory Practice (EP), but also brings the field up-to-date with more recent developments. The book aims to take EP’s ethical, practical, theoretical framework, and analyse it thoughtfully, moving fro...
In this chapter I consider practitioners (of all kinds) growing, learning, and developing during their language learning/teaching lives. I broaden the scope beyond language teaching itself, to include continuing professional development – and to acknowledge the importance also of continuing personal development – to include others, not only languag...
In writing this book, I have sought to engage with Zeichner & Noffke’s call for investigations of the ‘the conditions that facilitate and obstruct the ability of educators to conduct research on their own practice: (2001: 324). The challenges of practitioner research are many and varied, and Exploratory Practice (EP) is not exempt. We grapple with...
This book tracks the development of Exploratory Practice since the early 1990s as an original form of practitioner research in the field of English language teaching. Drawing on case studies, vignettes and narratives from teachers and learners around the world as they experienced Exploratory Practice in their different contexts, Hanks examines the...
There is growing interest in educational research conducted by teachers and other practitioners in learning environments. There is also a growing willingness among educators to discuss such research in environments that are open and online. However, for some of those engaging with such forms of inquiry in such online spaces, puzzles remain. For exa...
This article critically examines the implementation of Exploratory Practice in an English for academic purposes (EAP) context in a British university. The innovation involved challenges as well as opportunities for uniting learning, teaching and research. Particular emphasis is given to two teachers, who are the focus of this article: the story of...
Exploratory Practice (EP) has recently been established as an innovative form of practitioner research in language education,
one which includes learners alongside their teachers as co-researchers. However, to date, little attention has been given
to learners’ perspectives on this approach. This article focuses on the experiences of learners engagi...
This chapter will:
show how individual teachers have explored their puzzles with learners;
show how learners have explored their own puzzles;
demonstrate further how familiar pedagogic activities can generate the data needed both for investigations and for language learning;
illustrate how practitioners working together can develop their mutual und...
We wrote this book because we believe that working together to understand classroom life as it is is the best way for learners and teachers to make their language classroom lives both satisfying and productive. We started with our Five Propositions about learners, and then proposed Seven Principles (Chapter 15, pp. 261–2) for inclusive practitioner...
This chapter will:
survey the last few decades of thinking and research on language teaching methods in relation to the developing view of the learner;
show how the behaviourist approach, the cognitive approach and then the move towards a socio-psychological approach all had important implications for how learners were viewed;
document the arrival...
We have two main sections in Part IV: sources and resources. ‘Sources’ are places to go to for more information and ideas that will feed an interest in our sort of inclusive practitioner research. Because there is relatively little that directly addresses our particular concerns, let alone addresses learners, we have added a selection of ‘resources...
This chapter will:
argue that Action Research does not go quite far enough for our purposes;
propose that we need an inclusive form of practitioner research to bring teachers and learners together to develop their understandings of their lives as ‘key practitioners’;
compare looking upwards towards high-level generalisations for our understandings,...
This chapter will:
consider the contribution of descriptive and qualitative classroom research to our understanding of classroom language learning;
conclude that its main contribution has been to establish the essentially social nature of classroom language learning;
show, via an analysis of one research project, how the social nature of the resear...
This chapter will:
argue that studying uninstructed second language acquisition (SLA) involved an essentially universalistic and asocial view of the learner;
describe how this prompted people more concerned with how learners learn from instruction to challenge SLA with irrelevance;
discuss how some researchers have responded by using SLA research t...
This chapter will:
briefly review our overall argument, focusing on the central theme that learners, by becoming practitioner-researchers, can develop as practitioners of learning;
discuss the case for the dissemination of EP, emphasising the crucial importance of sharing in the continuous process of developing understandings;
show how learners, as...
Previous chapters have included examples of inclusive practitioner research conducted by teachers and learners in relatively isolated professional situations (from China, Hong Kong, and Israel), but most of our examples have been drawn from members of the Rio de Janeiro Exploratory Practice Group (henceforth the ‘Rio EP Group’ or ‘the Group’). This...
This chapter will:
survey ‘aptitude’, ‘the good language learner’, ‘learning styles and strategies’, ‘learner training’ and ‘attitude and motivation’ to see how the traditions and concerns in these areas of learner variables research imply particular views of the learner;
discuss how such views relate to our Five Propositions;
show that there are s...
This chapter shows how Part II will:
establish our twin purposes for research: (a) to further our general understanding of the learners’ role in classroom language learning, and (b) to develop understandings in a way that actually helps learners develop as learners;
survey research in the field, making a broad comparison between third-party and pra...
This chapter shows how Part III will:
use learner and teacher stories to bring to life our ideas about what can happen when learners get involved as key developing practitioners, with their teachers, in exploring their learning lives;
show how such inclusive practitioner research can be both immediately practical and indefinitely sustainable;
use t...
This chapter will:
show how Exploratory Practice can enable learners, as well as teachers, to develop their own agendas by identifying research ‘puzzles’ and turning them into researchable questions;
suggest ways in which such inclusive practitioner research can become a productive and sustainable part of learners’ lives;
consider some of the doubt...
This chapter will:
explain what we mean by calling learners key developing practitioners;
introduce five propositions about this view of learners;
explain why we believe these propositions are important;
outline our plans for the whole book.
This chapter will:
consider the nature of educational assessment in our field and assess its contribution to our view of learners;
contrast ‘standards’ and ‘standardisation’ and assess the problematic role of standardisation in hindering the adoption and implementation of our Five Propositions;
discuss alternative, potentially promising, approaches...
This chapter introduces Part I by:
stressing how people in general get their view of learners from their own educational experiences;
introducing briefly the succeeding chapters — assessment, language teaching method, teacher training, learner variables and second language acquisition — all potential sources of teachers’ views of learners;
showing...
This chapter will:
examine how the processes of teacher training may establish, for good or ill, career-long beliefs about learners;
identify two major barriers to the incorporation of our Five Propositions and analyse their implications;
provide a perspective on developments within the processes of teacher training, showing how they reflect develo...