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IMPACT OF RESEARCH ON TEACHING
Ali H. Al-Hoorie
English Language and Preparatory Year Institute
Royal Commission for Jubail & Yanbu
hoorie_a@jic.edu.sa
@Ali_AlHoorie
STEEM 2020: JUC 4th Science Symposium
11-Nov-20
RESEARCH INTO CYCLING: CYCLOGY
•Research Questions:
•How do you put your foot into the pedal?
•How do you balance yourself?
•How do you avoid objects?
•These RQs sound nonsensical!
RESEARCH INTO TEACHING
•Research Questions
•How do you interact with students?
•How fast should you speak?
•How often should you smile?
•These questions also sound nonsensical!
RESEARCH VS. PRACTICE
•You do not need academic research to figure out to speak, how to ride a bicycle, or to teach
•Research cannot tell you how fast you should speak
•Depends on context
•Learning these comes from practice, not research
•People have been teaching for millennia (3500 B.C. at least)
(Maley, 2016)
WHAT OTHERS SAY
•“Research is not the primary basis of [language teaching] knowledge for the practitioner” (Ur,
2012).
•“Good teachers know far more about motivating students than the sum of knowledge that can be
gained from research.” (Henry et al., 2019, p. 15)
•“In short, research findings have predominantly failed to find their way into the classroom… It
looks as if they are mere extras in the language-teaching operation.” (Medgyes, 2017, p. 494)
•“Until proven otherwise, the pedagogical relevance of language-related academic research is of
dubious value and the role researchers play may be considered parasitical.” (Medgyes, 2017, p.
496)
WHAT OTHERS SAY
•“many of the MA and doctoral programmes available have limited relevance for classroom
practice. Moreover, there is no demonstrable enhancement of teaching quality from the
possession of a higher degree. Such degrees have very little to do with pedagogical
competence, and everything to do with academic status.” (Maley, 2016)
•“what has also become increasingly eye-catching is a tendency in authors, in particular, those
who report on experimental research, to have an add-on section, variously labeled “Pedagogical
Implications,” “Classroom Implications,” “Applications to Practice,” and the like, to ostentatiously
link the research to practice. This gesture is often more pretentious than genuine, for it does not
seem warranted by the research reported.” (Han, 2007, p. 387)
BACK TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS
•Micro RQs
•How do you interact with students?
•How fast should you speak?
•How often should you smile?
•Macro RQs
•Flipped classroom
•Developing tools and software
•Training teachers on these tools
•Optimal lesson duration (policy)
•Best sequence of units (curriculum)
REFERENCES
Al-Hoorie, A. H., Hiver, P., Kim, T.-Y., & De Costa, P. I. (2021). The identity crisis in language motivation research. Journal of
Language and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X20964507
Han, Z. (2007). Pedagogical implications: Genuine or pretentious? TESOL Quarterly, 41(2), 387–393.
https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2007.tb00064.x
Henry, A., Sundqvist, P., & Thorsen, C. (2019). Motivational practice: Insights from the classroom. Studentlitteratur.
Hoogeveen, S., Sarafoglou, A., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2020). Laypeople Can Predict Which Social-Science Studies Will Be
Replicated Successfully. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920919667
Maley, A. (2016). ‘More research is needed’ –A mantra too far? Humanising Language Teaching, 18(3).
http://old.hltmag.co.uk/jun16/mart01.htm
Medgyes, P. (2017). The (ir)relevance of academic research for the language teacher. ELT Journal, 71(4), 491–498.
https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccx034
THANK YOU!
hoorie_a@jic.edu.sa
@Ali_AlHoorie
