Language learners are key agents in inclusive practitioner research (Allwright & Hanks, 2009). We need to listen to and acknowledge their voices, which are often unheard, or only heard through researchers, if we intend to achieve social cohesion in language pedagogy. However, little is still known about eliciting their voices through their own puzzles, or questions, that drive their curiosity-based exploration of practice (Hanks, 2017). As few learners are accustomed to being asked to "produce" questions in classrooms, they often struggle to articulate their puzzles (Kato & Hanks, 2021). This may be especially true in East Asia, where the prevailing norm of classroom silence continues to attract academic interest (e.g., King & Harumi, 2020). As a practitioner-researcher, I have adopted an educational design research approach (McKenney & Reeves, 2019) over the past five years, in the context of Japanese tertiary education. Evidence from the analysis of learner-generated posters, questionnaires, and interviews has accumulated to inform the development of both "mature interventions and theoretical understandings" (ibid, p. 86) in inclusive practitioner research. In this presentation, I will share a few design principles that emerged, which could help learners find engaging puzzles. First, puzzles are often hidden or embedded in practice, and thus, learners need to be given opportunities to discover them in order to reflect on how they learned the language. A sample activity called "English and me" will be introduced. Second, learners need some guidance with "puzzling formats" (e.g., why-questions) that facilitate the generation of their curiosity-based puzzles. Puzzling formats such as I- and we-puzzles (Kato, 2022) as well as why-questions, as contrasted with how- or what-questions, are useful in assisting learners in incubating, generating, and reflecting on their puzzles. Learner-initiated puzzles based on these principles (e.g., "Why do I continue to learn English even though I have no idea what the purpose of it is?") are likely to be different from research questions typically formulated by researchers (see Mohebbi & Coombe, 2021). These puzzles have the potential to provide new knowledge in the field of language pedagogy. I believe that practitioner research conducted in local contexts, including this study conducted in Japan, needs to be shared with people in wider contexts for mutual development and the empowerment of practitioners in the field.
List of indicative references
Allwright, D. & Hanks, J. (2009). The developing language learner: An introduction to Exploratory Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hanks, J. (2017). Exploratory Practice in language teaching: Puzzling about principles and practices. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kato, Y. (2022). The puzzling format in Exploratory Practice: The comparison of the 'I-puzzle' and the 'we-puzzle' [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Chubu University.
Kato, Y., & Hanks, J. (2021). Learner-initiated exploratory practice: Revisiting curiosity. ELT Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccab039
King, J., & Harumi, S. (Eds.). (2020). East Asian perspectives on silence in English language education. Multilingual Matters.
McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2019). Conducting educational design research (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Mohebbi, H., & Coombe, C. (2021). Research questions in language education and applied linguistics. Springer.
