In Australia, newly arrived adult migrants are eligible to receive around 500 hours of English language tuition to assist with settlement and integration. This program allows students who have not previously studied English as an additional language (EAL) to enrol in beginner-level courses to support their English language development. Teachers of beginner-level adult EAL students work from oral to written language; their students are often from refugee backgrounds with emerging levels of literacy development due to interrupted schooling. Despite the complex nature of teaching this level, limited research and few professional learning resources are available for EAL educators. In the Australian context, teachers also face pressure to focus professional learning time on administrational or assessment compliance training rather than on training that supports their pedagogical needs. Teachers of beginner-level adult EAL students lack a voice in context-specific research that supports them to work together for deeper understandings of classroom practice.
One area of research and pedagogy that is of interest to teachers of this level is the development of confident oral communication skills in English and pronunciation is situated within these skills. A complex area of pedagogy, the teaching of EAL pronunciation includes understanding how critical issues of standard models of English, accent and identity have underpinned many of its teaching methodologies in English language teaching (ELT). Research has also predominantly focused on instruction with advanced level students or approaches to understanding and teaching pronunciation that continue to promote a "singular...monolithic approach to the modeling of English (Pickering & Huang, 2022, p. 282). Teachers of beginner-level, preliterate adults are left in a gap between trying to apply teaching methods and materials used in early childhood settings, or ELT coursebook materials and methods lacking relevance to the context in which they teach.
There is a need to engage teachers and researchers in critically reflective conversations about the 'what' and 'how' of teaching pronunciation to work towards a deeper understanding of its place within the beginner-level adult EAL classroom (Playsted, 2022). Exploratory Practice (Allwright, 2003; Hanks, 2017) provides a useful methodological framework for practitioner research to support this engagement. In this presentation, I describe how Exploratory Practice principles have informed my PhD research: a small scale study exploring practitioner research as professional learning about teaching pronunciation with teachers of beginner-level adult EAL in Queensland, Australia. I outline the study's background, theoretical underpinnings and discuss preliminary findings from initial analysis of data. I also reflect on the challenges and opportunities that Exploratory Practice offers academic researchers and teachers working together for deeper understandings of EAL teaching practices.
References
Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory Practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7(2), 113-141.
Hanks, J. (2017). Exploratory practice in language teaching: Puzzling about principles and practices. Palgrave Macmillan.
Pickering & Huang, M. (2022). Teaching pronunciation in the context of multiple varieties of English. In J. Levis, T. M. Derwing, & S. Sonsaat-Hegelheimer (Eds.), Second language pronunciation: Bridging the gap between research and teaching (pp. 273-292). Wiley Blackwell.
Playsted, S. (2022). Why do we need to talk about teaching pronunciation? Mind Brain Education Think Tanks+, 8(5), 7-12.
