The Research-Practice Gap in Applied Linguistics

The Research-Practice Gap in Applied Linguistics

• Teachers often bypass academic research due to time constraints, lack of access to resources, and difficulty understanding academic jargon.
• Many teachers unknowingly implement practices recommended by researchers without associating them with theoretical frameworks or research findings.
• Research quality is often inadequate to provide compelling results for practitioners.
• Research lacks relevance to day-to-day teaching practices.
• Research findings are often inaccessible to practitioners due to jargon or paywalls.
• The educational system is resistant to changes or inherently unstable.

Contributing Factors

• Professionalization and intellectualization of applied linguistics have estranged practitioners from research.
• A division between roles of applied linguists (researchers) and language practitioners (teachers) exacerbates the gap.
• Teachers prefer professional publications over research-focused articles, considering them impractical for solving real-world teaching problems.

Consequences of the Research-Practice Misalignment

• Researchers fail to see their work implemented in practical teaching scenarios.
• Teachers miss opportunities to enhance their practices with evidence-based insights.
• Siloed communities (researchers and practitioners) lead to cross-purposes and inefficiency in addressing language teaching challenges.
• Administrative divisions in TESOL and foreign language departments contribute to the widening gap.

Recommendations to Close the Research-Practice Gap

• Reflection by Researchers: Researchers should critically evaluate their own beliefs and practices to ensure alignment with practical needs.
• Collaborative Mindset: Foster partnerships between researchers and practitioners with a shared goal of improving student learning.
• Teacher-Led Research Objectives: Enable teachers to set research goals and validate findings within their teaching contexts.
• Dialogue and Collaboration: Develop platforms for sustained dialogue and collaboration between universities and schools.

Community-Engaged Action Research as a Solution

• The authors advocate for a socially just approach to bridge the research-practice divide, focusing on addressing systemic inequities in education.
• Community-engaged action research is presented as a pathway for equitable, mutually beneficial researcher-practitioner partnerships.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

• The pandemic exacerbated barriers to researcher-practitioner dialogue, particularly in the Global South.
• Despite these challenges, the study highlights the potential of reflective and community-driven approaches to bridge the gap.

Teacher Inquiry as Valid Research

• Teacher inquiry should be recognized as a legitimate form of research.
• Community-engaged action research integrates teacher-driven initiatives with academic research to address real-world issues.

Key Arguments from the Literature Review

• Community-engaged action research involves collaboration between researchers and communities (e.g., teachers) to address real-world challenges and achieve transformative change.
• This approach bridges the gap between researchers and practitioners, shifting away from the traditional academic paradigm.
• Global South contributions, exemplified in studies from Argentina and Mexico, show how collaboration fosters socially just language education practices.
• Critique of “One-Size-Fits-All” approaches: Pedagogical and curriculum design should be context-specific, considering diverse experiences.
• Support for Linguistically Minoritized Students: Community-engaged research promotes equitable multilingualism.
• Alignment with Social Justice Goals: The approach complements critical service-learning initiatives in language teacher education.

Noteworthy Examples

• Studies in Nepal and Michigan demonstrate how EFL teachers developed critical pedagogical awareness.

Collaborative Autoethnography

• A methodology that combines personal reflections of multiple researchers to analyze and interpret autobiographical data.
• This method facilitates multivocality and promotes collective agency.
• Research contexts and objectives highlight the use of collaborative autoethnography by non-native English-speaking educators in Global South action research projects.

Bridging the Research-Practice Gap

• Research questions explored include challenges of collaborating with teachers, researchers' perceptions of the research-practice gap, and effective strategies to bridge the gap.
• Community-engaged action research and collaborative autoethnography offer platforms to align research and pedagogy.
• Listening to teachers' voices, and co-constructing knowledge ensures research is applicable to classroom practice.
• Collaborative reflection through autoethnography fosters critical awareness of the gap and informs actionable strategies to bridge this gap.

Research Questions Explored

• Challenges in collaboration with teachers.
• Perceptions of the research-practice gap.
• Effectiveness of bridging the gap.

Researcher Profiles and Context

• Four authors are critical applied linguists and multilingual, non-native English speaking teacher educators from the Global South. (e.g.: Peter, Kasun, Laxmi, Amr)

Data Collection Process

• Over six months, monthly recorded/transcribed Zoom meetings, sharing Google documents for reflections, questions, & responses.

Implications of the Study

• Importance of mutual respect and co-construction of knowledge in addressing educational challenges.
• A call for collaborative scholarship valuing teachers as co-creators of knowledge (reinforces collaboration and respect.)

Collaboration as Response to Isolation

• The COVID-19 pandemic intensified isolation between researchers & teachers.
• Collaborative autoethnography fostered collective action among teacher partners .
• The study emphasized collaborative power across boundaries.

Redistributing Resources to Acknowledge Teacher Expertise

• The study advocates for valuing and integrating teacher expertise in research.
• Examples include Kasun's Sri Lankan teacher partners demonstrating culturally sustaining pedagogies.

Methodological Significance of Collaborative Autoethnography

• Collaborative autoethnography facilitates criticality and agency, self-reflection, and transformation.
• It reduces hierarchical barriers & ensures accessibility and relevance for teachers.

Professional Development and Policy Recommendations

• Addressing power imbalances through development programs
• Supporting teacher-led research initiatives
• Aligning research with local contexts.
• Supporting community-engaged action research.