The Implementation of Action Research Among English Language Teachers in Kurdistan Benefits, Challenges, and Perceptions
Chanar A. Ghafour Al-barazanchi
Independent Researcher
Email: [email protected]
Published: May 15, 2023
Abstract
Action research can be regarded as a valuable tool for teachers to examine their teaching practices and achieve a deeper understanding of themselves, method of teaching, curriculum, classroom environment, and their students as teachers lack information about the concept of action research and solving teaching issues systematically. This study attempts to investigate the familiarity of English language teachers in Kurdistan with the concept of action research and its implementation. Besides, it focuses on the use, benefits and limitations of action research from the teachers’ perspective. A mixed method approach was utilized to collect data. To this end, for the quantitative method 142 participants (69 males and 73 females) filled out a questionnaire electronically. For the qualitative phase, 11 English language teachers were chosen to take part in a number of training sessions about the concept, procedures and steps of implementing action research. They were later interviewed about their experiences with implementing action research in their own classes including challenges. The results indicated that English teachers in the context of Kurdistan were not familiar with the concept of action research, and if they were, they would not implement it in their teaching regularly. Additionally, the training course was perceived to be beneficial for the teachers to find a systematic tool to address issues they faced in their teaching experience. The results also identified many advantages behind the implementation of action research such as improving teacher professionalism, increasing students’ class participation, increasing self-confidence and self-awareness, and applying a student-cantered approach in teaching. However, a number of challenges were also found to hinder the teachers’ implementation of action research such as limitation of time, large class sizes, individual differences, class design and the lack of support from parents or the teaching institution.
Keywords: Action research, familiarity, perceptions, advantages, limitations.
DOI: 10.23918/vesal2023v15