Action research in language education

Within the field of applied linguistics and language education, action research (AR) situates itself as an 'interventionist and subjective' methodology for and from teachers who 'deliberately change, modify and improve' their professional practices, teaching and learning processes (Burns, 2005, p. 60). Since it seeks to empower teachers and learners, AR is best understood and implemented if it is organically intertwined with language pedagogies with a view to allowing such research methodology to become integral part of the ecology of language education. In this chapter, we first conceptualise AR within the field of language education, then reflect on teachers’ perceptions towards AR, and finally offer a discussion of some cases of teachers doing AR in a varied range of educational settings.