Spring 2024 Special Topic: Introduction to Classroom Research in TESOL

This course provides an overview of research in TESOL for teachers of multilingual students, novice educational researchers, and readers of published research. We will explore a number of broad areas and issues in the field of TESOL along with the various research approaches and methodologies that are used to study them. Students in this course will join an engaging community of learners from various academic backgrounds who are passionate about language learning and teaching. Pre-service teachers may be interested in learning how to conduct practitioner research in their future classrooms, while graduate students may be looking to prepare themselves to write a thesis in TESOL/applied linguistics or in other related fields. The course will also benefit students with a general interest in language learning and teaching who would like to further explore their interests through the examination of TESOL research.

Throughout the course of the semester, we will examine current topics and issues in TESOL: academic literacy, multilingual student and teacher identity, language testing and assessment, language classroom interaction, and corrective feedback. These and/or other topics will be examined by critically reading, analyzing, and responding to primary and secondary research published in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections. This will introduce students to a range of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies in the field. There will also be opportunities for hands-on practice with research instruments, techniques, and sources (e.g., interviews, observations, online surveys, introspective verbal reports) as well as some basic quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Through these activities, students will become familiar with the life cycle of research, from articulating research questions to reporting on research results. Students will also learn about the history of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and its role in supporting ethical human research practices. By the end of this course, students should be able to describe the role of research in the field of TESOL and identify major research paradigms and study designs. In addition, students will come away with a better understanding of the general principles and procedures of conducting research, sharpen their critical thinking skills, and develop a basic level of research literacy needed to become intelligent readers, critics, and consumers of published research.

This course may be taken for Capstone credit by general ENGLISH majors following requirement guidelines in place prior to Fall 2023. Fill out a Capstone Declaration form (available in the main English office,  Ham Smith 230F) if you wish to declare it as Capstone.