Action Research Revisited in This Global Age: For Taiwan Language Education

Abstract

In this 21(superscript st) century, knowledge has exploded in volume and is disseminated through the Internet so fast that many concepts have been radically changed. In the academic world, new theories and concepts in various disciplines or fields have also been proposed to respond to the reality of the ever-changing world. This phenomenon is termed as ”paradigm shift” by Thomas S. Kuhn (1970). Under such conditions, this paper would like to revisit action research to review what it is and how it can be practiced by teachers in classrooms, especially language teachers in the context of the 21(superscript st)-century and in the particular context of Taiwan. The paper reviews the definition, origins, and research processes of action research. Then, it addresses how action research can be conducted by language teachers. The aim is to reemphasize the multiple roles of teachers as researchers as well as life-long learners. In sum, this paper pinpoints that knowledge creation should be produced through not only a top-down process but also a bottom-up process to create experience-based knowledge with a sense of ownership among the practitioners-the teaching professionals.

由於二十一世紀知識爆炸，資訊藉由網際網路快速散播，以致許多概念也徹底地轉變了。在學術領域裡，各個不同的學科皆已提出新的理論和概念，以因應不斷變化的世界。Thomas S. Kuhn (1970)將這樣的現象定義為「模式的轉變」。在此情況下，此文再次探討「行動研究」的意義，以檢視其意涵以及在課堂中，老師們是如何進行此類研究，內容特別著重在二十一世紀裡的外語老師身上，以及在台灣的教學情境。此文重新檢視「行動研究」的定義、起源、以及研究過程，並且也提出了外語老師們該如何進行「行動研究」。此研究再次強調老師扮演了研究者與學習者的多重角色。一言以蔽之，此文強調知識的衍生不僅需要透過演繹還有歸納的過程，還有經驗的製造，以及執行者(也就是教學專家們)之間的主導意識。