Evolving the TESOL Teaching–Research Nexus

Abstract

TESOL research was traditionally led by researcher‐practitioners, who acknowledged real‐world English language teaching problems (in alignment with developments in establishing applied linguistics as a field of study) as the basis for research enquiries. Take, for instance, TESOL Quarterly's first two issues. Published in 1967, articles offer descriptions of and suggestions for actual classroom practices. Some include sample exercises, based on either the author's own practices (see, e.g., Arapoff, 1967) or on a combination of literature and personal experience (see, e.g., Ross, 1967). Over time, however, the focus moved away from anecdotes for teaching English towards empirical TESOL research, grounded in educational, linguistic, or psychological principles. This movement was part of a larger trend in educational research and has led to continued calls from some higher education scholars to refocus on the teaching–research nexus (see, e.g., Neumann, 1992). These changes have contributed to a teaching and research bifurcation, where studies conducted by researchers who are removed from teaching tend to be more highly valued by the TESOL research community than many of the practical classroom‐based, teaching‐led work done by researcher‐practitioners.