This chapter, which represents the planning and data gathering stages of the framework suggested by Burns (2005), has outlined how the AR team and I myself set up and implemented six Stage One conferences. The chapter has looked at issues of selecting students and teachers for a study, along with the potential for research to enable the creation of new knowledge by teachers. It has also looked at issues concerning transcription. The following chapter looks at the next stage of Burns’ (2005) framework, that of analysing / reflecting. It concerns the current AR team members’ and my own analyses of the transcripts resulting from Stage One conferences.
Chapter Six
Analysing / Reflecting: MCA One
6.1 Introduction
The previous chapter looked at the planning and data collection stages of Burns (2005). This chapter, as box 6a (below) illustrates, is based on stage five of the framework provided by Burns (2005) involving analysing / reflecting. It outlines how the six transcripts resulting from Stage One conferences were analysed by myself and individual members of the current AR team in order to understand both what had taken place plus how to proceed in Stage Two conferencing. As such, it represents the initial analysis in this study, following which we noted how mini-cycles of analysis (MCA) appear, each representing a phase in the study marked by alterations in approach towards data analysis. Later chapters expand upon the notion of developing MCAs, while 13.2.2a summarises what happened in each MCA.
6.1.1-6.1.3 explain why there was a pause in this study. Following this is a section explaining category coding, the initial process by which the transcripts were analysed. The section after that (6.3) outlines how by means of collaborative discussion and analyses with three teachers, and using a model based on Boyatzis (1998), they and I reflected on the data. This enabled us to continue constructing a view on conferencing. A key feature of this section is the recognition, illustrated by data, of aspects of the discourse within the categories relating to what the team at this point perceived as ‘success’ and ‘limitations’ of conferencing. These aspects were designated by members of
the team and myself as what we perceived as desirable and undesirable features of conferencing. This chapter ends with a list in 6.4 of these features that the AR team for Stage Two conferencing were provided with.
Box 6a: Burns (2005): analysing / reflecting
6.1.1 A research pause
At this point progress in this study was halted for one month after completing work on the six transcripts which were the outcome of Stage One conferences involving three AR team members and two of their students. This planned pause, which coincided with the mid-year break, was due to two unrelated events. Neither appeared to be detrimental to the study and, although they slowed it down, they may have enhanced its development in that a period for reading and reflection was created.
6.1.2 Faculty relocation
My diary entries also revealed how the first reason for the pause was that the IYTE foreign languages faculty premises, in which research for this study had till then taken place, was in the process of relocating fifty kilometres outside the city. This involved all teachers packing teaching material, taking paid leave and then returning to settle into completely new offices in unfamiliar premises. For almost all teachers it involved new classes. For many this also exploring → identifying → planning → data collecting → analysing /
reflecting → hypothesising / speculating → intervening → observing →
year, and in order to counter travel-fatigue, an unofficial day off per week. This had the potential for difficulty in arranging research related meetings, or in making it much less convenient than was previously the case. In years following this, though, this unapproved day off was removed by IYTE administrators, thus making contact with the AR team a relatively easier process.
6.1.3 Relocation: the action research team
Although I was in brief but regular contact with them, I felt it better, at least for the first few weeks after the new semester began, to avoid arranging meetings or having research related discussions with members of the AR team until the new semester in the new premises was well underway. My initial enquiry revealed, however, that Ömer, one of the team involved in Stage One conferencing, now had no classes for EAP writing and instead had requested an extra EAP reading class to assist his own doctoral studies. Another member of the team, Seda, continued with the same class. She had, however, initially lost this class, but for her own personal reasons that were not related to this study had requested its return. Nihat, the third member, had lost the class with which he had carried out Stage One conferencing but continued with other EAP writing classes with whom he could perhaps engage in a second stage.
Such changes in class and teacher were currently typical of IYTE. Prior to Stage Two conferencing I addressed this issue directly during a discussion with the Director of studies at IYTE at that time. Although I was promised that
teachers involved in AR would be given priority with regard to not having classes taken from them, only in the short term did I notice this was the case. On reflection, in practice, I realised how my request appeared not to be taken into consideration. It was also interesting to note later, how in 5.5.1 – 5.5.3 I had believed having two doctoral students in the current AR team would perhaps enhance the study, and how I had perhaps felt Seda would be more pressed for time. The opposite became the case as firstly Ömer and Nihat withdrew from the study to focus on writing up their own theses, while later they both left IYTE for employment elsewhere. Thus of the current AR team, only Seda was able to remain as a key member of the study. Such limitations as these illustrate are discussed in the final chapter of this thesis.
6.1.4 Seminars for teachers
The second event which contributed to the pause mentioned above (6.1.1), and also noted in my on-going research diary, concerned my participation in a seminar tour of the UAE involving my attending TESOL Arabia 2007 in Dubai at which I gave talks on this study. I had been asked several months prior to this event by Cambridge ESOL, a UK examinations board, to visit the UAE in order to talk to groups of teachers in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and Dubai on how to improve candidate performance on the writing paper of the Preliminary English Test (PET), an exam produced by Cambridge ESOL. Preparation for the three seminars and two conference talks proved extremely time- consuming. However, since one of the talks was related to this study, it proved to be a useful reminder of work carried out in terms of summarising our study thus far. It was also helpful in terms of having to analyse and
explain to an informed audience features appearing in the Stage One conference transcripts.