THEIR FIRST ACTION RESEARCH STEPS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: AN ONLINE STRATEGY

Canadian Journal of Action Research Volume 23, Issue 2, 2023, pages 69-85

HELPING LANGUAGE TEACHERS IN LITHUANIA TAKE

THEIR FIRST ACTION RESEARCH STEPS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: AN ONLINE STRATEGY

Angela Gallagher-Brett

Queen Mary, University of London, UK Christine Lechner

“Action Research Communities for Language Teachers” - ECML

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the experiences of the authors teaching action research workshops as professional development for language teachers in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic. It describes work carried out for Action Research Communities for Language Teachers, which is funded under the Training and Consultancies programme of the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe as part of its aim to promote quality language education in Europe. The paper focuses on the necessary pivot from face-to-face to online action research workshops and project development in a difficult global context for a group of teachers in Lithuania. It outlines the challenges experienced by the authors and teacher participants, the lessons learned in online teaching of action research, and the positive outcomes for language teachers in setting out on their action research journeys. The paper contributes to the literature on action research in language education and professional development during Covid-19.

KEY WORDS:CoE/ECML mission; COVID-19; Cultural context; Language teaching and learning;

Pivot to online; Practitioner action research; Spirals

INTRODUCTION

We are language teachers working in university teacher education and university academic practice in Austria and the UK. Since 2016, we have been working as part of the Action Research Communities for language teachers (ARC) project team funded by the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe (ECML). We run workshops to introduce language teachers across the ECML countries to action

research, and then we mentor teachers with their emerging classroom action research projects.

We were scheduled to run face-to-face workshops for teachers in Lithuania in 2020, so the context for this work became significantly more challenging due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At the outset, we asked the question: How is it possible to support language teachers through AR during such difficult times?

In this paper, we discuss how our usual approach was adapted to address the situation we faced, how we pivoted to an online strategy, the challenges we encountered, and the lessons we learned working with language teachers during this process. In doing this, we aim to answer our question and to contribute to the literature on action research in language education and professional development during Covid-19, as well as highlight the positive engagement of teachers.

This article opens with background information about the European language education setting, the context of the ARC project, and our conviction about the importance of supporting language learning through action research. Subsequent sections contain a review of relevant action research literature as well as literature pertaining to language teaching during the pandemic. The article continues with an explanation of our methodological approach, followed by our observations and practical theories, and concluding with our ideas for action.

EUROPEAN BACKGROUND

Language Learning

As language educators in European countries, we strongly believe that a high level of competence in first and second languages plays an important role not only in daily life, but also in contributing to professional opportunities both within a country of residence and in other countries. A lingua franca serving to enable communication between people is a necessity in our global world, and effective communication abilities are empowering. However, it is vital that other languages, along with their cultural traditions, continue to be valued. Classroom language teachers play a pivotal role in this respect.

In terms of language diversity, Europe is unique. The European Union currently recognises 24 official languages, three of which are procedural, and there are over 60 indigenous, regional, or minority languages. The Council of Europe has established English and French as official languages, with the ‘European Charter for Regional &

Minority Languages’ including 79 regional and minority languages (Council of Europe, 2020).

Educational policies aim to protect Europe’s rich linguistic diversity and promote language learning in Europe, and both organisations recognise multilingualism and plurilingualism as important educational goals with languages being at the core of European identity. A central objective of the EU’s language policy is that every citizen should master at least two languages in addition to their first language (European Parliament, n.d.), thus contributing to intercultural communication and plurilingualism.

Although these goals have only been partially achieved, linguistic competence is still very much on the educational agenda.

Language teachers not only teach a particular language, but also help learners acquire the ability to learn languages while guiding towards open-mindedness and tolerance.

Even limited knowledge of a language can make an enormous difference to feelings of security when travelling, whether as a tourist or as a new immigrant. It can be frightening to find oneself in a country where the language spoken is from a completely different language system to one’s own language. Nevertheless, even in this type of situation, the knowledge of one’s own ability to learn languages and knowledge about how to start learning is reassuring and can support success. Unfortunately, in some societies, there is a danger that language learning may become a privilege for elites rather than an educational right within mainstream educational systems (Lanvers, 2017). Our contribution aims to exemplify how language teachers can be supported through action research.

The European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML)

The ECML is an institute of the Council of Europe founded in 1994 as part of the programme to support and enhance language learning in Europe, and it is dedicated to the promotion of quality language education in Europe. To reach its strategic goals within the framework of four-year programmes, the ECML runs projects to develop new approaches and interactive materials, and it holds Training & Consultancy workshops in the 35 Member States. Beyond Europe, the ECML has a special agreement with the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute at the University of Ottawa, the common ground being “the development, promotion, and dissemination of innovative language teaching and evaluation methods as well as cutting-edge research” (Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute, 2023). In addition, there are further collaborations with experts in South American and Asian countries, among others. The focus of this paper is how our work using action research as professional development for language teachers has developed within this context during the challenging times of Covid 19.

WHAT IS ARC?

Action Research Communities (ARC) for Language Teachers was an ECML project funded between 2016 and 2019. The ‘Languages at the Heart of Learning’ programme aimed to make techniques for action research widely available to language teachers across Europe through the establishment of communities of practice. In addition, these programmes supported teachers in reflecting on practice, and proposing and testing innovations within those communities.

ECML work focuses on enhancing language teaching through the development of online tools and compilation of research. ARC is the only project that aimed to do this through action research. We see the project as a tremendous opportunity to highlight the important role that action research can play in language learning and in supporting language teachers to support their learners.

What was Important?

When we embarked on the journey, we wanted to contribute to the ECML mission.

There were certain points in the mission statement that were particularly important and where we saw opportunities to enhance effective language teaching through action research. For instance, in the introductory statement: “Language education is key: the provision of lifelong, quality language education supports not only educational and

professional success, but personal development and a sense of self-worth, all of which help foster economic growth, democratic citizenship and social cohesion.” (ECML, n.d., p. 2). Additionally, they outline a strategic objective to focus on the practice of learning and teaching languages.

What the Project has Achieved So Far

During the main project, online action research tools were developed to help language teachers become involved, including an action research spiral designed with language teachers in mind and with their input. We see the ARC-Spiral as a central piece. For the ARC team, the spiral was a part of our shared conceptual understanding of action- research (Altrichter & Posch, 2007; Feldman et al., 2018), and we wanted to include a spiral as one of the project tools. However, finding the path was an iterative process. It was only through a mutual learning process with language teacher participants that we discovered the importance of focusing on the beginning. As many were struggling to begin their action research, we decided to offer support before an action research project is initiated. Thus, the first step is the ‘Breakthrough’ step, which includes a focus on finding and reflecting on aspects of teaching practice. This is followed by the ‘On your way’ step, which includes guidance on finding a research question, and choosing suitable action research tools and methods for data recording and analysing data. ‘On your way’ also includes a checklist for conducting an action research project. The final step is entitled ‘Going further,’ and it highlights the cyclical nature of action research.

This step provides support for teachers who wish to take their research further and includes best practice examples of teachers’ research (see also Gallagher-Brett &

Lechner, 2020a).

In addition to the spiral, there are other resources and activities to encourage involvement in action research both for teachers just starting out and for action research trainers. There is also a collection of teachers’ success stories.

What we are Trying to do at Present

Currently, the project is being disseminated through the Training & Consultancy (TaC) programme, which means that there are opportunities to hold workshops in different European countries to introduce language teachers to action research. The TaC programme provides opportunities to contribute to the ECML's strategic objectives to help its Member States implement effective language teaching policies by:

• focusing on the practice of learning and teaching languages

• promoting dialogue and exchange among those in the field

• training multipliers

• supporting programme-related networks and research projects

Our commitment to support teachers getting started with action research is ongoing.

There are six members of the project team, and to date, we have held face-to-face action-research introductory seminars for German teachers in Romania as well as for teachers of nine different languages in Iceland. However, due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, workshops and teachers’ action research projects had to move online during 2020 and 2021.

ACTION RESEARCH IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Action research has long supported teachers creating educational changes in their own classrooms (Elliott, 1991) and in widening “their knowledge and their professional competency” (Feldman et al., 2018, p. 6). It provides teachers with tools to investigate aspects of their own practice and experiment with new ideas (Feldman et al., 2018).

Studies with language teachers have shown that doing action research results in improved motivation (Banegas et al., 2013) and higher levels of self-efficacy (Cabaroglu, 2014). In a study of the sustainability of action research among language teachers, Edwards and Burn (2016) concluded, the “development of a more reflective mindset together with the use of research skills while conducting action research seems to have led teachers to establish more open, collaborative approaches to their teaching” (p. 11).

These factors point to action research offering potential benefits to language teachers and our aim was to bring some of these benefits to language teachers working in a specific European context. Additionally, over the past three decades, much has been written about the collaborative action-research based courses, called Pädagogik und Fachdidaktik für LehrerInnen, which are run by the University of Klagenfurt, Austria;

particularly, about the advantages of this form of teacher development for classroom practice (Rauch & Wallner, 2019; Lechner & Spann, 2019). Lechner has taught on these courses for language teachers and has directly observed the value of this kind of collaborative action research, which can also be found in papers written and published online by teachers participating in courses (IMST-Wiki, n.d.).

However, the work and life challenges impact the language teachers’ capacity to conduct action research (Aga, 2017). Language teachers have been reported to lack time in their busy workloads (Edwards & Burns, 2016; Kayaoglue, 2015) and to lack knowledge of, and access to appropriate research methods (Borg, 2015; Edwards & Burns, 2016).

Indeed, Borg (2015) argued that action research is often seen as being outside of language teachers’ normal work and not integrated into regular pedagogic practice. All these barriers for language teachers were identified in their pre-pandemic environments. Our challenge therefore was to find ways to support their engagement with action research during Covid-19, when they were facing numerous additional difficulties.

Language Teaching in a Pandemic

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, teaching was already considered to be a highly stressful occupation, and the pandemic required a sudden shift to online delivery in the form of emergency remote teaching and working from home, which can blur the work / life boundaries. Teachers were often also home-schooling their own children at the same time as teaching (MacIntyre et al., 2020) and caring for elderly relatives (Moser et al., 2021). Additionally, language teaching and learning are inherently social activities, and everything social was disrupted by the pandemic. Language teaching relies on interactive and communicative methodological approaches and involves learners interacting together in pairs for developing speaking skills. This can be more difficult online. An international survey of language teachers during the pandemic reported that teachers had almost no time to prepare for the shift to online, and were very stressed by workload, family health, and loss of control over work (MacIntyre et al., 2020). In the U.S., a study reported that many language teachers had no prior experience of teaching online, so they were also engaged in constant professional development at the same time as teaching (Wong et al., 2021). It has long been acknowledged that language

educators receive little training or professional development in how to use technology in their teaching (Borthwick & Gallagher-Brett, 2014; Hubbard, 2008). It is against this backdrop that we had to move the ARC project online.

METHODOLOGY

Our Approach

One of the main aims of our work with teachers is to enable them to reflect on practice and to propose and test innovations within a supportive community. The importance of reflection in action research is well documented (Feldman et al., 2018; Simmons et al., 2021) as “action research involves learning in and through action and reflection”

(McNiff & Whitehead, 2002, p. 15).

Our approach therefore has been to situate reflection as central to our own actions in planning, conducting, and re-planning our project work with a group of teachers in Lithuania, and subsequently adapting our actions for later work with teachers in Sweden. In line with Simmons and colleagues (2021), this has been a cyclical process for us, and we have utilised the action research cycle proposed by Altrichter and Posch (2007), with its cycles of observation, practical theories, and ideas for action.

We have drawn on data from the following sources:

• Our discussions in regular video conversations.

• Entries from our regular email communications.

• Entries from our reflective journals made following video conversations and webinars with teachers.

• Results of a formal evaluation survey with teachers conducted by the ECML (this is organised by the funders with a focus on the quality and receptiveness of the professional development opportunity rather than specifically on action research. It consisted of a series of rating scales and a small number of open questions).

• Teacher visualisations of research interests on Padlet.

• Written action research reports produced by teachers and published on the website of the ECML.

The timeline of actions is outlined below. Frequent emailing between the authors took place from the first email on 26 May 2020.

Table 1

Timeline of author actions with one another, with teachers, and with the Lithuanian organiser

Date Actions

26 May 2020 1st email on planning for Lithuania

8 June 2020 Introductory online webinar with teachers (meet & greet) 10 July 2020 Video conversation

17 July 2020 Video conversation

18 September 2020 Email with organiser confirming prospect of no travel to Lithuania in 2020

28 September 2020 Pre-workshop: First insights into action research and the ARC

project

9 October 2020 Organiser request for additional webinar to clarify teacher questions

16 October 2020 Video conversation

3 November 2020 Set up of Padlet for teacher visualisations

5 November 2020 Pre-workshop: Clarifying action research questions and tasks 13 November 2020 Video conversation

10 December 2020 Final planning meeting with organiser in Lithuania 10 December 2020 Main workshop: action research in your context

11 December 2020 Main workshop: planning your action research mini project 28 January 2021 Follow-up workshop: Q&A session

16 April 2021 Video Conversation

4 February 2021 Final workshop: presentation of projects ECML evaluation survey

16 April 2021 Video conversation

3 May 2021 First meeting with Swedish organizers 21 May 2021 Video conversation

25 May 2021 Teacher reports from Lithuania published online by ECML

Analysis of data was carried out by searching data sources for emerging themes in line with grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and revisiting data sources to check for the most common themes.

How we Tackled Action Research as Professional Development in a Pandemic As members of the ARC team, we were all working in countries with differing responses to the pandemic, but we shared experiences of relative isolation, worries about elderly loved ones and family members working on the front line and “living in crisis mode”

(Call-Cummings et al., 2020, p. 27). However, we were privileged being able to work completely from home, and we were aware that we were going to be working with teachers whose situations may be very different.

Collaborative action research, as outlined by Feldman and colleagues (2018), informed our planning. We became aware during the planning process that we were not going to meet the teachers face-to-face as travel to Lithuania was not possible. This limitation meant that some knowledge and experience of the context would be missing. Usually, we gain knowledge of the educational and cultural context as we conduct workshops, and this enables us to adapt and modify content along the way. Our perception was that this would be more difficult in a remote context without the ability to chat with teachers during the workshops and over coffee.

As would have been the case in normal times, we worked closely with the Lithuanian facilitator, a local university teacher educator, to organize everything. She provided

important information on how the teachers were working during the pandemic (i.e., remotely) and informed us that they would attend our workshops in the early evening after they had completed their teaching for the day. This meant that we could not expect to run overly long sessions. Therefore, workshops were planned as a series of one hour and two-hour blocks.

This differed significantly from pre-pandemic times when participants would have attended a two-day workshop and then been invited to a follow-up presentation session. We opted for a series of workshops on the basis that shorter time slots could be more effective in online formats while providing the necessary flexibility for teachers working in challenging circumstances. As can be viewed in Table 1, additional sessions were added at the request of the participating teachers and the facilitator, following questions they raised, including: “How can I identify a problem? How can I formulate a question? Can I do action research when I’m teaching online?” The ability to add extra sessions was an advantage of the increased flexibility of the online format.

Introductory workshops aimed to encourage teachers to begin thinking about the starting points, issues, and questions for their action research projects. The importance of finding suitable starting points for research has been emphasised by Feldman and colleagues (2018), and it was with this in mind that we asked teachers to prepare a visualization on an area of interest with a “developmental perspective” (Feldman et al., 2018, p. 67). To support teachers’ thinking on this, we posed questions aimed at encouraging them to consider their scope for action, its relevance to their practice, its manageability in terms of time and resources, and ethical questions (Feldman et al., 2018). They welcomed the opportunity to clarify these issues at the second pre- workshop. We were aware that teachers may be hesitant about sharing their thoughts on their classroom practice with their colleagues, with facilitators, and with us, as we were perceived as experts. The main workshop (10-11 December 2020) included teachers’ visual presentations of their research topics, which they had uploaded in advance to Padlet. At this workshop, we wanted to ensure the opportunity for further development of their starting points, and we used analytic discourse for this purpose.

Teachers provided a small group of colleagues with information about their research starting points and responded to non-judgemental questioning, which is intended to lead to a “deeper understanding of the problem” (Feldman et al., 2018, p. 101).

How to use action research tools such as journals, questionnaires, interviews, and observation for collecting data were also covered, although this could not be done in depth in the time available, so we also pointed teachers towards additional resources in the ARC-Spiral and informed them that we were always available to act as critical friends throughout the process. In line with advice in Feldman and colleagues (2018), we provided space for teachers to discuss with us and with their colleagues to develop a research plan and to obtain feedback on the feasibility of their plan within the context of their pandemic teaching practice. The research was intended to be conducted over a short period of time, so the projects needed to be small and manageable. As their projects got underway, teachers had lots of questions around narrowing down their research focus, analyzing the data and information they gathered, and ethical issues, which were addressed in a follow-up workshop in January. As in the case of the additional pre-workshop, this session was offered as a Q&A session to encourage teachers to share their practice. We also provided a structured template to assist

teachers with writing up projects based on our previous experience that teachers can find this stage difficult. Following suggestions in the literature regarding guided support with writing can help (Dikilitaş & Mumford, 2016).

Teachers then shared the results of their research at the presentation workshop. They had worked on a range of classroom interests that had been self-identified. As reported by Gallagher-Brett, Kasumagic-Kafedžić, Lechner, Mihiau, and Ragnarsdottir (2021), four teachers from the same school conducted a project that set out to identify more effective ways of providing learners with feedback online. They discovered the benefits of actually talking to learners about learning, rather than simply focusing on lesson content. Their project was so successful that they were invited to give talks about their action research projects in other schools, and they are continuing to work together as a professional learning community. Another teacher investigated how to make online essay writing attractive for students, and discovered through her classroom research that she had not been focusing enough on the emotional aspects of writing. She also found that students enjoyed having a choice of topics to write about. Other projects focused on encouraging learners to speak the target language in class and finding ways to overcome anxiety around speaking. For the teachers, publishing a report about their teaching was a step out of their comfort zone, but they were proud to see the results online on a Padlet linked to the project website. However, we were aware of issues surrounding workload throughout the process, as well as problems of connectivity and managing childcare within the presentation session. Overall, it was a positive experience for us, and we reflected on our observations of the process, practical theories about the process, and our ideas for future actions.

OUR OBSERVATIONS AND PRACTICAL THEORIES

These reflections come from the key themes we identified in our video conversations, emails, entries from our reflective journals, the ECML evaluation survey, and the action research reports produced by the participating language teachers in Lithuania. We identified four emerging themes:

• Difficult working lives of participating teachers during Covid-19.

• Positive outcomes for teachers in their action research journeys.

• Challenges around the research-practice nexus and the positioning of expertise and authority.

• Progress of our own professional development as online teachers of action research.

Difficult Working Lives of Participating Teachers During Covid-19

What emerged clearly from emails over the summer and fall of 2020 was that we were receiving information about the immense strain teachers were working under. They were working long hours doing remote teaching while not necessarily having all the right equipment and, in some cases, home-schooling their own children as well. This aligns with literature cited earlier (MacIntyre et al., 2020). Technology-related problems among language teachers during the pandemic were also reported in other studies (British Council, 2020; Gregersen et al., 2021). The authors of the studies also found that language teachers were very stressed managing their home lives. Along with the facilitator, we feared at some points that we would not be able to go ahead with the action research projects as the they could have turned into one thing too many for the

teachers to handle. Fortunately, this was not the case, though it became clear that some teachers were managing multiple responsibilities during action research workshops.

Positive Outcomes for Teachers in their Action Research Journeys

Teachers tried out new ideas in their classrooms using action research tools and they shared about the process and outcomes with us and their colleagues. The evaluation survey was completed by 14 teachers, all of whom agreed that the presented approaches were useful for their work. They believed that learners in Lithuania could benefit from implementation of the approaches and that this professional development had motivated them to become more active in networking within the professional community. Of the 14 teachers, 11 indicated that they planned to carry out follow-up activities, while three did not. In responses to open questions, teachers commented:

The experience was new. Alongside the Action Research practices the group was learning to cooperate using online platforms. It is good that the event was integrative. Teachers had a possibility to develop IT usage skills as well.

Thank you very much for the possibility to participate in the AR courses.

Everything was perfect: the lecturers, the participants and the atmosphere. I have received beneficial information that I am going to use in my work.

The only negative comment was a complaint that participants were not clearly informed about the format of their certificates.

The quotation above (related to increased competence in working online) was something similarly reported by Borg (2021) in an international survey of teacher educators. Overall, the survey results echo our own observations about the process. An entry from one of our research journals after the final presentations said, “Uplifting afternoon seeing outcomes of lang[uage] teaching action research. Amazing work on remote learning” (reflective journal entry, 4^th February 2021). A later email reads “we certainly seem to have impacted in Lithuania” (email, 18^th March 2021). We believe that the teachers did carry out action research in line with Feldman’s (2007) definition:

Action research happens when people are involved in researching their own practice in order to improve it and to come to a better understanding of their practice situations. It is action because they act within the systems that they are trying to improve and understand. (p. 242)

In their action research presentations and written reports, teachers identified benefits for their students, considered how reflection and discussion enhanced learning, and indicated that their students felt privileged to be asked about their learning. They perceived that their projects had resulted in improved teacher-student dialogue. For example: “Student progress directly depends on the quality of teacher-student dialogue”

(Verseckienė, 2021, p. 2). Engagement in these projects raised teachers’ awareness that emotional aspects of learning were more significant than they had previously realized.

For instance: “I used to focus too much on academic progress and too little on the emotional aspect of the learning process” (Reimerienė, 2021, p. 2). A teacher working on enhancing the experience of essay writing for students made surprising discoveries about how students approached tasks. The teacher found that 50% of her students said they never planned before writing, 20% preferred to write an essay in Lithuanian and

then translate it into English, 20% never went back to revise and improve grammar, spelling, vocabulary etc., and only 5% discussed their ideas with other students or the teacher. For the teacher, these insights pointed to new ways forward (Karosienė, 2021).

Despite the challenges, teachers increased their awareness of action research and reflective practice, and of developing solutions to classroom problems in line with previous suggestions in the literature (Kayaoglue, 2015). The series of workshops and engagement with the projects gave teachers opportunities to work and reflect together, which we identified as beneficial in a time of great isolation during Covid-19. Even in pre-pandemic times, literature suggests that action research supports teachers in overcoming problems of isolation in their work (Yuan & Burns, 2017). A British Council (2020) survey also suggested that language teachers and teacher educators showed interest in sharing via communities of practice during Covid-19. This aligns with the fact that one of our teacher groups is continuing to work as a professional learning community. As argued by Feldman and colleagues (2018), this kind of community represents an important location for reflection.

Challenges: The Research-Practice Nexus and Positioning Expertise and Authority We also encountered challenges linked to the gap between research and practice, and around the positioning of expertise and authority. The gap between research and practice is a well-recognised problem in the literature, perhaps further complicated by the remote work context resulting from the pandemic. Problems in relationships between university and school teachers have been reported in previous action research (Wang & Zhang, 2014). This could have become a more pronounced problem in our workshops as teachers were dealing with additional pandemic challenges and we were unable to develop more informal relationships with them during coffee breaks where social chat can assist with breaking down barriers. Working remotely also limited our knowledge of the cultural context. From the beginning, we perceived that there was interest in the action research concepts but also worries about extra work involved. we acknowledged that teachers’ concerns were reasonable, and tried to convey the idea that classroom action research should be about improve daily practice rather than embarking on an entirely new project that is less relevant to everyday practice.

Linked to this was teachers’ unfamiliarity with writing up their projects, which is often an expectation in research circles. Not all the teachers who presented projects wrote them up for publication via the ECML website, and this is something we have experienced before the pandemic. This is not necessarily a problem. It is well- documented that university academics struggle with academic writing (Cameron et al., 2009) so why should we expect school teachers to be any different? The teachers carried out innovations and shared practice with their colleagues, but not everyone took the final step of making their work public outside the group. For those who were keen to publish, we provided a template for writing up their research and we mentored them via email, providing advice from the literature (Dikilitas & Mumford, 2016). This is an area for us to reflect on more: How can we encourage more teachers to share their findings? A primary issue here is motivation. What would motivate teachers to write up their research? We could consider including more discussion of potential dissemination of their research and its benefits since writing is essential for dissemination beyond the immediate group. Dikilitaş and Mumford (2016) reported that overcoming a lack of confidence was a big concern. To address this in the future, we could draw upon the

expertise of Lechner, who has taught postgraduate writing, to develop a writing workshop for teachers; we could also feature regular writing tips as part of the overall process.

From the outset, it seemed to us that we were positioned as experts, as people with authoritative knowledge to impart, which made it difficult to hear the teachers’ voices.

Yuan and Burns (2017) suggest that school teachers can feel junior when working with university staff. Yet, our goal was to position the teachers as experts in their own classroom practice. During the introductory workshops, we had the sense that the sessions were about us and the knowledge we had to impart rather than about teaching practice of those present being central to discussions (Gallagher-Brett & Lechner, 2020b). We are unsure if this would have happened in a face-to-face context, but this had not been our experience prior to this. We find ourselves in agreement with Feldman (2020) that trust between outside facilitators and groups of practitioners takes time to develop and can be easier in face-to-face environments. However, the online introductory workshops (which were not part of our face-to-face practice) provided us with the opportunity to reflect and make changes for the main workshops, and to try to put teaching practice at the centre. During the main workshop, the visualizations on issues of concern in practice enabled teachers to ask questions about each other’s teaching, to connect it with their own experiences, and to expand the conversation to consider obstacles in their relationships with students caused by the remote learning environment. This was also reported in work with science teachers (Feldman, 2020).

We also encouraged contributions to the chat in any language in the hope that it would help teachers to feel more comfortable and would increase their participation.

Languages used were English, German, and Lithuanian (the latter being translated by the Lithuanian facilitator). We cannot claim to have overcome all the obstacles around our positioning because we could not read the context or read the room. However, we took the opportunities we had to reflect and made changes where possible.

Progress of our own Professional Development as Online Teachers of AR

The experience of running the workshops was a steep learning curve for us. We did not know in the beginning that it would be online and then later, what would be possible. However, we learned together with the teachers, and we considered ourselves to be part of the reflective learning community with them (Feldman et al., 2018). Now we are more confident that we can work in this way, and have since done similar workshops for language teachers in Sweden where we adopted practices that worked well for the Lithuanian teachers, such as the introductory workshops.

We also learned that asynchronous tools work well asynchronously. The ARC-Spiral was designed in pre-pandemic times but intended to be used asynchronously. It seemed to be much more effective with teachers who were getting used to working with asynchronous online content, as in the case of the teachers in Lithuania. In reports on their action research, teachers stated that they had followed the steps of the Spiral and used its accompanying materials. This was more prevalent than in face-to-face times.

Similarly, we had not used Padlet before in this work, but it captured teachers’

visualisations of their practice and was employed for publishing final reports.

In the end, we felt deep admiration for the teachers from Lithuania. For us, that is the biggest learning point. We had the impression that they worked constantly and were

extremely driven to do the very best for their learners; they worried about doing things in the right way. Their high level of written and spoken English were impressive considering that those who attended schools and universities before 1991 did not have opportunities for direct contact with people in the target-language countries. It was impressive that the participants managed to complete and present their projects despite problems with connections, having to use school computers during lockdown, and managing other responsibilities during presentations.

IDEAS FOR ACTION

Our ideas for action are based on taking forward what we learned from working with this group of teachers in Lithuania. First, the increased flexibility of the online format enabled us to provide more opportunities for discussion than was the case in face-to- face, for example, the introductory workshop and the additional question and answer sessions at teachers’ requests. Discussion time seemed to be highly valued. We subsequently adopted this approach in a series of online workshops with teachers in Sweden in 2021 who developed action research projects, and we hope to be more courageous in offering greater space for this when we return to face-to-face contexts.

Similarly, we have continued to use online notice boards to gather teachers’ ideas from their practice, which has given participants the opportunity to come back and look at the work again, which was not offered in previous face-to-face workshops. As this seems to support additional reflection, we intend to continue with this.

With regard to teachers writing up their research, we continue to develop ideas to support teachers in doing this with the possibility of asynchronous writing resources and an optional writing workshop. Another future focus will be to ensure that the series of workshops is perceived as a whole, from introducing action research concepts through to discussions of issues of concern in practice, developing projects, asking and discussing questions and presenting and reporting on research. Despite the difficulties, the pandemic has enabled us to enhance what we do, which is an important point for us.

Plans at the time of writing are for in-person, face-to-face action research workshops and projects in Armenia, Denmark, and Iceland, and these will include the additional spaces that we have highlighted.

There is a great deal to be learned from the teachers. Through them we came to understand what a learning community actually means and implies. Up to this point, the concept had been vague for us. Through viewing the participants and the community as

‘a spider’s web,’ as a living community, the concept became tangible. This living community is ongoing and thriving in Lithuania, as communicated to us through emails over a period of two years - from initial preparations for the pre-workshop to now.

Through ongoing correspondence, we learned that at one of the grammar schools, a teacher took on the role of guiding her colleagues and co-ordinating their projects. Since completing the first stage of their own projects, this group has introduced teachers of other subjects at the school to action research, and were also invited to hold Continuing Professional Development courses in other parts of the country.

We believe that we have shown how it is possible to support language teachers through action research in difficult times and to foster positive teacher engagement. We would like to leave our final word to one of the language teachers in Lithuania who reported:

We have acquired much knowledge about AR and gained invaluable experience each carrying out an individual AR and constantly sharing and discussing our progress as a PLC (Professional Learning Community). We have shared our AR project results with pedagogical staff of our “Gimnazija”

and with participants of a regional language teachers’ conference. (teacher participant).

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: _______________________________

Dr. Angela Gallagher-Brett teaches on the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. Her research interests are action research and motivation in language learning and teaching. She has been working as part of Action Research Communities for Language Teachers since 2016 and was formerly a teacher of French and German in high schools around London.

Dr. Christine Lechner is a teacher educator with many years of experience in both initial teacher education at the Pedagogical University Tyrol and in action-research- based Continuing Professional Development courses run by the University of Klagenfurt. She has been involved in numerous EU activities and is currently the co- ordinator of the European Centre for Modern Languages project on action research

“Action Research Communities for language teachers”. Her research interests are action research and language teaching.

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