During the first half of 2018 the ARC-Team have had different opportunities to disseminate and discuss the project internationally.
Bielefeld, Germany
In January Marianne Jacquin, Christine Lechner and Renata Zanin held a presentation at the 6th CARN DACH (Collaborated Action Research Network in German-speaking countries) Symposium in Bielefeld.
The main focus of this presentation was to demonstrate to an action research community how language teachers in different settings across the ECML countries can take first steps towards action research together. We presented some of the projects developed by participants of the ARC Workshop in November 2016 showing successes and challenges. It was the challenges that have led the project team to the development of the tools to “get teachers” into action research. The next CARN DACH meeting is to be held in Innsbruck in January 2019.
Hong Kong
In early March Christine Lechner held a talk at the Hong Kong Education University on Action Research in Initial Teacher Education & Continuing Professional Development in Austria and further Council of Europe countries. (Abstract)
Participants were lecturers and students at the HKIED, well informed about Lesson and Learning study approaches but less acquainted with further European action research practices. The talk focussed on the role and implications of action research at schools, in initial teacher education and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in Europe and specifically on the ARC project showing examples from network participants and also the project tools as being currently developed.
Narva (Estonia)
In March Renata Zanin presented the project at the International Research Workshop on Multilingual Education at European Borderlands (15 March 2018, Tartu University, Narva College, Narva Estonia). (Programme)
The paper presented the ARC project aims in general and in detail the pre-spiral for action research communities designed by the ARC-research team to support teachers in projecting and carrying out action research projects in their language classes with teachers of their school or of schools within their region in detail
The audience were lecturers and students from the University of Tartu, Narva College and language teachers of schools, as well as lecturers from other European Universities. They all showed great interest in the ARC-pre-spiral and in the project as a whole.
Liverpool, United Kingdom
In June Angela Gallagher-Brett presented on ARC at the Innovative Language Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Liverpool (InnoConf 18 book of abstracts). This presentation focused on the importance of collaborative action research for language teacher empowerment and development. Angela demonstrated examples of projects developed by ARC participants and discussed the challenges experienced as well as the successes. She also explained the tools under development and highlighted the Action Research Spiral.
The audience were higher education language lecturers and tutors from UK universities who expressed considerable interest in the project tools and there has already been follow-up from the University of Liverpool where an action research training day for staff is now being planned.
- Project website "Action research communities for language teachers" (2016-2019):
English - German
The project team:
Christine Lechner (project coordinator, Austria), Angela Gallagher-Brett (United Kingdom),
Tita Mihaiu (Romania), Brynhildur Anna Ragnarsdóttir (Iceland)