I’d like to thank Nikki Ashcraft, past chair of TEIS, and the TEIS membership for creating space for this discussion of self-study in teacher education practices (SSTEP). I write as the current chair of TESOL’s Research Professional Council (RPC), but this article reflects my position and is not an official missive of the RPC. I am an advocate for teacher educators and the invaluable role they play in advancing the research and contributing to the knowledge base of language teaching and learning. I begin with an overview of the RPC’s work and the critical role teacher educators play in TESOL (the field and the international organization) and then address how SSTEP bridges these two areas.

In addition to actively connecting research to practice, the RPC is charged with promoting and operationalizing TESOL’s Research Agenda (TESOL International Association, 2014) and research priorities, keeping the membership informed of research trends, identifying gaps in the literature, and promoting dialogue between users and doers of research. The Research Agenda itself calls for expanding the parameters of research, which “necessitates epistemological flexibility and inclusiveness” (p. 4), and “more attention to how practitioners can use research” (p. 2).

TEIS members fill a unique role in addressing the research charges of TESOL because we constantly work at the nexus of research and practice. We often must “blur the lines between analysis and action, inquiry and experience, theorizing and doing teacher education” (Cochran-Smith, 2005, p. 2). Our scholarship of practice creates and opens for examination the pedagogy of TESOL. Inherent to the nature of our work in designing and implementing teacher education curriculum and courses is the dialogue between doers (e.g., authors of course readings) and users (e.g., our teacher learners) of research. When we turn our practice into public scholarship (manuscripts, conference presentations, etc.,), we often are making the realities of classroom teaching and teachers available to researchers who lack such access.

Teacher educators also play a critical role in TESOL’s stated mission: “advancing the quality of English language teaching” (TESOL International Association, n.d.), and nearly a quarter of the membership identify as teacher educators, making our interest section the largest in the organization (TESOL International Association, 2016). Yet, little attention is paid to the development of teacher educators—as learners, as scholar-practitioners, and as policy advocates, and how these intersecting, often competing, strands of our work contribute to the overall knowledge base on second language teacher education (SLTE; Borg, 2015; Wright, 2010). As Wright (2010) notes, despite now several decades of publications on SLTE, “there is relatively little discussion of teacher education pedagogy in practice, and its relationship to…teacher learning” (p. 288). But this issue is not unique to SLTE.

In a recent special issue on the topic of teacher educator development, the editors of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) called the general education audience’s attention to a gap in the teacher education knowledge base, highlighting the prevalent but troublesome assumption that “a good teacher will become a good teacher educator” (Knight et al., 2014, p. 268). SSTEP was included in this special issue for its usefulness in addressing the knowledge gap (Loughran, 2014).

The scope of issues raised in the JTE volume evoke the paradigm shifting special issue of TESOL Quarterly coedited by Donald Freeman and Karen Johnson (1998) that argued for a reconceptualization of the knowledge base for language teacher education, placing teachers as learners and as learners of teaching as central to SLTE. A strong strand throughout the volume and espoused by its numerous contributors was the valuing of teachers’ voices, perspectives, and processes in their learning and articulation of their learning. In the decade following the Freeman and Johnson volume, publications on SLTE, whether handbooks (e.g., Burns & Richards, 2009), reviews of the research (e.g., Borg, 2015; Wright 2010), and/or approaches to SLTE (e.g., Johnson, 2009) highlighted issues, processes, conceptual frameworks, typical practices (e.g., reflective practice, classroom inquiry, peer collaborations), and so on, but with little attention paid to the role of the language teacher educator. How might we now reconceptualize the pedagogy and scholarship of SLTE by highlighting the role of the teacher educator as learner, as researcher, as practitioner? How might SSTEP help us with this work?

SSTEP is a type of practitioner inquiry undertaken by teacher educators with the dual purpose of improving their practice while also acknowledging their role in teacher learning and the larger project of preparing high-quality teachers (see Madigan-Peercy in this newsletter). Internationally, SSTEP has gained increased legitimacy in the general teacher education research community over the last 20 years. SSTEP scholarship has been published in major research journals (Review of Educational Research; JTE; JTE of Australia; Teaching and Teacher Education; Educational Research); it has been included as a legitimate research genre in major handbooks on research in teacher education (e.g., Cochran-Smith, Feiman-Nemser, McIntrye, & Demers, 2008); it has spawned a series of methods books (see, e.g., Lassonde, Galman, & Kosnik, 2009; Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, & Russell, 2004); and a peer-reviewed journal, Studying Teacher Education, recently marked its 10th anniversary in 2014. SSTEP is the largest special interest group in the American Education Research Association. However, SSTEP is relatively absent and/or misunderstood in the major applied linguistics journals, including those of TESOL. A search for SSTEP in TESOL Quarterly turned up only two mentions of SSTEP (as defined here): a brief synopsis of an article on SSTEP from JTE and a study written by current TEIS chair Laura Baecher (2012) calling for the use of SSTEP in addressing the reality gap novice teachers often report in their teacher education programs. This low visibility is a bit surprising given the strong tradition of practitioner inquiry in SLTE, the hot topic of teacher identity, the established acceptance of narrative inquiry, and the ongoing calls in the major applied linguistics professional organizations and journals for more researcher-practitioner dialogues and for expanding the parameters of who participates in and owns “research” (see, e.g., Borg, 2010, 2015; TESOL International Association, 2014).

Anecdotally, a number of TEIS members have reported that they have been discouraged from calling their work SSTEP because reviewers within applied linguistics journals do not accept it as real research. This is a bit surprising given that research journals with higher impact factors such as those listed above do recognize and publish SSTEP studies. Digging deeper—or beyond labels—there have been a number of TESOL Quarterly articles that reflect epistemologies and goals of SSTEP but do not use that term. It’s beyond the scope of this piece to address the rationale—whether authors were unfamiliar with the genre or had been discouraged from naming their work as SSTEP—but it is an issue worth pursuing. As Paulo Freire taught us, naming the world is a powerful step in transforming it. Here, naming or claiming SSTEP is integral to advancing its acceptance. More important for TEIS members, SSTEP elevates the work of teacher educators in improving practice and research.

Promoting the role of SSTEP in advancing the research in TESOL is consistent with keeping the membership abreast of trends in the field, identifying existing gaps in the TESOL research literature (development of teacher educators/teacher education), fostering dialogue between users and doers of research, and arguing for more epistemological inclusiveness in research. I invite TEIS members to keep these charges in mind when reading the collection of brief articles on SSTEP in this newsletter, and to consider using the language of the TESOL Research Agenda and priorities when seeking support for designing and implementing SSTEP research projects (see, e.g., the newly established TESOL Research Mini-Grants), acting as reviewers for publications, and in their own publications.

References

Borg, S. (2010). Language teacher research engagement. Language Teaching, 43, 391–429.

Borg, S. (2015). Research in language teacher education. In B. Paltridge & A. Pakhiti (Eds.), Research methods in applied linguistics: A practical resource. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

Burns, A., & Richards, J. (2009). The Cambridge guide to second language teacher education. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Cochran-Smith, M. (2005). Teacher educators as researchers: Multiple perspectives. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(2), 219–225.

Cochran-Smith, M., Feiman-Nemser, S., McIntyre, D. J., & Demers, K. E. (2008). Handbook of research on teacher education: Enduring questions in changing contexts. New York, NY: Routledge.

Freeman, D., & Johnson, K. E. (1998). Reconceptualizing the knowledge-base of language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 32(3), 397–417.

Johnson, K. (2009). Second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective. New York, NY: Routledge.

Knight, S., Lloyd, G., Arbaugh, F., Gamson, D., McDonald, S., & Nolan, J. (2014). Professional development and practices of teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 268–271.

Lassonde, C., Galman, S., & Kosnik, C. (2009). Self-study methodologies for teacher educators. Boston, MA: Sense.

Loughran, J. (2014). Professionally developing as a teacher educator. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 271–283.

Loughran, J., Hamilton, M. L., LaBoskey, V. K., & Russell, T. (2004). International handbook of self-study practices, part two. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic.

TESOL International Association. (n.d. a). Mission and values. Retrieved from http://www.tesol.org/about-tesol/association-governance/mission
-and-values

TESOL International Association. (2014). Research agenda 2014. Retrieved from http://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/pdf/2014_tesol
-research-agenda.pdf?sfvrsn=2

TESOL International Association (2016). 2016 Membership Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/membership
/february-2016-membership-statistics.pdf?sfvrsn=0

Wright, T. (2010). Second language teacher education: Review of recent research on practice. Language Teaching Research, 43(3), 259–296.

Judy Sharkey is associate professor in the Education Department at the University of New Hampshire. Her work focuses on preparing teachers for plurilingual/cultural communities, particularly those serving transmigrant populations. She is a past chair of the TEIS and currently serves as the chair of TESOL’s Research Professional Council.