News

Australia: Classroom research gives English teachers boost

24 June 2011

The increasing engagement between English teachers in Australia and classroom-based research is the focus of the latest edition of assessment journal Research Notes.

English Australia’s action research project, launched at the end of last year, was funded by the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL). The study involved English teachers from around Australia carrying out research in their classrooms on motivation, participation, personal development and the role of technology in teaching. The teachers all work in the ELICOS sector (English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students) in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.

Professor Anne Burns from the University of New South Wales who co-ordinated the project said:

“Bringing research into the ELICOS classroom has helped teachers to improve their skills by identifying and meeting new challenges. This has had a positive affect on overseas students and has been a boost to the ELICOS teaching community.”

The winning project, by Laura McCrossan from Perth, investigated ways of increasing progress and motivation amongst high-proficiency English language learners. Other projects included a look at obligation and motivation (Kathryn Koromilas); Exploring active participation in listening and speaking within an academic environment (Coral Campbell); the role of digital devices in vocabulary acquisition (Jock Boyd); beginner students and extensive reading (Sylvia Cher) and the impact of an extensive reading programme on vocabulary development and motivation (Dimitra Papadimitriou Aidinlis).

All those who took part presented their work at a colloquium at the English Australia conference in September 2010.

Notes:

Australia has a large in-take of overseas students who take ELICOS (English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students) courses. This sector currently has over 2,500 teachers with over 250 accredited ELICOS colleges. The funded research programme was managed by Dr Hanan Khalifa and Dr Fiona Barker from Cambridge ESOL in collaboration with Katherine Brandon from English Australia.