Shared Identities: Our
Interweaving Threads

PAC7 at JALT2008 Conference Proceedings

53

Collaborative action research: Teacher
and curriculum development
Nancy Mutoh
Kazuyoshi Sato
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
Aki Hakamada
Nagoya Municipal Shiroyama Junior High School
Hiromi Tsuji
Gifu Municipal Gifu Commercial High School
Seiji Shintani
Aichi Prefectural Bihoku Senior High School
Reference data:
Mutoh, N., Sato, K., Hakamada, A., Tsuji, H., & Shintani, S. (2009). Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development.
In A. M. Stoke (Ed.), JALT2008 conference proceedings. Tokyo: JALT.
Although action research for teacher development has gained prominence in the current literature, there has been little documentation as
to how action research influences teacher and curriculum development. This study aims at showing how EFL teachers in Japan engaged
in collaborative action research organized by university teachers and how, as a result, they changed their teaching practices in their school
contexts.
教師教育のためのアクション・リサーチが注目されているが、アクション・リサーチが教師の指導力の向上およびカリキュラム改革にどのような影響があるのかはほとんど研究されていない。
このフォーラムでは、大学の教員のサポートを得て、３名の高校・中学校の英語教員がどのように協力的なグループ・アクション・リサーチに取り組み、
自分たちの指導力を向上させたのかを報告した。

M enu

Contents

Writers

Help & FAQs

CopyrightMutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

M

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

ills (2003) defines action research (AR) as“…any systematic inquiry conducted by teacher
researchers to gather information about the waysthat their particular school operates, how they teach, and how
well their students learn. The information is gathered withthe goals of gaining insight, developing reflective practice,effecting positive changes in the school environment andon educational practices in general, and improving student
outcomes” (p. 4). The recursive cycle of AR consists ofidentifying a teaching problem or issue, finding a possible
solution (a new learning activity or new type of assessment),planning (how to adapt it to a teacher’s own class), trying
it out, reflecting on the results, revising, and trying again.
The power of action research lies in its recursive nature.
Repeating the cycle lets a teacher build on previously
gained insights and improvements, rather than lurchingfrom one new idea to another. Burns (1999) identifies two
advantages of collaborative, as opposed to individual,
action research. “Collaborative action research processes
strengthen the opportunities for the results of research onpractice to be fed back into educational systems in a more
substantial and critical way. They have the advantage ofencouraging teachers to share common problems and towork cooperatively as a research community to examine
their existing assumptions, values and beliefs” (p. 13).
Burns (1999) also observes that little is known about theextent to which Action Research changes teachers’ beliefs
and practices or how it affects students’ learning. Valuable
answers to these questions have been found during the eightyear development of a collaborative AR program at Nagoya
University of Foreign Studies (NUFS) for in-service teachers

54

of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). A symposium wasorganized by university advisors and three participants in
the AR program to share their experiences with others. As
in the symposium, this paper first presents an overview of
the AR program, followed by first-person narratives of thethree teacher-participants, two high school teachers, Hiromi
Tsuji and Seiji Shintani, and one junior high school teacher,
Aki Hakamada, describing their experiences of collaborative
AR in 2007. In conclusion, interview data of all program
participants, collected by Kazuyoshi Sato, is reported.

Evolution and annual cycle of the AR program
Creation of a teacher learning community
In 2000 a local study group, Communicative Language
Teaching Kenkyukai (CLT Research Group) was formed bySato at NUFS (Sato, 2003). The first annual NUFS Summer
Workshop was held in August 2001. In September 2005 theuniversity founded the Center for EFL Teacher Development
and started a monthly Workshop. An MA in TESOL program
was begun in 2006, and in 2007, 15 teachers (1 elementary,
7 junior high school, and 7 high school teachers, including
native English speakers) completed year-long AR projects.
Of these, 10 were MA students or were registered and taking
MA courses as non-degree students, while 5 others werein-service teachers who were interested in AR. Currently 10
teachers are enrolled in the MA TESOL program, with ten
non-degree students also taking courses. The distinguishingfeature of the MA program is that ongoing AR is a required
multi-year course, culminating in an MA Action Research
Project, equivalent to a thesis. In addition to being requiredof MA TESOL students, participation in the annual year-longMutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

AR project is also open to non-degree students and otherinterested in-service teachers who attend the monthly NUFS
Workshop.

Annual action research cycle
In May, one month into the Japanese academic year, teachers
attend an overnight study trip to receive an orientation towhat AR is and how it is done and to the year-long AR
cycle. On this intensive study trip, new and experienced
AR participants discuss teaching issues and possible AR
topics. Soon after the study trip, teachers choosing to do ayear-long AR project submit an Action Research Plan and adraft lesson plan to program advisors, who give feedback.
Teachers revise their lesson plans before using them in theirfirst action research class of the year.

Monthly AR reports
From June to February, AR participants attend the monthly
Workshop at which they learn about a variety of teachingideas, such as integrated-skill language learning activities,
communicative grammar teaching, extensive reading,conversation strategies, and methods of assessing writing
and speaking skills. An AR report session follows eachWorkshop. Action researchers report on their own AR
activities, showing their class handouts. The AR advisors andfellow in-service teachers comment and discuss.

Mid-term and year-end presentations with student data
Before the end of July, AR participants give surveys in55

their classes to understand their students’ assessment of
their own learning and their feelings about the new wayof learning. Results of this survey are included in the midterm AR report, presented at an August overnight study
trip. Participants submit their mid-term reports and the newlesson plans for advisor feedback.
The AR participants administer the same survey to theirstudents near the end of the academic year. At a Marchovernight study trip, they present their final AR reports,
handouts and comparison of mid-year and year-end survey
results. These are collected and published in book form.

Aki Hakamada’s story: Never give up. Try again!
Collaborative action research and I
I joined Dr. Sato’s Action Research group in the spring of
2006. It was helpful to hear AR reports of other workshop
members, although most of them were high school teachers.
Even so, I, a junior high school teacher, could still get some
useful advice. In 2007 more junior high school teachers
joined the AR group. Coincidentally many of them taught
the same grade and same textbook as I did. Although I
found preparing monthly reports difficult, I looked forward
to attending each meeting because I got many ideas formy own lessons. Through the years, I got much advice andencouragement from the members. I want to thank them.
Without them, I could not have continued my action researchand improving my teaching.

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My action research
A big first step: Communicative activities in the“Challenge Sheet”
In 2006, my school had serious discipline problems. Because
controlling my students was so difficult, I usually gave thema handout, which I called a “Challenge Sheet,” containing
7 activities for individual in-class study. These included
activities such as copying the English text, reading theEnglish text aloud, and practicing the new words by writing
each one five times.
When I reported on my Challenge Sheet to other AR
members, Dr. Sato said those activities were boring, mechanicaldrills and memorization. He advised me to make the activities
more communicative. At that time, I couldn’t imagine mystudents doing communicative activities, even though at theWorkshop I heard how important it was. A Workshop member
who was teaching communicatively reported that her students
got higher test scores than students in other classes. The other
AR members often reported the success of a communicative
activity in which students first write their own information andideas and then talk about them. That sounded too difficult for
my students, but I resolved to have them try.
I encountered two issues when planning the write-andtalk activity. Students felt that writing their own original
sentences was too difficult. An AR member suggested that
scaffolding was necessary, that I needed to give students
models and useful expressions, so I did. With those, more
students were able to write more. Next I wondered who
my students would speak to. I remembered that several AR
members had put their students into small groups, so that56

they would feel more relaxed as they spoke. I decided to try
that. At first, a couple of students refused to say anything.
When they saw members of other groups talking, however,they changed their minds and spoke! Working in small
groups led to success.
Soon after this, I introduced a real conversation activity
in which each student had a turn talking with my AssistantLanguage Teacher (ALT) for the first time. Students wrote “Ienjoyed the activity a lot. It was like a normal conversation”
and “I was very nervous because I couldn’t speak English
well, but I am glad that I could speak better than I expected.
I think I am closer to the ALT now.” After about a year ofAR, I was finally able to try out communicative activities inmy own classes because the good ideas from other teachers
had given me enough confidence to take the risk.

More communicative teaching in my new school
In 2007 I transferred to a different junior high school, where
I could use more of the communicative activities that I had
learned about in my AR group. I discovered, however, that
new activities seldom went smoothly the first time. Advice
from advisors and fellow AR teachers helped me improvethem. A communicative grammar activity was improved bysuch suggestions. To teach the grammar point “How many…” I had students ask each other “How many CDs [andother things] do you have?” In the first class, I let students
have a conversation with a partner of their choice. I observedthat some were not having a conversation at all; they were
simply copying each others’ prepared answers. I recalled theWorkshop technique of changing partners several times byrotating according to rows. After some initial confusion, myMutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identitiesstudents came to understand the rotation pattern, and started
having real conversations. The variety of random partners
seemed to have created a positive social pressure to do theactivity the right way.
However, the “ask-a-partner” activity still had problems. I
was waiting for all the students to finish their conversations
before changing pairs, but I saw that some pairs finishedmore quickly and became bored. I remembered Dr. Sato’scomment that it is more important to keep everyone talking
than to wait for everyone to finish. In the third class, I set
a time limit of one and a half minutes. Suddenly, students
seemed to talk more quickly and with more concentration.
Thanks to suggestions from others, my imperfect activity
was reborn as a better one! I was proud of my students.
Another good idea from the AR group was noticing the“right teaching moment.” During talking activities, I saw
that some students used Japanese for expressions such as“What did you say?” or “Please say that again.” So after thepair conversations, I told students the English equivalents
and encouraged them to use those phrases. I had heard at
the Workshop that when students want to know how to saysomething in English is the very time to teach it. In everyclass most of my students did the interview activity eagerlyand enjoyed the experience of speaking English. Students
wrote comments such as “Interviewing is enjoyable.” and “Itis interesting that everyone has different answers.”
With small changes in the way I conducted the activities,
the students became much better at doing them and more
successful at speaking English. These experiences showedme that good procedures are necessary for activities to be
successful. Good procedures are needed to make pairs, tokeep the pace lively, to start an activity, to finish it, and toconnect it to the next activity. For students to report to one
partner what they learned from a different partner is an
excellent follow-up, for example, to an interview activity,
another good procedure that I learned from the Workshop.

Student comments
Below are my students’ translated comments, grouped bytype, about their English learning experience. They werecollected at the end of the 2007 academic year.
A positive experience
I enjoyed the activity a lot. It was like a normal
conversation.
I am glad that I could ask his birthday.
It was interesting.
I enjoyed using English.
I listened carefully to understand.
It is effective learning through conversation.
It was good to talk.
It was fun to ask.
It is interesting to ask everyone.
Interviewing is enjoyable.
It is interesting that everyone has different
answers.
I was surprised that she has many comic books.
Difficulties encountered
Real English was quick.
It was hard.
Conversation in English is difficult. It was tooquick.

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A desire to improve
I think it will be more fun if I could speak more.
I wish I could speak better English.

Conclusion
I received much good advice and encouragement fromfellow teachers doing AR. Without their collaboration, I do
not think I could have continued. In the process, I learned
important lessons. One is never to give up. Always try
again. There are often problems when trying new things, but
it is important to continue trying. By adopting new ideas,
making lesson plans carefully, and arranging activities indetail, classes can become more successful. After a whilestudents get used to new ways. From students’ comments,
I learned that they are happy to discover the fun of using
English. A second lesson was that learning communicatively
is effective. I was convinced by the evidence of AR members
who showed that their students who learn communicatively
score higher on tests than other students. My own students’success with communicative activities proved to me thepower of this approach. Lastly, I learned how necessary
scaffolding is. With models and suggestions, students
understand and express themselves in English better. This
gives them the confidence and desire to engage in thecommunicative activities that improve their learning ofEnglish.

Hiromi Tsuji’s story: Voices of peers and students
I wanted to change my teaching
I used to teach English in a very old-fashioned, grammar

58

translation way. Students would just sit at their desks quietly
and listen to me. I knew that it was out of date and I wanted
to change, so I attended many workshops and observed otherteachers’ English classes. However, as these were all oneoff occasions, I could not grasp the outline of their teachingapproach or curriculum. I was still at a loss about what toteach and how, so when I heard about the Action Research
program, I jumped at it. That was three and a half years ago.

I am changing it!
In the Action Research program I found that the role ofteachers was not to teach but to give learners as many
opportunities to learn as possible. This idea changed myteaching greatly. Gradually I saw the importance of creating
a well-designed curriculum and teaching plan. I also realized
that, as English is a language, it is very important to cultivate
students’ communicative competence. As a result, I decided
to give much time to pair work in English.
An obstacle to implementing my action research program
was the students. They had been so accustomed to thegrammar translation method that they did not want to talkwith classmates in English. Many were reluctant to do pairwork, especially with classmates who were not close friends.
In addition, a number just wanted to have the Japanesetranslation of the textbook.
The first thing I introduced was the use of handouts inclass. They let me provide students with communicative
activities that the textbook lacked. Now I alternate activities
from the textbook and handouts, making all activities pairwork. These include semantic mapping as a pre-lesson

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PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

activity, timed silent reading, read and shadow, comparing
answers to reading comprehension questions, word quizzing
orally in pairs, etc. In all, students read each text five times
and see a great improvement in their reading speed.
After students understand a text well, I give them athought-provoking opinion question on the same topic. They
write their answers and why they think so, in ten sentences
or more. When they finish, they do peer editing. They readthree or four other classmates’ essays, putting a small circle
by their favorite sentence and writing a short comment. As
soon as they finish peer editing, they rewrite their essays andpractice reading them in order to memorize them. Finally,
they have an interview with two or three classmates andsummarize the classmates’ opinions on an interview sheet.
My students no longer translate the textbook. I give them theJapanese translation at the end of the lesson.
I have attended the NUFS Workshop once a month forthree and a half years. I always learn new ideas, which I canuse in my classes from the next day. Also, the teachers who
attend the Workshops make AR reports every month about
what and how they taught. We all try various activities andlesson plans that we heard about in the previous Workshop.
Sometimes they work well and sometimes they do not. Whenthey don’t work, we discuss possible reasons and try to finda solution or give useful advice. Other teachers’ advice isalways helpful for me. We share our ideas and try to improve
our teaching. Without the help of my fellow teachers, I may
have given up on AR.

59

What I learned about teaching from my students
I gave my students a survey in July 2007 and again in
February 2008 concerning their feelings about English andEnglish class during the 2007-2008 school year. About halfof the students said their most important purpose for learning
English was to communicate with others. I had thought they
simply wanted to earn enough credits to graduate.
Happily, students reported that their ability in English waschanging for the better in all areas, but especially in writing.
The number of students choosing “I cannot write at all”
decreased from 43% to 7%, while those feeling that they
could “write, with some errors” increased from 6% to 35%.
Students who felt that they had “no confidence and could not
speak” decreased from 24% to 3%, while those who reported
being able to compose, memorize, and verbally give a shortreport increased from 4% to 31%. In reading, there wasan increase from 4% to 21% of those who felt they could
understand most of what they read in English. Ability tounderstand spoken English was also seen as much improved.
Those choosing “I cannot understand at all” decreased from
29% to 6%. “I can understand half of what I hear” and “I
understand most of what I hear” increased from 16% to 34%
and 7% to 18%, respectively. Finally, the number of those
who felt they couldn’t understand English grammar at all fell
from 27% to 9%, while those who replied that they could
understand about half or could mostly understand grammar
more than doubled. I was pleased to learn that the number ofstudents who hated English decreased by two thirds over thecourse of the school year, from 16% to 5%. It seemed thatstudents’ success in learning English affected their attitude
toward the language itself.

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PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

Unfortunately, dissatisfaction with my way of teachingalso increased. The percentage of those who said they did not
enjoy my class increased 16%. I believe this may be because
the activities and sequence of them in my handouts werealways the same. Although the activities were successful interms of helping students improve their English, they felt
the class was not as enjoyable as they would have liked. I
learned that I need to vary the activities to prevent boredom.
In addition, in response to “Do you understand English
classes?” those answering “no” and “not so much” increased
from 33% in July to 41% in February. I was troubled by thisincrease as well as by the relatively high numbers. One cause
for this may be that, in a number of the tasks, students wereto find answers by working together in pairs. For students
who are used to having teachers give them answers, this may
have left some of them feeling unsure.
There was consistency between students’ writtencomments and their replies to the multiple choice survey
questions. To the question about whether they felt theirEnglish ability had improved since April, 105 students
replied affirmatively in July and 73 in February. There wereno negative comments to this question in either survey. The
most frequent comments in July were: I can freely express
my own opinions and impressions in English (16 students).
I can write English sentences (14). I could not read English
sentences in April, but now I can read English, thinking
about pronunciation and read fast (12). I can understandwhat teachers and ALTs say (8). Now I use my dictionary
more often than before (7). I watch foreign movies withJapanese subtitles, not Japanese voice-overs (7).

60

In answer to the question about how the classes could
be improved, there were 19 comments in July and 8 in
February. I found two types of comments. One showeddissatisfaction with two aspects of my new way of teaching,pace and variety. In July, 8 students commented that theyneeded more time to complete certain tasks. In fact, I had
decided to keep the pace fast, in order not to force themajority to wait for the slowest students to finish, so I set
time limits for many tasks. By year-end, however, no one
had that complaint. Students had become able to complete
the tasks within the allotted time. In addition, in July, 4
students commented on the need for more variety to makeclasses more interesting, while 3 did so in February.
The other type of comments requested a return to themore familiar grammar translation approach. Requests formore grammar explanations were made by 3 students inJuly and 1 in February. There was 1 request in each survey
for more speaking in Japanese by the teacher and morecorrection of writing mistakes. More vocabulary practice
was requested by 2 students and translating of textbook
sentences into Japanese by 1. One student summed up thisfeeling at year-end by lamenting, “I want to learn in normal
English classes.” (italics added). The results of the twosurveys reveal that by year-end, most students had come tounderstand the new approach and felt that their English had
definitely improved.

Conclusion
Through my attempts over the course of three and a halfyears, I have learned that there are a lot of things to improve.
Firstly, I know that the final goal of English classes is forMutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identitiesstudents to become able to express their thoughts and tocommunicate with others in English. I would like to have an
integrated English class to develop all four skills. Secondly,
according to the survey last year, it is boring to do the sameactivities over and over again. Variety is necessary. Students
wanted to do different kinds of activities, such as singing
songs, watching DVDs or playing games. I would like to try
some of these. Thirdly, careful planning is essential. I tried
some extra activities related to yearly events or topics that
seemed to attract students’ interest. However, as I decided
to do them suddenly without a proper plan, they sometimes
did not work well. Finally, self-evaluation or reflection by
students is valuable. It gives them an opportunity to review
their own participation in English classes and encourages
them to do better. As English classes should be studentcentered, it is important to let students know that they should
be responsible for their learning. Students’ self-evaluations
also help me understand them and improve my teaching plan
and activities appropriately. For this reason, I would like tokeep giving self-evaluations to students.
Again, I want to emphasize that I learned a lot fromother teachers. Trying to improve my teaching alone would
have been impossible. Sharing ideas, discussing problems
together, giving advice to each other and trying to improve
our teaching together have been the most important.

Seiji Shintani’s story: On the “light truck” or the“right track”?
About 5 years ago, I didn’t like my teaching style, so I
attended a 3-day Summer Workshop for English teachers
at NUFS. I was surprised to find that Japanese teachers

61of English were discussing English education in English!
There should be nothing surprising about English teachers
speaking English, but in my experience, few teachers wereusing English in any real sense at school. In class they spokein Japanese to explain grammar and meaning. Naturally
students could not develop practical English skills that way.
Then I started attending the monthly NUFS Workshop,where I learned a variety of ways of teaching. I adopted
some ideas in my class. It was exciting to try new ideas!
It was risk taking! I often wondered if I was doing theright thing. I wanted to make sure that I was on the lighttruck. Workshop members encouraged me even if I was
making mistakes. Dr. Sato always encouraged us by saying,“Yes, you are on the right track!” Without professional
advice and encouragement, it would have been difficult tocontinue to take risks at school. I joined the Action Research
program, where I have had opportunities to share ideas,
and get advice, encouragement, and energy from other AR
participants. What I learned from AR is the importance ofrisk taking, encouragement, and collaboration.
In 2006 and 2007, I thought the fundamental problem withEnglish classes was that students had too little opportunity
to use English. At Dr. Sato’s suggestion, I adopted threemajor changes. One was an integrated teaching approach,balancing all four skills. Second was a change from theauthorized textbook to others that were more interesting andbetter organized, plus the addition of worksheets that we
made ourselves. The result was satisfying to both students
and me. They had lots of opportunities to use English, bothindividually and in pairs or groups, and most of them enjoyedintegrated activities as they found themselves actually usingMutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

English! The third suggestion was to provide students withmore scaffolding. I was lucky because I was able to follow
the successful procedures of a more experienced action
researcher, whose writing curriculum we largely adopted.

SELHi
Usually it is not easy to get colleagues’ participation instarting a new curriculum, but I was lucky to be in a school
designated as a SELHi (Super English Language HighSchool) by MEXT (the Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology). My co-workers were
innovative and cooperative, so we did not hesitate to try new
ways such as timed conversations, peer editing, and speaking
tests. For all the teachers, every idea was new, but we had acollaborative atmosphere, which was our greatest advantage.
For curriculum development, I realized that we needed
to create a good cooperative relationship among teachers.
Before every lesson we discussed what activity was mostsuitable for students and how we could offer them more
opportunities to use English in class. We shared ideas
about how and what to teach. I believe firmly that teacher
collaboration is a must. It is also necessary that we listen toother teachers’ opinions in order to reflect on our lessons andimprove them. For this purpose, the Workshop and AR havebeen indispensable for every participant.

Writing curriculum
We made an integrated-skills, communicative writing
curriculum with writing classes of about 20 students. The
result of the “Survey of Students’ Change in English Skills

62

and Attitude through Writing Class” showed how effective
this class was for students to acquire the skills necessary for
improving their English and attitudes about learning. For thisachievement, I owe a lot to the Workshop and AR program.
Each unit of the writing curriculum was made up of
several different communicative activities including thefollowing:
1.
Listening (including pre-listening activity)
2.

Silent reading (scanning) and vocabulary check3.

Retelling of the story according to the pictures

4.

Recounting personal experiences

5.

Q & A to prepare for the conversation and essay

6.

Introduction of conversation strategies

7.

Timed conversations in pairs by rotation

8.

Process writing (first draft, second draft, and “funessay,” that is an essay illustrated with photos ordrawings) Essay topics were about students’ own lives.
Examples are About Me, My Favorite Place, Letters to
US High School Students, and School Trip to Okinawa.
By the end, students wrote essays of 300 words or
more.

9.

Peer editing (in pairs and editing several times) Peer
editing was one of the most popular activities, thoughsome students worried about structure and grammar.
We provided them with a handout of common
grammatical and structural errors, an idea from theaction research program.

Mutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development
Tape-recording, transcribing, and self-evaluation of
conversations

11.

Fun essay (posted on the board)

12.

Speaking test in pairs (video-taped for later use) We
conducted speaking tests, of increasing length, fivetimes per year. As students acquired the different
conversation strategies, most of them were able toexpand the length of their conversation. Thoughstudents were uneasy doing timed conversations at
the beginning, they soon found pleasure in talking
with different people and gradually understood theeffectiveness of this practice. Then everyone started
participating in it earnestly.

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

10.

13.

Peer feedback by watching the video of the speaking
test

14.

Portfolio including a questionnaire at the end of eachsemester2007 year-end interviews of action research
participantsThis paper concludes with an overview of program
participants’ reflections on their year of action research.
To ascertain the effects of AR on participants’ teachingpractices, year-end telephone interviews were conducted.
Fifteen teachers (1 elementary, 7 junior high school, and 7
senior high school teachers), including two native English
speaking teachers, were interviewed after their final AR
presentations in late March 2008, the end of the school year.
The interviews, which lasted 20 to 30 minutes each, were63

conducted by Sato in early April. There were 11 questions,developed by Sato and Mutoh, including “How was youraction research? Did it help you to improve your teachingskills? What did you learn from your action research? What
were some of the difficulties you faced in implementing
action research?” All the interviews were recorded withpermission and transcribed for data analysis. Below is asummary of respondents’ descriptions of how they found
new teaching ideas through collaborative AR and what kindof difficulties they encountered in implementing them.

How did EFL teachers get new teaching ideas throughcollaborative AR?
All 15 teachers reported that collaborative AR provided theneed to reflect on how they taught and to discuss their waysof teaching with fellow AR participants. One senior highschool teacher commented that such reflecting had become ahabit for her:
In a nutshell, AR was useful. It was not easy tomake a monthly report regularly. But I made a
habit of reflecting on how I taught after each classand making some notes in the staff room. I revised
my lesson based on the notes.
Further, 9 teachers reported that they heard good teachingideas from other teachers, which they then implemented
in their own classrooms. A senior high school teacher
commented,
I was always impressed and encouraged by otherteachers’ monthly AR reports. I learned many ideas
from them. I also received advice about how toMutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

modify my lessons. Actually I incorporated someof their ideas and procedures into my lessons andfound that they worked well.
One junior high school teacher said that she used some of the
new ideas immediately in her class:Several JHS teachers taught the same grade level,
so their ideas were very helpful. I was surprised
to find that there were many different ways ofteaching the same unit. Actually, I used some ofthem immediately in my class.
In addition, 6 teachers said advisors’ comments were useful.
One senior high school teacher said, “when I was at a loss,
the advisor’s comments were helpful to solve my problems,and I was encouraged by them.”
Consequently, 12 teachers reported that they had
improved their practices through the continuous AR cycleof implementation, reflection, and revision. Five teachersreported that they did not give up on a new idea if it failed
to work well the first time, but rather revised the procedureof the activity and tried it again. Four teachers said thatthey changed their teaching styles. Two teachers reported
improving their teaching based on students’ comments insurveys. Finally, 1 teacher confirmed that she had expanded
her repertoire of teaching activities through collaborative
AR.

What were the difficulties in implementing AR?
Nine teachers indicated some difficulties implementing AR.
Four reported that they were not sure how to make a survey.
Two teachers said, “We had to use the same textbook and64

test as other teachers, so it was not easy to introduce newideas into my teaching.” Other difficulties mentioned byteachers included, “I had difficulty adjusting new ideas tomy teaching context,” “It took me a lot of time to find goodmaterials,” and “I could not keep regular records of what I
noticed in my class.”

Summary and implications
The interview data above have important implications forthe role that AR can play in practitioners’ efforts to improvetheir way of teaching. Teachers commented in particular thatthe collaborative aspect of AR was important to them. They
could risk trying fellow teachers’ communicative activities
because those activities had already succeeded in classrooms
like their own. Such regular sharing of ideas among fellow
action researchers has great potential to provide teacherswith the impetus they need to make experimentation andreflection a part of their daily teaching routine (see also
Mills, 2003). There is benefit, as well, in doing AR under thesupervision of university teacher educators. Such advisors
support teachers who are encountering difficulties in theirAR, giving encouragement and suggesting activities andcurricula that have proven successful in other teachers’classes and schools. They visit teachers’ classes and offer
ideas for activities suitable to each particular context.
Continuous teacher learning opportunities can lead toactual changes in teaching practices, the development ofbroader repertoires of teaching activities and an increase inteacher confidence. There are predictable and sometimes
unavoidable difficulties in implementing AR. These include
such problems as adapting new ideas to their classroomMutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

65

We do hope similar collaborative action research groups will
be built so that more teachers will become lifelong learners
for their professional development.

Conclusion

Nancy Mutoh teaches at Nagoya University of Foreign
Studies. She holds an MA in ESL from the University of
Hawaii. Her research interests include vocabulary learningand teaching and teacher development.
Kazuyoshi Sato teaches at Nagoya University of Foreign
Studies. He holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics fromthe University of Queensland, Australia. He has written
several papers on communicative language teaching andteacher education. His research interests include teacher
development, second language acquisition, and curriculum
development.
Aki Hakamada teaches at Nagoya Municipal Shiroyama
Junior High School. She holds an MA in TESOL from
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies in Japan. Her researchinterests include teaching communicatively and curriculum
development.
Hiromi Tsuji teaches at Gifu Municipal Gifu Commercial
High School. She holds an MA in TESOL from Nagoya
University of Foreign Studies. Her research interest is
teaching communicatively and integrating the four skills.
Seiji Shintani teaches at Aichi Prefectural Bihoku SeniorHigh School. He has been a high school teacher for 25 years.
He holds an MA in TESOL from Nagoya University ofForeign Studies. His present research interest is integrated
communicative writing.

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

contexts, finding appropriate materials, developing
collaboration with fellow teachers at the same school, andlearning how to make an appropriate survey.

The three stories above, representative for the 15 teachers
who completed the action research program in 2007,
describe how these teachers learned new ways of teachingfrom collaborative action research and expanded theirteaching repertoires. In particular, as all 15 teachersreported, collaborative action research encouraged them toreflect on their daily teaching and to make it a habit in theirprofessional lives. However, only a few teachers reported
that they could share new ideas with their colleagues in theirworkplaces. As Shintani observed, teacher collaboration
within a school context seems to be essential for successful
curriculum development (see Murphey & Sato, 2005; Sato &Kleinsasser, 2004; Sato & Takahashi, 2008).
We believe that this symposium, and the discussion that
followed, allowed the audience to better understand thepromise of collaborative action research for professional
development. As Burns (1999) affirms,[E]xperimenting with collaborative action researchbuilds a professional learning community withother teachers...the research process empowers
teachers by reaffirming their professional judgment
and enabling them to take steps to make reflection
on practice a regular part of everyday teaching. (p.
234)

PAC7 at JALT2008: Shared Identities

Mutoh, et al: Collaborative action research: Teacher and curriculum development

References

Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for English
language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Mills, G. E. (2003). Action research: A guide for the teacher
researcher (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education, Inc.
Murphey, T., & Sato, K. (Eds.). (2005). Communities of
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Sato, K. (2003). Starting a local teacher study group. In T.
Murphey (Ed.), Extending professional contributions (pp.
97-104). Alexandria, VA: TESOL Inc.
Sato, K., & Kleinsasser, R. C. (2004). Beliefs, practices, andinteractions of teachers in Japanese high school English
departments. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 797816.
Sato, K., & Takahashi, K. (2008). Curriculum revitalization
in a Japanese high school through teacher collaboration.
In D. Hayes & J. Sharkey (Eds.), Revitalizing a programfor school-age learners through curricular innovation(TESOL curriculum development series: Volume 4).
Alexandria, VA: TESOL, Inc.

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