Research Digest
Publishing Ecologies
Tim Murphey,
Kanda University of International Studies
Miyoun Kim,
Hawai’i Pacific University
Sayuri Kusutani
Hawai’i Pacific University
Judy Lawson
Hawai’i Pacific University
Makiko Sugawara
Dokkyo University
Naoki Yamaura
Kawagoe Higashi High School

Rational beings understand the difficulty of accomplishingarduous tasks. That is why it is the irrational and unrealistically
hopeful among us who are principally responsible for the major
improvements in civilization. *Irrationally, and yet with great hope, this article seeks to convince
unpublished teachers (a) that they have valuable ideas and perspectives
to contribute to the professional development of their fellow teachers,(b) that KISS (keep it short and simple) publishing helps us evolveand see how the bigger publishing projects eventually take shape, (c)206

Publishing Ecologies OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 206-220

that writing for others develops first ourselves through a creative andstimulating process of self-disclosure and self construction, and (d) thatdoing these things in collaboration with other teachers is immensely
more enjoyable, enriching, and educational. This article also seeks
to model what it proposes intertwining these four assertions in ourown mini trans-pacific publishing ecology (see Appendix 1 for the
Collaboration History)..

Scaffolding
caffolding writing for publications
When Tim’s’ss MA supervisor, Pat Byrd, first told him that he had agood idea and should write it up, he thought she was joking. But hedared to write a rough draft just describing an activity he had been
doing in class and sent it to her. She modified it a bit and published it
in a small newsletter, certainly no more than a page. What happened
next is the important part. He saw his name in print.
Seeing his name in print, he felt a sense of possible belonging to a
new group, an imagined community (Norton, 2001) of teachers striving
to understand how to teach better. He felt like, maybe, the profession
wanted his contributions and he began identifying himself as a teacher.
Lave and Wenger (1991)
1991) would describe it as being invited in from theperipheral of merely looking at it to actually doing it as a member of acommunity of practice.
Because Pat Byrd had invited Tim into the arena of writing for
publication, he developed intent participation (Rogoff, Paradise, Arauz,
Correa-Chavez, & Angelillo,, 2003), participation in which you intend
to actually use or do what you are observing or studying.. Psychologists
have found that when people intend to actually do or comment on
an activity, their “quality of attention” is very different and they learn
better.. Tim started considering much of what he was learning in his MA
classes and doing in his teaching as potential material for articles andeven books. There was an intent to use what he was learning and to207

Murphey et alinteract with the profession which made writing just that much easier.
Pat Byrd had succeeded in creating a small learning ecology inwhich graduate students and teachers could begin participating andidentifying themselves as participants in the activities of teaching andscholarship. The description below of language learning could easily
also be applied to teacher education and the scaffolding of researchers
into publishing:
Learning ecologies of linguistic contagion describe rich learning
environments in which rapidly spreading activation occurs
neurologically within individuals, as well as socially within groups,
due to highly contagious and pervasive communications, involving
persons locally in using the language constructively. “Hothousing”
language development and learning is what ecologies of linguistic
contagion are about. Hawkins (2005) suggests “the need for ashift in the teacher’s role: from designing lessons to designing
ecologies” (p. 79). Van Lier (2004) similarly holds that “Theecological approach to education asserts that ultimately the quality
and the lasting success of education are primarily dependent on
the quality of the activities and the interactional opportunities
available to learners in the educational environment.” Suchecologies would be rich in “learning opportunities” (Allwright,2005) and “affordances” (van Lier, 2004) that facilitate language
learning.. (Murphey, 2006, p. 34-35)
The stimulation of someone’s’ss writing and publishing can come fromstudents,, colleagues, or editors. Tim was once wonderfully mentoredby Eton Churchill and John McLaughlin who, as grad students, wereediting a Temple University Working Papers (Churchill
Churchill & McLaughlin,
2001;; Murphey, 2001).. That article, which grew into a 2004 TESOL
Quarterly article, brings up another point about publishing your208

Publishing Ecologies OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 206-220

research:: evolving data, analysis, and understandings are worth
presenting in more than one publication. Our ideas and understandings
can be constantly evolving. Exploring the same data and concepts
through composing various articles from different perspectives is asplendid way to develop our thinking. Merrill Swain, whose “output
outputhypothesis”” has segued into “collaborative
collaborative dialog”” and more recently
into “languaging,”
languaging,”” combining previous research with new analysis
and understandings,, is a wonderful case in point. As Thomson (2001)
notes, “TheThe process of writing itself always leads to new knowledge.
Learn to write but also write to learn”” (p. 1). More recently, Goleman
has proposed that, along with emotional intelligence being enhanced
through interacting and co-constructing our work, we are at the sametime using and constructing our “social intelligence” (2006).

A stand on re-searching
Conscientious teachers search for better ways to teach and betterways for their students to learn, and they do it again and again. Thus,hus,
us,they are re-searching continually. Teachers are also in positions togather qualitative and quantitative data and experiment with various
ways to teach and learn, even when they are somewhat shackled by“administrivia” and textbooks. We find the potential for exploratory
teaching (Allwright, 2005) is enormous, but under performed. We
wonder why more teachers do not engage in writing about their classes
and their re-searching. We suspect there must be something out oforder with the way we conceptualize writing and publishing. Part ofthe problem is the invisibility of the teaching and learning around us.
Shulman (2004a)
2004a)a)) describes the symptoms::
Blindness and amnesia are the state of the art in pedagogy. We just
don’t know what our colleagues before or elsewhere have done.
We don’t even document and analyze our own efforts. Indeed,
209

Murphey et al

we often don’t know what our colleague in the next office isdoing pedagogically.. . . (p.43)
So how can we get more teachers, and ourselves, to go public andpublish what we are learning as we teach? For, as Shulman (2004a)a))further insists:
Learning is least useful when it is private and hidden; it is mostpowerful when it becomes public and communal. Learning
flourishes when we take what we think we know and offer it
as community property among fellow learners so that it can betested, examined, challenged, and improved before we internalize
it. (p.36-37)
p.36-37))
We think teachers are researchers already, and could be potential
writers and provide knowledge to their colleagues. What is missing are
the systemic methods to tap into the knowledge base that disappears
out the door at the end of every term to be mostly forgotten and thenre-enacted again the following term in much the same way, reinventing
the wheel. We think these are ideal times to expand the experiential
knowledge base of teachers by sharing our knowledge more widely,i.e., by publishing.

Ann opening of the field that wants you
Block (2003) in The Social Turn in SLA shows how, at times, inforeign language education, certain research paradigms reign andothers seem to be pushed aside. Block’s’ss historical ethnographic
depiction of SLA shows how the more cognitive paradigm of IIO (input,
interaction, output) came to dominate our research publications andhow recently the field and its journals have begun opening themselves
to more “socially”
socially”” oriented views of learning and research. Whether
210

Publishing Ecologies OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 206-220

teachers are doing conventional “lab”
lab”” type studies or socially-oriented
qualitative research based on everyday teaching, or both, they cancount themselves fortunate to be in an era when there are numerous
publications opening themselves up to a wider spectrum of research,
methods, and theoretical positions. (AnAn example of this opening up
of genres is the previously mentioned auto-ethnographic narrative
published in the TESOL Quarterly,, Murphey, 2004).

Lookingooking for your own ZDP of publishing and doing
Applied to publishing, Vygotsky’s’ss zone of proximal development(ZPD) is a useful concept that describes how we can reach beyond
our present levels of proficiency, out-perform our competencies, anddiscover and explore beyond our normal capacities with a little help
from colleagues and friends. Typically, the ZPD describes what alearner can do with a bit of help from others, a process often referred
to as scaffolding.
It used to be specified that these “others”
others”” had to be more competentexperts, usually older, wiser, and more experienced, as Pat Byrd wasfor Tim. However, more recently we have come to understand thatinteracting even with others less experienced than us also stimulates
thought, interaction, and development, as Tim’s’ss much younger
coauthors of this article have stimulated his thinking in doing this piece.
The fact is that we learn from interaction, from getting our thoughts
out there, and seeing others’’ reactions. (Doing this alone in our own
minds would necessitate an extremely oxymorific well-balanced
schizophrenic ability.)
Teachers usually acknowledge that the most active students, who
perform and interact a lot, are the ones who usually learn the most.
Actually, the people who usually perform the most in schools areteachers—and—andand they, not students, indeed usually do learn the most in
schools. Teachers are already going public, at least with a certain group
211

Murphey et alof students, and they are preparing and studying to get it right. So being
engaged in an activity is crucial to learning (andand if we want students
to learn more we need to find ways for them to go public—but—but
but that’s’ss
another article).
).. Writing down how things work in our classes, and using
student feedback to support our views, increases our understanding of
how learning can happen in our classrooms. Presenting these ideas toa wider public in publications can generate even more knowledge.
Thehe easiest place to publish for college and university faculty inJapan is usually in the institution’s’ss departmental publications, or kiyo.
However, mostost of these kiyo do not give editorial feedback, may frown
on co-authors (especially when they are not inside the department),
and are not widely distributed nor read. Nevertheless, for beginningresearchers-writers, they offer an easy way to get into print and get an
idea out so that it can be cited later. But thesehese university publications
should be seen as “working
working papers”” only. When writers believe intheir articles, they will redraft them, give them different titles, and send
them out to more professional publications to give them exposure to
the wider world.
Other “access
access publications”” such as newsletters and online journals
are often edited and provide a more collaborative venue to grow anddevelop. If your university or institute does not have a newsletter,start one. Murphey,, Connolly, Churchill, McLaughlin, Schwartz, &Krajka (2003) describe how these can be created (to access a few,, see
Languaging or PeerSpectives in the References).
).
There are a growing number of practical publications for teachers
to publish in as well as regular peer-reviewed journals. A professionalorganization with a variety of access publications should be able toscaffold the professional development of its members through offeringa variety of options to writers. JALT, more than any other association,
seems to be able to do this. JALT publications span the spectrums ofseriousness, length, and depth of research. Teachers in Japan have a212

Publishing Ecologies OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 206-220

number of JALT affiliated newsletters they can contribute to that are often
hungrily hunting for writers. Then there is the mostly practical monthly
The Language Teacher, the mostly research-oriented JALT Journal, andoccasional books by various special interest groups. Many researchersin Japan also publish in many international journals. Writers of course
usually find it easier to start small and work their way up.

Why collaborate?
When we work together on something, the old adage of “twotwo heads
are better than one”” usually operates, but more than that, the heads canalso develop through seeing the different views presented and createdin collaboration. “Engaging
Engaging two minds on any line (of thought) refines
not only the line but the minds”” (Murphey & Carpenter,, 2007).
).
Vygotsky (1978)) wrote, “WhatWhat
hat a child can do with assistance today
she will be able to do by herself tomorrow” (p.
p.. 87). For some things
like operating a new computer program, we can see the logic of thisprogression from others’’ scaffolding our learning to eventually doing it
alone. However, there are some things that are simply more enrichingwhen they are done with others, like learning, or researching, or writing
and publishing. If you want to learn how to write articles, write withothers.. If you want to improve your thinking, think with others. We
believe that everybody has multiple ZPDs and multiple opportunities
to learn with others.. Some quiet time by yourself is also nice, but the
opposite is usually the case with many educators—they—they
they are overisolated, communication-challenged,
ication-challenged,
cation-challenged, and bunkered in their offices oron the run..
Writing, especially for publication, clarifies thinking and produces a
lot of knowledge about our teaching and learning that probably would
not have occurred were it not written with the intent to publish. With
this added knowledge that we gain through writing about what we do,we can navigate our classes better in order to have fewer crises and213Murphey et al

more time for learning. Note also that, “WeWe write to change ourselves
as much as we write to change the world”” (Murphey & Carpenter,,2007).
).

Conclusion
We feel there are great advantages to teachers writing, sharing, andpublishing our everyday practices, our re-searching, and our research.
When we wish to improve what we are doing as a profession, an
expanded network of contributors, or what Shulman (2004b) calls “thethewisdom of practice,”” would be advisable. Publishing ecologies thatoffer a variety of scaffolded entry points and paradigms stand to nurturea professional community, a community of practice, more than one
that seeks to overly restrict registers, methods, and epistemologies..
[W]riting is so important for scholarship. Publish or perish has
gotten a very bad name, but one of the beauties of publication isthat as a scholar I can have little confidence that I truly understandsomething until I sit down to write it—at—at
at which point all the holes
in the argument, all the gaps in the evidence, stare me in theface (or are pointed out by my peers, who can now review it
more carefully). It’s
’ss because this process is so powerful that we
institutionalize it by creating learning communities of scholars,
whether they are research teams, faculties, or journal editorial
boards, which expect and reward various kinds of publication and“goinggoing public.”” Critical reflection is, paradoxically, very difficult
to accomplish in solitude. (Shulman, 2004a, p. 229)
Thus, we find it healthy for the profession to invite more writingfrom teachers and to create access publications to scaffold andwelcome their efforts. We find it extremely important that groups ofteachers, young and old, newbies and experienced, write together and214

Publishing Ecologies OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 206-220

collaborate to enrich their understandings of teaching and our workin the profession. Goinging public with our thoughts and research,, be
it small or big, tentative or established, social or cognitive, or all ofthese things, is well worth the effort.. As Wilga Rivers said 30 years ago,,“We are limited only by our own caution, by our own hesitancy to do
whatever our imagination suggests to us” (Rivers, 1976, p. 96)..
*Tim Murphey read something like this opening quote once long ago
and reconstructed it like this. After
fter hours of searching on the Internet,
he found it on a quote page with a slight twist: “The reasonable man
adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying
to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man.” GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Annajanska accessed
June 10, 2008 from: http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/shaw_george_bernard.html
Tim Murphey teaches at Kanda University of International Studies,, andis a visiting professor in the MA programs of Hawaii Pacific University
and Teachers College Tokyo.
o. He likes writing most when he can do it
collaboratively with students and colleagues. As of this writing (June2008) Miyoun
younoun Kim, Sayuri Kusutani, and Judy Lawson have all received
their MA from Hawaii Pacific University and are considering PhD work..
Makiko Sugawara is a 2nd year graduate student at Dokkyo University
and Naoki Yamaura is now an MA graduate and teaching at a highschool in Japan. Miyoun,youn,oun, Sayuri, Judy, Makiko and Naoki are all on
track to be prodigious contributors to the profession.

215

Murphey et al

References
Allwright, D. (2005). From teaching points to learning opportunities
and beyond. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 9-31.
Block , D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Churchill,, E.,, & McLaughlin J. (Eds.)
Eds.)ds.) (2001). Qualitative researchesearchin applied
pplied linguistics:
inguistics: Japanese learners
earners and contexts
ontexts (Temple
University Japan Working Papers in Applied Linguistics)..
Goleman, D. (2006). Social intelligence. New York: Bantam Dell.
Hawkins, M. (2005). Becoming a student: Identity work andacademic literacies in early schooling. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 5982.
Languaging: The Exploratory Learning and Teaching Newsletter ofDokkyo University http://www.geocities.com/languaging/Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral
participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Murphey, T. (2001). Face validity.
alidity. In E. F. Churchill & J. W.
McLaughlin (Eds.),
Eds.),ds.),, Qualitative researchesearch in applied
pplied linguistics:
inguistics:
Japanese learners
earners and contexts
ontexts (Temple University Japan Working
Papers in Applied Linguistics) pp.188-206.
p.188-206.
Murphey, T. (2004). Participation, (dis-)identification,dis-)identification,is-)identification,
identification,
dentification, and Japanese
university
niversity entrance
ntrance exams.
xams. TESOL Quarterly,, 38
38, 700-710..
Murphey, T. (2006). Learning ecologies of linguistic contagion.
Languaging #7 pp. 34-35.
Murphey, T., & Carpenter, C. (2007). Collaborative writing andlanguaging. Languaging #9 pp. 34-35.
Murphey, T., Connolly, M., Churchill, E., McLaughlin, J., Schwartz,
S., & Krajka, J. (2003). Creating publishing communities. In T.
Murphey (Ed.)Ed.)d.) Extending professionalrofessional contributions
ontributions (pp. 105-118)
Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Norton, B. (2001). Non-participation, imagined communities andthe language classroom. In M. Breen (Ed.), Learner contributions
216

Publishing Ecologies OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 206-220

to language learning: New directions in research (pp. 159-171).
London: Pearson Education.
PeerSpectives: The Exploratory Learning and Teaching Newsletter of
KUIS Web page to come soon Please Google “Peerspectives”
Rivers, W. (1976). Speaking in many tongues: Essays in foreignlanguage teaching. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Rogoff, G.,, Paradise, R., Arauz, R.,, Correa-Chavez, M.,, & Angelillo,
C. (2003). Firsthand learning
earning through intent
ntent participation.
articipation. Annual
Review of Psychology, 175-203.
Shulman, L. (2004a). Teaching as community property: Essays onhigher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Shulman, L. (2004b). The wisdom of practice: Essays on teaching,learning, and learning to teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Smagorinsky, P. (1998).. Thinking and speech and protocol analysis.
Mind, Culture, and Activity 5, 157-177.
177.
77.
Swain, M. (2005). Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced
second language proficiency. Plenary paper presented at theGeorgetown University Roundtable, March 2005.
Thomson, W. (2001). A guide for the young economist. Boston: MIT
Press.
van Lier L. (2004). The semiotics and ecology of language learning:
A sociocultural perspective. Paper presented at the UC Language
Consortium Conference on Theoretical and Pedagogical
Perspectives March 26-28.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978).. Mind and society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.

217

Murphey et al

Appendix
ppendix
Collaboration history
In preparing for this article, Tim asked two students in Japan, Naoki
Yamaura and Makiko Sugawara, from one of his graduate school classes,
to record their understanding of publishing. They were recorded in his
office and prompted with multiple questions: “What
What is publishing allabout? Why would teachers or others want to do it? How might you
go about doing it?”” Theyhey
ey talked together informally for 20 minutes. Tim
later decided to co-author this piece with them and benefit more fromtheir repeated feedback and insights.
Neither Naoki nor Makiko identified themselves as writers or
potential writers and had little idea why teachers would want to write.
They are probably not a lot different from many teachers all overJapan. At one point Naoki said, “I think it’s important because it’s apublic stuff, everyone can see.” Publishingublishing is indeed public stuff, open
to everyone’s’ss eyes. Lee Shulman (2004b),
2004b),, president of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, says we need to maketeaching “community property” and make it open to critique so that it
can be improved. To a great extent publishing does this.
At another point, Makiko said, “Always speaking or telling,, thestory will be changed, I guess. But if you write it down and publish it,
it will last forever.” Well maybe not forever, but at least awhile. Merrill
Swain (2005) talks about doing this as creating an artifact, creating
something you can look at and adjust and change (this piece wasprinted out, artifacted, at least ten times in order to rewrite and rethinkit). Publishing your ideas and perspectives in the form of an article is a
gift to the profession of an artifact that we can use to think with. It may
not be as permanent as Makiko suggests but it can be a stepping stone
to a better understanding of how we teach and learn. Swain calls thislanguaging:
Languaging serves as a vehicle through which thinking is articulated
and transformed into an artifactual form. Writing about speaking,218

Publishing Ecologies OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 206-220

Smagorinsky (1998) argued that ‘the process of rendering thinking
into speech is not simply a matter of memory retrieval, but aprocess through which thinking reaches a new level of articulation’(172-73). The same is true for writing. Ideas are crystallized. They
become available as an object about which questions can be raised
and answers can be explored with others or with the self. In otherwords, languaging is a process which creates a visible or audible
product about which one can language further. (2005)
Like Naoki and Makiko, most teachers also have pearls of wisdomthat capture the likes of Shulman and Swain. What a loss to theprofession if all these wonderful minds were never to engage with eachother through publications and dialogue.
During the summer of 2006, Tim gave a draft of this piece to aclass of MA students at Hawai’i’ii Pacific University and asked for further
feedback. Some of their feedback was so voluminous that he ended
up collaborating with three more writers through multiple drafts andrevisions (Sophia Kim, Sayuri Kusutani, and Judy Lawson, each withteaching experience of 3, 13 and 3 years respectively). On her initial
feedback Sophia commented that publishing is just not part of themental picture that most teachers have of themselves:
Actually before joining this (MA TESL) program, I never thoughtof professional development because my job of teaching is very
guaranteed until I am 65 years old. I don’t’tt have to worry about
the security of my job. However, I came to learn that teachers
should take responsibilities of professional development for
better teaching, and I’m’mm getting ready little by little.
Sayuri, a marathon runner, insisted that we provide some sort ofpunch for the dry beginning that Tim had initially created. Without agood start, readers won’t’tt get too far. Judy cautioned us about the big
219

Murphey et alleap that publishing is in many teachers’’ minds: “II think as a reader, I
need to be reassured that baby steps are ok.”” And thus we suggest thatteachers as well as students need scaffolding and need to be shownthat contributions can start very small and even be enjoyable when
done collaboratively.

Further reading
1. Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative,
and reflexivity. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook ofqualitative research, 2nd Ed., (pp. 733-768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
This very readable chapter (in an otherwise very heavy book) illustrates
wonderfully how to use personal experience (“I”) and emotions inacademic writing.
2.. Murphey, T. (2000). Becoming contributing professionals: Nonnative
English-speaking teachers in an EFL environment. In Karen E. Johnson(Ed.), Teacher Education. (pp.105-118). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. This
article is best for professors of beginning graduate students who wish
to scaffold professionalism (writing, presenting, and researching).
3. As we say in this article the field is changing and opening up. Perhaps
the best “further reading” in a few years times will entail yourur ownGoogling:
gling: Google “writing academic articles” and variants
tss of it.

220