Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(2): Free SpaceFree Space | フリー・スペース
Talking of Breaking With the Third-party Academic Paradigm inWriting About Inclusive Practitioner Research
Tim Ashwell, Komazawa University
Email: <tashwell@komazawa-u.ac.jp>
Andrew Barfield, Chuo University
Email: <andybarfieldchuo@gmail.com>
Alison Stewart, Gakushuin University
Email: <stewart1411@gmail.com>

Setting the Scene
In August this year we took part in a symposium on Fully Inclusive Practitioner Research at the 2021 AILA World
Congress hosted online by the University of Groningen, Netherlands. The focus of our two sessions in the symposium
was on breaking with conventional modes of academic writing about learner development and learner autonomy issues—and on researching and writing about learner development and learner autonomy issues in ways that are more
inclusive and personal, especially for new writers, than traditional genres of published research. In this dialogue wetrace our thinking around key issues to do with trying to produce an alternative approach with The Learner
Development Journal, particularly Issue 5 (LDJ5).

Dialogue
Alison: In the nearly 30 years since the Learner Development SIG was founded, there has been an enduring focus on
seeking to understand our practices through discussion and sharing at get-togethers, mini-conferences, andconferences, and through writing. The SIG’s newsletter, Learning Learning, published biannually, has been a lively forum
for many different kinds of contributions, including learner and teacher voices, reflective writing, dialogic pieces, short
research articles, stories of practices, as well as experimental forms of writing about learner development and learnerautonomy. In addition, the SIG has over the years brought together groups of practitioner-researchers to publish
different books of anthologies of research and reflection (see https://ld-sig.org/publications/). As one of the editors of
two of these collections, I can attest to the fact that these projects were hugely rewarding and enjoyable collaborations,involving large numbers of contributors, and also a great deal of time and energy from the team of editors working oneach project. In setting up the Learner Development Journal in 2015, we wanted to create a sustainable way for LD SIG
members (and others interested in learner development), particularly people new to writing about their practices, or
new to writing in English, to work together over time in investigating and writing about a particular area of learnerdevelopment that interested them.

Tim: The original concept for the Learner Development Journal appears on the journal website under “Aims andobjectives”:
Rooted in a commitment to community, collaboration, and praxis, each issue of the learner development journal
publishes work on a particular learner development theme that the contributors to that issue explore together under theleadership of the issue co-editors.
Each year, one or two people, usually LD SIG members, put themselves forward as co-editors of a new issue with aparticular theme in mind. These people formulate a call for proposals which aims to attract both SIG and non-SIG
members to join them to discuss the theme with a view to publishing the issue two years down the line.

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <http://ld-sig.org>

13

Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(2): Free Space
The LDJ is an annual online, open-access journal that presents practitioner-driven research on LD-related issues. This
does not necessarily mean, however, that every contributor has to write an academic paper. In fact, one of thestrongest underlying principles of the LDJ is that people are encouraged to move away from writing in a traditional
academic genre. From the outset, editors were urged to accept book reviews, interviews, and written conversations aswell as more conventional academic texts.
Perhaps even more than a collection of writing, each issue of the LDJ involves a form of group-based professional
learner development—a process of shared exploration. The process is an intensely collaborative one and the desire isto create an environment which encourages novice writers and editors to step forward knowing that they will receive
the support of other special interest group members.

Andy: And, in that interactive, collaborative environment, one question that comes up is who the contributors are
writing for. In the first place it’s for themselves and the other practitioners involved in a particular issue of the LDJ—for
the immediate community that they are part of, and with whom they discuss their inquiries and writing as they
develop. From a broader perspective, they are writing for members of the Learner Development SIG and other likeminded groups in other parts of the world, so the imagined readership for the Learner Development Journal areaficionados of learner development and learner autonomy—people who have a strong interest and enthusiasm in
exploring through research, practice, dialogue, and writing learner development and autonomy puzzles and issues thatinterest them.
At AILA2021 we talked of “breaking with the third-party academic paradigm.” For us, “third-party academic
paradigm” suggests a strong distancing effect. In much academic writing writers adopt an objectivist stance and try totake up a universalising position, which not only removes the author from “practitioner” readers, but also positions theauthor as practitioner at a distance from their learners. In such writing, the convention is to reproduce general realitiesof learning and then, through lengthy literature reviews, to situate practice within the global field, rather than raisingparticular questions and puzzles that writers themselves have within their own local contexts. With the Learner
Development Journal, and especially with Issue 5, we have been trying to encourage writers to move away from thisparadigm and develop more personalised ways of writing.
For LDJ5 we have called these alternative genres, narrative accounts and practice-related reviews. In narrative
accounts, contributors have been aiming to ground their writing in concerns and questions that they have aboutengaging with the multilingual turn for learner development to, and write their inquiry as an unfolding story, in which
they include different voices, relate their inquiry to arguments and debates in the field where appropriate, and write
questioningly to take up critical positions to do with multilingualism and learner development (the theme of LDJ5).
Some examples of openings from near-final drafts in the slide below illustrate such ways of writing. The opening on
the left is from two teachers, Jussi Jussila and Riitta Kelly, at a university In Finland; the opening in the middle is by
Lorraine de Beaufort, who teaches French in Hong Kong, while the one on the right was created by Vasumathi
Badrinathan (University of Mumbai, India), who has been exploring multilingual issues with a group of French teachersin Mumbai. In each case the writers take a strongly personalised position.

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <http://ld-sig.org>

14

Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(2): Free SpaceThe other genre that LDJ5 writers have been focusing on is practice-related reviews of books to do withmultilingualism in language(s) education. Here contributors have been aiming to connect their reviews to particular
local learner development practices and concerns that they have. So, whereas a conventional “third-party academic”
review might well aim to provide objective, “clinical” summaries of a specific work, the authors of the practice-related
reviews in LDJ5 have created a range of personalised writing (including critical dialogues, autobiographical reflections,and explorations with students) about different questions that the book(s) under review raise(s) for them.

Alison: So having introduced the two “new” genres, narrative accounts and practice-related reviews, that wereintended to replace the more traditional third-party paradigm, we asked our audience to think about the issues that thejournal, and particularly all the people involved in creating Issue 5, have faced.
For the contributors to the issue, and to the editors as well, the new genres were unfamiliar. How did the writers andthe editors envisage this kind of alternative writing? Did they see this in the same way? Were there conflicts or
misunderstandings?
Since the aim was not just to work together for mutual benefit, but also to publish something that would be ofinterest and value to other teacher-practitioners, what role did the editors play in shaping or influencing the writingthat was done? What brokering structures and processes were created to enable the contributors to produce highquality writing?
In asking these questions, we wanted to encourage the audience to share the critical, puzzling perspective that weare trying to bring to our own reflection on the writing and publishing practices of the LDJ, and particularly the current
issue.
So how were the alternative genres realised in practice? To begin with, the editors set up “response communities,”groups of contributors and editors (who were also writers), who shared drafts and discussed their ideas, both in writing
and in online meetings. The purpose of these groups has been to forefront the drafting process and to enable writers todevelop their thinking through this collaborative dialogue. Another important aspect of this is that the editors havebeen closely involved with the writing process from the outset, rather than seeing writing only once the authors havecompleted a final draft, as is more usual. The assumption was that, in addition to levelling the perceived hierarchy
between editors and writers and ensuring friendly and constructive communication, these groups would also facilitateshared understanding and expectations about the kind of writing that LDJ aspires to publish.

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <http://ld-sig.org>

15

Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(2): Free Space
Tim: One of the other things that has been introduced for the current Issue, Issue 5, is the idea that contributors should
write in a cumulative way. They have been asked to first put down their thoughts in personal, experiential pieces ofwriting. They have then shared those ideas with other contributors before trying to build on that initial piece of writing
to extend it and to push themselves further.
In LDJ Issues 1 to 4, different editors either leaned towards a traditional academic approach to the production of ajournal issue or have been veering towards a more exploratory mode of working which is reflected in the kind of writingthat is produced. LDJ Issue 5 contributors have been encouraged to move away from evidence-based writing that
includes an extensive literature review. Instead, writers have been encouraged to see writing as a means of exploration
or reflection. Writing therefore inevitably becomes an interactive drafting and responding process which is an integral
part of the exploration and reflection.
Through reflecting on the assumptions and processes surrounding LDJ, we have realised that a formal academic
style is not necessarily appropriate for the kind of practitioner research which fits in with learner development. A
reflective personalised mode of writing is probably more in tune with exploring how people experience classrooms andhow they can grow and develop as learners. Writing which starts from a personal perspective can help teachers to
forefront their own professional experience and break with some of the usual tropes that encourage writers to disguisetheir own agency and presence.

Andy: Another key factor in the collaborative development that LDJ aims to foster has been the dialogic review processwith different parties at various stages. In the first place this involves members of the same response community
sharing and discussing their writing and ideas with each other as they take shape and unfold. For example, the response
community that I was in met in Zoom six times over 14 months or so for 1½ to 2 hours, in which we discussed with eachother our doubts and uncertainties about writing, as well as incomplete fragments, stories, and drafts. Feedback alsocame from two reviewers in the LDJ Review Network, who were asked to respond reflectively to contributors' writing inprogress—to puzzle over the writing, reflect on what they wished to understand better, and focus on the quality oflearning-teaching-researching that the writer(s) were trying to nurture through their inquiry and writing. Our hope wasthat reviewers would stand alongside the writer(s) in the quest for quality of understanding and share questions andpuzzles with them. Writers also received extensive feedback from a member of the Learner Development Journal
steering group (currently Tim Ashwell, Dominic Edsall, Tanya McCarthy) on their incomplete second drafts.
Later, comments and questions came from two of the LDJ5 editors (Oana Cusen, Riitta Kelly, Yuri Imamura, andmyself). We believed that writers needed plenty of space and interaction with different parties along the way before
they started getting feedback from editors as things moved towards a final draft for publication. Our comments were
written as well as videoed. In order to demystify and make our feedback transparent, we recorded a video-discussion ofeach complete draft, shared the video with the respective contributor(s), and then arranged to talk together in Zoom
about the further development of their writing. This let us personalise our editorial stance; at the same time, it createdsome kind of distancing effect in responding to different writers, both novice and experienced.

Alison: I’d like to add to what Andy has written about feedback in the form of video-discussions. This innovation cameabout after one of the editors was unable to join a meeting and asked for a recording of what was discussed. Unlike
written feedback, which can seem somewhat authoritative and conclusive, the recorded discussions allowed the writers
to witness the editors’ initial and evolving views as they talked through what they had read. As a contributor who
received video feedback on my practice-related review, this was a fascinating, if somewhat disconcerting experience.
I’m not sure I particularly enjoyed viewing a discussion about what I had written at that stage—as the writer, it felt like I
was eavesdropping on a conversation about my writing, even though the editors were addressing their comments tothe camera and a future me. Nevertheless, this use of technology helped me to think about my writing again from theperspective of readers who were also invested in the experience and ideas I was trying to convey.

Tim: Through two questionnaires, a series of interviews, and reviewing the email correspondence we have had with LDJ
editors, contributors, reviewers and others, we began to identify a number of “knots”—recurring issues and themesthat intrigued us and for which we had no ready-made answers or solutions. These included the following:

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <http://ld-sig.org>

16

Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(2): Free Space
Discourse
We noticed how by using certain vocabulary, we and LDJ contributors trap ourselves into thinking in particular ways
about the LDJ. The very fact that we (stupidly?) called it a “journal” has set up many expectations and possibly many
misconceptions about the project. Similarly, terms such as “steering group,” “editor,” “reviewer,” and “article/paper”
have led sometimes to assumptions about roles and modes of work which can be unhelpful. It might be better for us to
use new vocabulary to describe new practices.
Miscommunication
With contributors/writers, editors, reviewers, and members of the steering group part of the LDJ structure, it isobviously crucial that these different people and groups communicate effectively with one another. Things can be
misconstrued, and things may get miscommunicated. For example, writers and reviewers may see the feedback process
differently and can be disappointed with the feedback they receive, or may feel the other person does not want toenter into a collaborative discussion about the writing.
Feelings
Feelings can be hurt in this kind of endeavour just as they can in traditional academic publishing. Writers can feelmisunderstood when they want to write in a particular way which may not fit with what the editors are hoping for.
Some writers have dropped out at a late stage in the process because they do not seem to want to commit themselvesto this exploratory, collaborative way of working.
Quality and standards
This is interesting because one might assume that in the LDJ, in terms of the writing, anything goes! But, of course,
ultimately when the editors move towards publishing an issue of the LDJ they want it to be good and they want to feelthat people will read it and enjoy it and learn from it. So, this is something that we've been struggling with: how you
can encourage people to write in a very original, creative, exploratory way but still ensure that it turns into a decent
product which will be judged by how coherent it is, how easy it is to read, how relevant it seems to the topic underdiscussion, and how well the writer makes the context easy for the reader to understand. This raises questions about
what sorts of standards we are wishing to adhere to or what we regard as good quality writing when it comes to writing
about practitioner research and when we are trying to make learner development issues come alive for readers.

Alison: We end this written dialogue as we ended our presentation at AILA: with knots, intractable puzzles that wehope to unravel and understand better. Reflecting on these knots together is, we hope, something that is not only
enjoyable in itself, but a practice that might also lead to more sustainable processes of collaborative writing for
publication. In the poster video that we prepared for our second session in the symposium, we identified a number ofknots: accepting new genres, power dynamics and issues, writing quality, (mis) communication, collaboration andcommitment, novice and experienced writers, different expectations and assumptions, and emotions around thereview process. As with our poster, we invite readers of Learning Learning to take some time to view the comments ofwriters, editors, reviewers, and steering group members—and to add your own reflections in turn.
To view the knots that emerged, go here and follow the links.

(Laura, 2011)

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <http://ld-sig.org>

17

Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(2): Free Space

References
Badrinathan, V. (2021/in press). Multilingualism in the foreign language classroom: The curious case of French in
Mumbai. The Learner Development Journal, 5. [Page numbers and URL not yet available]
de Beaufort, L. (2021/in press). Narrative inquiry: Learning to walk on shifting sands. The Learner Development Journal,
5. [Page numbers and URL not yet available]
Kelly, R., & Jussila, J. (2021/in press). Reflections on co-teaching multilingual university-level language andcommunication courses. The Learner Development Journal, 5. [Page numbers and URL not yet available]
Laura, S. (2011, November 24). How to untangle knots (My mother’s yarn) [Blog]. http://
writingwhatsreal.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-untangle-knots-1-my-mothers-yarn.html

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <http://ld-sig.org>

18