Action Research Files: An Interview with Anne Burns

An Interview and Book Review by Gertrude Tinker Sach

Taking Risks in Task-based Teaching and Learning

Further to Tinker Sachs (2007), this paper reports on the development of taskbased learning and teaching (TBLT) within a cooperative learning (CL) and teacher action research context. The three-year longitudinal project involved 12 teachers and their students from 3 government primary schools in Hong Kong. When innovative ways of teacher professional development in language teaching are fostered, a great deal of teacher and learner risk-taking is necessary for teaching and learning success. This paper reports on the risk-taking behaviours of teachers and students as they engaged in TBLT and CL. Data were drawn from teacher and learner interviews, questionnaires, lesson feedback and transcriptions. The results indicated that with an action research framework in a TBLT and CL classroom environment, both teachers and students increased their use of the target language. Teacher risk-taking involved development of learner-centred teaching routines and the creation of tasks for language development. Similarly, learners exhibited a need for more learner-centred activities in English to extend their conversational repertoire. Recommendations are offered for promoting the conditions in which both teachers and learners can engage in the kinds of risk-taking that underpin successful task-based teaching and learnin

Teacher and researcher autonomy in action research

17 page(s

Levels of Cultural Familiarity and Strategy Use in Reading Comprehension

Previous studies have used cross-cultural comparisons to demonstrate the effect of background knowledge on reading comprehension. The present study used a similar approach to study the relations between background knowledge, reading skill and level of use of reading comprehension strategies. Eighty-eight sixth-grade participants in elementary school were equally divided according to reading skill (skilled and less skilled) and country (Bahamas or Canada). Subjects thought aloud while reading culturally familiar and unfamiliar informative texts. Protocols were scored according to the level of strategic action exhibited and according to the condition triggering the action. The results, while confirming the role of knowledge in the construction of meaning, indicated significant country differences in subjects\u27 use of knowledge and in correlations of strategy level with other measures. Results from the Canadian sample confirmed other North American findings: level of strategy use was positively correlated with both reading skill and with comprehension of familiar and unfamiliar texts. However, the Bahamian skilled and less skilled students demonstrated consistently higher levels of strategy and knowledge use on both familiar and unfamiliar stories than did the Canadian students. Furthermore, in the Bahamian sample, level of strategy use was not correlated with reading skill or comprehension. These results raise questions about the generality of relationship between reading strategies and comprehension. Eighty-eight sixth-grade participants in elementary school were equally divided according to reading skill (skilled and less skilled) and country (Bahamas or Canada)

Cooperative learning in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools.

In this issue of the IASCE Forum, Gertrude Tinker Sachs and Dean Tjosvold write about how cooperative learning was introduced in Hong Kong. One avenue was through teachers of English at the primary and secondary levels. This is described in the article below. The other was at the university level through the work of the Hong Kong Cooperative Learning Center