Dialectical research

Abstract: With the hindsight of some 15 years scholarship, we can now discern some sizeable flaws in the flow of argument in Paper Prophets. On the face of it, the main problem is to do with a disjuncture between, on one hand, the series of cases studies presented at the outset and, on the other, the subsequent analysis of these cases. The problem is noteworthy because it has recurred on numerous occasions, in various literatures especially where case and ethnographic investigations have been involved. The problem is, in essence, about how researchers should ‘frame’ or construct case material in a manner that is both faithful to the case evidence (including the actor’s understanding of affairs) and the researcher’s own interests in the investigation. This problem pre-dates contemporary ethnographic, management, and accounting research; it is at the core of Marx’s revision of Hegel’s dialectical method. This paper redresses the deficiency with a four-stage approach to dialectical research that is derived from the works of Marx and Hegel. The first stage involves acknowledging the particular research interest of studies like Paper Prophets that focus on problems emanating from the instabilities of capitalism, and that these instabilities are embodied in commodity form itself. The second stage involves identifying the ‘self-activating mechanisms’ (or internal relations) that are integral to the empirical phenomena. The Third phase involves appropriating the evidence; an effort distinguished from other forms of empiricism by its pursuit of a ‘realism in process’. The final phase involves reconstructing evidence in a way that elucidates the political possibilities associated with the ‘self-activating’ mechanisms of material processes; that is, rendering these mechanisms political intelligible.

Abstract: Abstract Teacher-student collaborative assessment (TSCA) aims to address the challenges of responding to students’ work in the Production-Oriented Approach: low efficiency and poor effectiveness. As part of a bigger project carried out in a Chinese university over a period of three years, the present study explored how the teacher prepared and implemented TSCA in class, especially with a focus on how she determined the assessing objective and worked collaboratively with her students in class to achieve it, using the students’ written and translated texts as examples. By adopting the dialectical research (DR) method, this paper collected qualitative data such as teaching plans, classroom recordings, and reflective journals of the teacher-researcher (the author), along with students’ written drafts and translated texts. TSCA theory and classroom practice have been refined simultaneously by means of putting theory into practice and reflecting upon it. The optimized pre-class and in-class procedures may shed some light on applying TSCA to L2 classrooms.

Abstract: Abstract More than a decade has passed since Wen Qiufang (2007) first proposed that foreign language teaching could benefit from output-driven practices in the classroom. Her original ideas were reformulated and further elaborated in the Production-Oriented Approach (POA), which aims to deal with the input-output separation in foreign language teaching in Chinese universities and colleges to optimize students’ learning (Wen, 2015, 2016b). Integrating the strengths of Chinese traditional pedagogy and Western instructional approaches, this approach engages learners with production, merging the learning and use of language to enhance the efficiency of language teaching (Illes, 2018, p. 242) in a Chinese context. This introduction to the special issues includes three major sections. It starts out with an overview of what the POA system includes and how it works with a focus on its teaching procedures. The second section is about dialectical research (DR), a new research paradigm specifically designed for instructed second language acquisition (Wen, 2017b) with “dialectical materialism as its philosophical basis” (Wen, 2019, p. 385). Finally, seven papers collected in this issue are introduced. We hope that this special issue sets a research agenda towards a better understanding of the POA.

Abstract: The title of this article is inspired by a teacher trainee who used this expression to refer to teaching observations undertaken by Teacher Educators on teacher training courses. The expression is suggestive of a problematic view of lesson observations. This article seeks to examine the perspectives of in-service teacher trainees on this issue. Mixed research methods were used, focusing on real-life contexts and perspectives. The first research method involved a survey that aimed to determine trainees’ perspectives and identify a sample of their views. A key feature of this survey was that it required that trainees provide a commentary in which they were asked to provide a rationale for their answers. Some of the survey questions could be interpreted as leading questions, but these same questions were then totally re-framed during the focus groups using language indicative of an antithetical viewpoint to those asked during the survey. It was hoped that this would encourage a more dialectical debate and search for new perspectives and interpretations of the data. This is also a technique cited by Moore (2000) with regard to dialectical research and analysis. The use of a range of data collection methods and reasonable sample size (32) also helps to support the validity of the overall data. The rationale was to gain an insight into trainees’ perspectives on lesson observations. To do this, a survey was conducted, which was then followed up with two focus groups. The purpose of the focus groups was to open up a more exploratory discussion where contrasting opinions were encouraged. This research concluded with two in-depth interviews with teacher trainees to discuss their specific perspectives. The purpose of the interviews was to review a range of strategies, which might be used to help observers support staff and teacher trainees to create more effective teaching and learning observations. The findings from this research highlighted key issues with regard to graded teaching and learning observations. A range of recommendations is offered to help. Some changes to the approach of initial teaching providers are suggested, in addition to opening spaces for trainees and teacher trainers to explore these issues. The trainees surveyed welcomed these suggestions.