A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

© British Council 2018
The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
This practical, user-friendly guide takes teachers through the steps of Exploratory Action Research, an approach
to teacher-research for professional development created originally in the context of the British Council Champion 
Teachers programme for secondary school teachers in Chile and, since then, adopted also in teacher-research 
schemes in India, Nepal and Peru. 
Based on examples from actual experience, including cases from the companion publication Champion Teachers: 
Stories of Exploratory Action Research (British Council, 2016), the book is unique in the literature on teacher-
research in ELT in being particularly targeted at school teachers working in relatively difficult circumstances. 
Richard Smith (Reader in ELT & Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, UK) has expertise in the fields of 
language teaching history; learner and teacher autonomy; teacher-research; ELT research capacity-building; and 
teaching in difficult circumstances. He has published widely and given invited talks, seminars and workshops in 
many countries, working as an educator and mentor with teachers and researchers from around the world, both 
face to face and as leader of networks like the Teaching English in Large Classes network (TELCnet), IATEFL 
Research SIG. and the International Festival of Teacher-research. He is currently the editor of the ‘Key Concepts’ 
section of ELT Journal, chair of the Editorial Board of English Language Teacher Education and Development Journal, 
and an academic adviser to teacher-research schemes in both Latin America and South Asia.
Paula Rebolledo has taught at primary, secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate levels and in INSETT 
programmes. She is the former coordinator for teacher education of the English Open Doors Programme (EODP)
at the Ministry of Education in Chile and is now a freelance teacher educator and researcher. Her areas of interest 
include teaching young learners, teacher education, professional development and teacher-research. She has
given talks and workshops in Latin America, Europe and Asia. She has worked as a mentor in a number of teacher-
research programmes such as the Champion Teachers programme in Chile and Peru and the APTIS Action Research 
Award Scheme, both funded by the British Council. Recently, she led the Laureate Action Research Scheme funded 
by Laureate Languages. She is the co-founder of RICELT, the first network of Chilean researchers in ELT.