A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

A. classroom management: situations relating to students’ 
behaviour, classroom organisation, etc.
B. appropriate materials: issues that you may have with
a textbook, reading books or technological resources
and equipment
C. particular areas of teaching: situations related to skills
teaching (e.g. writing), content (e.g. grammar or
pronunciation) or overall approaches (e.g. task-based
learning)
D. students’ attitudes, achievement or motivation: issues
relating to students’ interest, progress etc. Here you
could also include issues relating to student–teacher
rapport
E. other
1
Wallace, M, 1997. Action Research for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

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What shall I explore – and what are my questions? | 
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Task 4.1 
Using the categories suggested above, complete the following table with notes on particular issues you might wish
to explore further (in the case of a success you could build on), to clarify (in the case of a puzzle) or to solve / improve
(in the case of a challenging situation).
Task 4.2 @ 
Read again the stories shared by Andrea and Leyla (cf. Chapter Three). Identify the main motivations these teachers
had for their research (success story, puzzle or challenging situation?) and decide which category of classroom life
(from a. to e. in Task 4.1 above) their research was most related to.
Whether you start with a problem, puzzle, doubt, worry or even success, you will need to decide on one of these to focus
on (since you cannot address all issues which are of interest to you at once), and then you need to come up with some 
questions related to your focus. In the rest of this chapter we’ll first be helping you to find a focus. Then we’ll move on
to how to formulate ‘good’ questions, and then you’ll be almost ready to start your own research. 
Narrowing down to a particular topic and deciding on questions can be hard – sometimes it’s the hardest part of the 
research process, as there are so many interesting things in classrooms that can be researched!