HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING ABOUT ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA AND TO LOVE RESEARCH

What follows is a confession of how I became a teacher-researcher and why I value that transition, as opposed to a pure research account. After teaching for ten years, I had started doing an MA in order to break out of my teaching routines, although the first few months had relatively little direct impact on my work. This all changed, however, when an apparently routine assignment provoked me to stand up and question what I, as a teacher, was being encouraged to do by a group of (admittedly well-intentioned) researchers. This account, therefore, does not seek to describe a specific piece of research, but rather to highlight what teachers stand to gain by recognising their doubts about established research and practice, and directly conducting their own inquiries to explore these doubts. I would like to argue that it is not wider reading or engagement with research that empowers us as teachers, but rather the ability to pause, consider and, via systematic inquiry, directly challenge the recommendations we are offered.