Developing Language Teachers with Exploratory Practice

'This volume demonstrates how teachers, teacher educators, and curriculum developers "puzzle" their way through a range of classroom-relevant topics related to their practice. The inspirational chapters provide illustrative examples of how to go about Exploratory Practice (EP) in different contexts and for different purposes. Additionally, mentors, with whom the practitioners collaborated in a series of activities and workshops, provide relevant theoretical grounding about EP. Altogether, the book makes an excellent contribution to the growing work on EP in various regions around the world.'

This edited collection explores the use of Exploratory Practice (EP) by language teachers in classrooms. Written by practitioners, the chapters showcase unique examples of each principle of EP, with topics ranging from mentoring practitioner researchers, to teaching and learning in EAP, and investigating curriculum development in language teaching programs. The book provides example EP studies and gives voice to practitioners' experiences of the challenges they experienced as well as the benefits. Examples include tackling intercultural communication in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms; pedagogy and curriculum design in language teaching; explorations of continuing professional development in language education. In doing so, it offers tools that can be transferred to other classroom contexts and used to aid teacher development. The concluding chapter highlights critical aspects of Exploratory Practice which emerge in the studies and examines how practitioners advanced their understandings. This book will appeal to those working in Applied Linguistics, TESOL research, as well as language teachers and teacher educators.

Introduction: Mentoring Language Teaching Professionals in/through Exploratory Practice; Judith Hanks and Kenan Dikilitas.- Chapter 1: Exploratory Practice: Innovations and Explorations in Language Education; Judith Hanks and Kenan Dikilitas.- Chapter 2: Enacting Exploratory Practice Principles: Mentoring Language Teaching Professionals; Wayne Trotman;.- Chapter 3: Investigating and Understanding 'Free Reading' Experiences through Exploratory Practice; Talip Karanfil.- Chapter 4: Investigating Self-reported Reading Comprehension via Exploratory Practice; Onur Ergünay.- Chapter 5: Understanding the Challenges of Academic Presentations for EAP Students: An Exploratory Practice Approach; Simon Mumford.- Chapter 6: Intertwining Exploratory Practice with 'Standard' Research Practices in Foreign Language Education; Gamze Öncül and Rhian Webb.- Chapter 7: Exploratory Practice as a Way of Fostering Learner Autonomy; Kerim Biçer.- Chapter 8: The Role of Exploratory Practice and International Collaboration in Creating a Democratic Classroom; Rhian Webb and Troy Sarina.- Chapter 9: Why Do Students Consider Integrated Skills Lesson as a Grammar and Vocabulary Lesson?; Betül Dogdu and Dilek Arca.- Conclusions: Developing in/through Exploratory Practice; Kenan Dikilitas and Judith Hanks.