Speaker
Description
This study originated from a practitioner research project on reflective diary use. This presentation focuses specifically on how students experienced and contributed to the development of a classroom community in a University English communication course.
Over the six weeks, students' participation, interaction patterns, and emerging needs became central to shaping the classroom environment. By attending to these needs, students actively influenced the direction of lessons through their engagement and preferences.
This presentation shows how a community formed around shared values of practical language learning and mutual support. It illustrates how students navigated their roles as learners, contributed to peer interaction, and informed a flexible approach to teaching.
The session concludes by highlighting how centering students' lived classroom experiences can foster a stronger and more sustainable language-learning community.
Abstract
This presentation reports on findings from a larger practitioner research project examining reflective diary use in a university English communication course. While the broader project explores multiple dimensions of reflective teaching, this paper foregrounds exploratory practice (EP) (Allwright, 2003; Allwright & Hanks, 2009; Hanks, 2017) to examine how teacher reflection supports understanding of students’ needs and classroom community. Adopting an EP stance, the study prioritizes developing deeper understanding of classroom life rather than evaluating learning outcomes or solving predefined pedagogical problems.
Over a six-week period, the teacher-researcher engaged in structured diary reflections embedded in normal classroom practice and made responsive adjustments within an opportunistic curriculum design. Data consisted of reflective diary entries written after each session. Analysis focused on patterns in student engagement, participation, and communicative interaction emerging from the reflective notes.
Findings suggest that exploratory reflection supported the development of a more participatory and collaborative classroom environment, enabling the teacher to better understand learners’ communicative needs and respond to them sensitively. The study highlights exploratory practice as a sustainable, community-oriented approach to inquiry emphasizing understanding, teaching, and the cultivation of supportive language-learning communities.
References
Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory Practice: rethinking practitioner research in language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7(2), 113–141. https://doi.org/10.1191/1362168803lr118oa
Allwright, D., & Hanks, J. (2009). The developing Language Learner: An Introduction to Exploratory Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hanks, J. (2017). Exploratory practice in language teaching. In Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45344-0
Keywords
Exploratory Practice, Language Learner, Reflective Diary, Classroom Community
Short summary
This practitioner research examines how exploratory practice and reflective diaries enhance understanding of student needs in university English communication courses. Six weeks of structured teacher reflection and responsive curriculum adjustments revealed that exploratory reflection fosters collaborative classroom environments by enabling teachers to understand and sensitively respond to learners' communicative needs through sustainable, community-oriented inquiry.
| Scheduling preference | Anytime on Saturday or Sunday |
|---|---|
| Title | Fostering Classroom Community Through Exploratory Practice |