Since completing my MA in 2004, my research interests have followed three distinct themes; classroom research focused on evaluating and assessing teaching methodologies, research into assessing and improving editorial systems and professional development, and finally, supporting other scholars’ research through editing at various academic journals, including The Language Teacher and the Asian ESP Journal.
Regarding the first theme, that of investigating methodological questions through classroom research, until recently I’ve been interested in researching the efficacy of task-based learning in EFL classrooms in Japan. The first iterations of that research include my chapter in Teachers Exploring Tasks, and culminated most recently in my scholarship presentation at the 2009 IATEFL Conference in Cardiff. My research interests regarding classroom investigations have since shifted. This shift is partially a result of becoming interested in exploring some new ideas regarding methodology after six years of research into TBLT and also because after reading Pallotti’s criticisms of current directions in task-based language teaching in Applied Linguistics in late 2009, I largely agreed with her assessment that many voices in task-based teaching research are moving away from practical, classroom-based concerns to more theoretical arguments. Being more interested in research and investigations that have an immediate relevance to my classroom, I’m currently evaluating other classroom innovations, such as scaffolding, which is to be a chapter in Innovating Teaching in Context: Asia, a book proposal currently in review with Palgrave Macmillan. Much more recently, I’ve also started investigating the potential influence of free writing on student writing speed. These research investigations follow a clear theme of exploring how to improve methodology within my classroom and disseminating the results to other teacher-researchers in the hopes of generating a picture of best practice that will shape EFL education for the better in general, and particularly in our Japanese context.
The second research theme I have followed is investigation into teacher professional development and editorial systems. This research first began in collaboration with Dr. John Adamson (University of Niigata Prefecture) as a presentation and conference proceedings paper for the Okayama University/JALT Teacher Education SIG Conference in 2006. After completing the chapter titled, “Research support in a Japanese context: Building communities” for Qualitative Studies on English Language Teacher Development, our interest in professional development mutually turned to investigation of the journals with which we were active editors. My co-research with John began with distribution of a questionnaire to The Language Teacher reviewers, following a similar research methodology that John had already initiated with Dr. Roger Nunn at the Asian EFL Journal. This research is ongoing, having expanded to include five journals at this point, and we have submitted a manuscript of our latest findings to Written Communication. Looking into the future, I’m very interested in following on Lillis and Curry’s investigation of the experiences of Eastern European scholars in pursuing academic publication. I would like to form a network among distance education students with the University of Birmingham Centre for English Language Studies to investigate their experience of academic writing through their MA. Additionally, I could potentially follow their experiences after they complete their MA and pursue academic publishing. I’ve approached Dr. Theresa Lillis about the potential of pursuing a PhD in this topic under her supervision with The Open University, and she and Dr. Nicholas Groom at the University of Birmingham have both expressed an interest in supervising such research. Right now I’m starting to develop a research framework and to collect data for the research, although the costs of PhD studies are currently prohibitive, so I haven’t formally enrolled in any programs yet.
My current interests in the acquisition and development of academic voice among MA students and other burgeoning scholars derives partially from the research I’ve conducted into journal systems and partially from my experiences as a vicarious researcher, supporting the publication efforts of scholars internationally through my role as editor with The Language Teacher and the Asian ESP Journal. These experiences have given me exposure to a variety of different research contexts, methods, and approaches, all of which have helped me to better focus my own research interests and endeavors. The experiences I’ve gained as an editor were perhaps best highlighted with my invited panel presentation, alongside Dr. Judy Noguchi and Dr. Thomas Orr, about issues in ESP at the CUE SIG Conference in 2009 in Nara. That gave me an opportunity to reflect on the variety of researches I’ve been exposed to, and to consider my current understanding of the field and the research areas I feel have been the most compelling so far. The theme that emerged from my presentation, and a theme I’m interested in pursuing with my research into acquisition and development of academic voice, is that of locally-based researchers using their research and knowledge to empower themselves and their students—an empowerment I’ve experienced myself through my successful IATEFL scholarship application and which I’ve helped to facilitate through my editing work. More recently, I also began teaching an online course titled MASH Academic Publishing through MASH Collaboration, assisting young scholars to better prepare themselves to publish in academic journals.