In the Postgraduate Diploma of Applied Linguistics papers we seek to introduce you to, among other things, a range of ways to undertake research into language teaching and learning. The purpose of this assignment is for you to use a method of enquiry that has become popular in recent years to investigate an aspect of your own teaching history.
Learning outcome/s being assessed:
• Examine and clarify personal beliefs about language teaching.
Task: Narrative enquiry is a research method which involves analysing the narratives that people recount of their own experiences in situations of interest to find out what they reveal of their understandings of and construction of knowledge about that situation. Anecdotes are, of course, part of our everyday talk, and to turn the process of narrative from the kind of conversational exchange we might expect in a staffroom to research requires a careful analysis. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) in Barkhuizen (2008) suggest we should analyse such narratives on three levels:
1 the participants in the story—their own experiences and their interactions with others;
2 the time during which the story takes place, including its temporal connections to history and the future; and
3 the physical settings or places in which the story is located. (p. 232)
Sample Solution
