From Sociocultural Epistemology to Transformative Pedagogy: Contributions of Collaborative Action Research through Dialogic Mediation in Teacher Professional Development

The preparation of English teachers to teach is a complex and multitudinous undertaking. Traditionally, in line with positivist paradigm which has focused on notion of transfer, teacher education has been concerned with depositing bodies of pre-defined information to teachers and has considered teachers as that of knowledge consumers. As an alternative to traditional, transmission-based view of teacher education, action research has emerged as a practical tool to enhance meaningful second language (L2) teacher education. In line with the current epistemological shift, this study set out to examine the utility of collaborative action research, as a viable means, to boost teachers’ professional development in a networked community of shared practice. To this end, 7 male and female Iranian English teachers, aged 22—35, were selected through convenient sampling from different universities in Iran. Having been added to a teacher training group in WhatsApp, the selected participants were exposed to online classes within which they learned to problematize a context-specific topic and were provided with relevant practical experiences through dialogic mediation. Having been taught to go through circles of action research throughout the treatment, the participants were required to complete an action research project. The data triangulated from four main sources (i.e., action research projects, teachers’ professional journals, reflective journals, and semi-structured interviews), revealed that EFL teachers engaged in a collaborative dialogue in a networked community of shared knowledge appeared to sustain L2 professional development, transforming their pedagogical practice and feeling empowered to move toward a more emancipatory perspective. The findings have important implications for language teachers in general, and EFL teachers and syllabus designers, in particular.

Keywords:

Collaborative Action Research , Dialogic Mediation , Networked Community of Shared Knowledge , Professional development