International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
project for high school teachers and university students in China, and a research forum for graduate students in a
TESOL program in South Korea, and a materials development project involving teachers and graduate students
from Korea, China, and Vietnam. The three incarnations of the project outlined in this paper remain works-inprogress
and have yet to be fully analyzed and evaluated. My purpose in this paper is simply to describe the
projects and share observations and comments on the projects in the hope that doing so may inspire new
incarnations and invite ideas for how the project can be improved and developed.
General Description and Purpose of the LEARN Project
The LEARN (Local Education and Academic Research Networks) project was developed to explore
community-oriented approaches to education research and teacher training by building networks of stakeholder
communities. Drawing on critical pedagogy, service-learning, and community-oriented education, the LEARN
project is based on the belief that knowledge and education are social acts achieved by community collaboration,
and that successful collaboration requires empowerment of all participants (e.g. Creese, 2002; Freeman, 2007).
The LEARN project also reflects the belief that critical research and community building can be used to
legitimize a greater variety of identities, positions, and activities, this allowing for the inclusion of more
participants and their knowledge in the teacher knowledge base and its knowledge-constructing processes.
The LEARN project uses qualitative research as a critical tool for empowering participants. The project
facilitates the development of local research themes as well as the construction and validation of local
knowledge. The research is not primarily reported by the LEARN project organizers at remote academic or
professional venues, but rather collected, shared, and published locally by the participants themselves. The
LEARN project creates a local discourse community which in turn provides an empowered position that enables
local teacher-researchers to interact with regional, national, and international TESOL communities. The LEARN
community also seeks to strengthen links between schools and the communities they belong to by bringing
together administrators, educators, researchers, students, and parents.
Project 1: A Teacher Training Project for Middle School Teachers and University Students in China
In 2008, the LEARN Project was hosted by a university in southern China. The project was conducted over a
12-month period and included university students and faculty, and teachers from five partner middle schools.
Partner school teachers were selected on a volunteer basis and were given the opportunity to act as teacherresearchers.
They visited the host university during both fall and spring semesters and acted as consultants to the
student-researchers; they also served as host teachers when the student-researchers visited the partner schools. A
small group of host university faculty members were closely involved in the implementation and development of
the project and gradually assumed the roles of trainers and organizers. They collaborated in a research group
consisting of teachers and researchers from the partner schools and other institutions.
The LEARN Project 2008 student-researchers were Chinese undergraduate students training to become
teachers of English at the middle school or university level. As participants in the LEARN project, they received
four courses in preparation for, and support of, their fieldwork. The fall courses prepared the students for
their research projects by providing a theoretical and methodological foundation in conjunction with meetings
with local and national/international TESOL professionals, students, parents, and regional education specialists.
The student-researchers designed qualitative or mixed-mode studies for the spring; these designs were then
presented at a local conference at the end of the fall semester and published in the LEARN Project language
journal. In the spring, the student-researchers cooperated with partner school teachers and spent approximately
one week co-teaching with a partner school teacher.
Discussion of Project 1
By far the most ambitious of the LEARN projects to date, this incarnation was challenging both logistically
and pedagogically. The stated purpose—to develop local research strategies and forums consistent with national
curriculum guidelines and aimed at facilitating the implementation of a new curriculum—proved difficult to
define, at least initially. In the early stages of the project especially, participants at all levels struggled to identify
their individual roles and objectives. As the project proceeded, participants gained confidence and gradually
developed research foci that addressed the overall agenda. Despite the fragmented outcome, which was
perceived by some participants as failure to meet the objective, the project did result in student-researcher papers
and presentations, as well as conference presentations by some of the faculty members in the research group.
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