Action Research for Language Teachers

This book is like a cook book on what to do first and last in conducting qualitative research, especially for English teachers in English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL or EFL). Talking about cook book in qualitative research, one would very willing to recommend couple of books available in the market, for example, Miles and Huberman¡¯s (1994). Although the contents are similar, this book is quite unique in that it exclusively focuses on ESL or EFL. The step by step data collection procedures and exemplar articles have made it easy and interesting for me and my graduate students in conducting qualitative research as well as providing guidelines as to how to evaluate a specific piece of research. Data collection strategies labeled by personal review in the given boxes might be extremely helpful for novice researchers in this field in understanding, conceptualizing, and practicing qualitative research. If I were to pick up one book for the future research methodology course in TESOL, this book will be the first one appeared on the lists for my students¡¯ reading materials.