Six EL teachers have embarked upon their pioneering action research projects, supported by English UK and Cambridge English Language Assessment.

They won the chance to carry out and publish their own investigations with expert support and all expenses paid after submitting their ideas to our jointly-organised Action Research Award Scheme. The idea is to encourage high standards and increase professional develop opportunities in the ELT sector.

The six, who all work in English UK member centres, recently completed their first workshop session in London, where they were guided by Professor Simon Borg, Visiting Professor of TESOL at Leeds University.

Over two days they presented and discussed their proposals before learning more about planning and designing action research, including issues around ethics, sampling, analysing and revising data. By the end of the workshop, they had developed their initial research proposals into workable formats to get their programme under way.

"They enjoyed meeting each other, including for dinner on the Friday night, and spent two days working on how to conduct teacher research effectively," said Huan Japes, English UK's Deputy Chief Executive for Professional Services. He added: "They left having refined their own initial proposals and set themselves goals for the next stage of the project: they've now been able to submit expanded proposals to us as a result of the workshop, and will shortly be receiving feedback on those."

The six are Abigail Croucher, Lewis School of English, Southampton; Ian Chitty, of Bell in Cambridge; Tatiane Depieri, of Kaplan International English, London; Adam Scott, of St Giles Brighton; Judith Watkins, The Sheffield College and Rolf Tynan, Embassy English Cambridge.

The investigating teachers will have begun their background reading and investigations and been supported through an online tutorial before their next deadline at the end of April, when they must submit progress reports. They will meet in London at the end of May for another two-day workshop, submitting further progress reports a month later with a further online tutorial for added support and discussion.

The draft final reports must be written by mid-October, with the winner decided towards the end of the month. The participants will then review their presentations at a full one-day workshop before the English UK Teachers' Conference, where they will discuss their research and the winner will be announced.

Finally, the teachers' reports will be published in Cambridge English Language Assessment's Research Notes. 

Click here fore more information on the Action Research Award Scheme.