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Language Teaching for Young Learners: Online-First Articles

A pilot analysis of a young-learner classroom anecdote

Exploratory Practice (EP) in terms of phenomenology

| Shirayuri University,
| Shirayuri University,
This research was planned to explore a possible way for teachers to reflect on their personal experiences. It analyses a sample young-learner classroom anecdote as a form of narrative record and explores a way to take a first step in engaging in practitioner research. The teacher in the sample anecdote experienced a sense of pleasant puzzlement when he saw children engaging in a seemingly ideal case of natural/implicit learning in a classroom context. The scene triggered an inquiry into the meaning of a particular classroom event. In the actual analysis, the authors performed a context-specific examination of classroom interactions, focusing on phonological and discoursal aspects of the episode. The process revealed an inner structure of the sample anecdote, underpinned with certain elements of embedded affectivity (i.e., a sense of playfulness).
Keywords: practitioner research, young learners, anecdotal journal, exploratory practice, phenomenological inquiry
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.EP in terms of phenomenology
  • 3.The data
  • 4.Pilot analysis of a sample anecdote
    • 4.1Wonder as a criterion for the selection of a sample anecdote
    • 4.2Incidental learning in everyday classroom context
    • 4.3Spontaneous output in the context of classroom discourse
    • 4.4Summary of the analysis
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Unconscious bracketing of SCT
    • 5.2Consideration of sustainability
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
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References (17)
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