Book Reviews 䉬 423

Levy, M., and G. Stockwell (2006) CALL dimensions: options and issues in computer-
assisted language learning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Prensky, M. (2001) Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9.5: 1–6.
Rosell-Aguilar, F. (2007). Top of the pods: in search of a podcasting pedagogy for
language learning. Computer-Assisted Language Learning 20.5: 471–92.
Schriffin, D., D. Tannen, and H. Hamilton (2001) Discourse analysis and linguistics. In
D. Schriffin, D. Tannen, and H. Hamilton (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis.
Oxford: Blackwell, 11–96.
Swain, M., and S. Lapkin (1998) Talking it through: two French immersion
learners’ response to reformulation. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 22: 171–
85.
Tagliamonte, S., and D. Denis (2008) Linguistic ruin? LOL! Instant messaging and teen
language. American Speech 83: 3–24
Thomson, R., and T. Murchaver (2001) Predicting gender from electronic discourse.
British Journal of Social Psychology 40.2: 193–208.
Wikipedia (2010) History of podcasting. Retrieved 6 May 2010 from: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting (last updated 4 May 2010).

e-mail: zoe.handley@education.ox.ac.uk

Dick Allwright and Judith Hanks, 2009, The Developing Language

Learner: An Introduction to Exploratory Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 312 pages, ISBN 978-1403985323 ijal_268 423..435

Reviewed by Osamu Takeuchi Kansai University, Osaka, Japan

This volume is an intriguing and at the same time practical introduction to

Exploratory Practice. The term ‘Exploratory Practice’ (EP) might be new to
many readers. It is a form of ‘inclusive practitioner research [. . . ] where
teachers and learners are co-practitioners, and where learners investigate
their own puzzles about their own learning lives’ (p. 5). It also emphasizes
‘quality of life’ for all concerned (Hanks 2009: 34). The authors, Dick
Allwright and Judith Hanks, want this volume to show (1) that putting
learners fully at centre-stage as ‘key developing practitioners’ (p. 2) is
indispensable for the betterment of language classrooms, and (2) that
productive changes in line with the principles of EP are not only highly
desirable but also practically possible, even under current educational
environments.
This volume is made up of four parts: Part I (Chapters 2–7) explores the
background of the gap between what people may think and what they find
themselves doing in the field of language teaching: the authors review
language assessment, teaching methods, language teacher training, learner
variables, and SLA to trace how ideas about the classroom language learner
have (wrongly) developed over recent decades.

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Part II (Chapters 8–10) examines the research background to these

developments, focusing on how research has typically adopted an unhelpful
‘third party’ approach (vis-à-vis a ‘first person’ approach), even in the
context of teacher-based classroom research, and concluding that EP, an
inclusive form of practitioner research involving both teachers and learners
as research practitioners, is the most appropriate approach if we wish to
gain a deeper understanding of language learners and their learning
processes.
Part III (Chapters 11–15) goes from the conceptual discussion to the
practical one. Suggestions as well as personal stories from all over the world
illustrate EP research in context to demonstrate to readers how they could
carry out their own research.
Part IV (which is not divided into chapters) gives readers a wide range of
possible starting points, including lists of key books, articles, journals,
websites, conferences, and associations. They are valuable resources especially
for those practitioners wishing to start EP research in their own contexts.
Now, let me turn to each chapter. The first chapter in Part I, a general
introduction to this volume, begins with an explanation of what the authors
mean by calling learners ‘key developing practitioners’. They argue that
learners are key because they are the only people who can do their own
learning and consequently develop. Allwright and Hanks then introduce five
fundamental propositions about learners in EP. The propositions are:

1. Learners are unique individuals who learn and develop best in their own
idiosyncratic ways.
2. Learners are social beings who learn and develop best in a mutually
supportive environment.
3. Learners are capable of taking learning seriously.
4. Learners are capable of independent decision-making.
5. Learners are capable of developing as practitioners of learning. (pp. 5–6)

Chapter 2 is a brief introduction to the succeeding five chapters in Part I.

It stresses the importance of our educational experiences: people get their
most fundamental perceptions of learners from their own educational
experience as learners. Chapter 3, on the other hand, focuses on the negative
influence that standardized assessment can have on a view of learners, while
acknowledging the potentially positive contribution of three techniques: self-
assessment, assessment by graded objectives, and portfolio assessment. The
authors also critically examine the concepts of ‘summative’ and ‘formative’,
the ‘washback’ phenomenon, and the assessment of teachers.
As the authors rightly proclaim, ‘choosing a method means choosing a
view of the learner’ (p. 38). Chapter 4 thus turns to language teaching methods
that have often been seen as the core of the teaching/learning processes. The
authors examine how the method notion has developed over the decades, and
show how changing views on method relate to the five EP propositions about

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 Book Reviews 䉬 425

learners described in Chapter 1. The volume then moves on to language

teacher training in Chapter 5. The authors argue that training processes are
influential in forming teachers’ views of learners. In the processes, however,
they find two major barriers: trainee inexperience and institutional
standardization, both of which could suffocate EP’s five propositions
described above.
Chapters 6 and 7 each discuss one of the content areas that aspiring
language teachers on teacher training courses might be affected by in
developing their views on learners. Chapter 6 deals with learner variables
including aptitude, learning styles, learner strategies, learner training,
attitude, and motivation. The authors criticize learner variables research as
‘reductionist’ in nature, focusing on categorizing individual learners, instead
of being fully open to the complex and essentially social nature of classroom
language learning. Chapter 7 deals with SLA, which has chiefly adopted a
narrow, psycholinguistic perspective and treated the learner as a cognitive
device rather than as a social person. They argue that SLA has separated
research from pedagogy, and researchers from classroom teachers.
Chapter 8, an introductory chapter to Part II, insists that the ‘agency’ of
learners as potential researchers has been sadly neglected. The authors
attribute this neglect mainly to the ‘third party’ approach, which has been
dominant in our field over the decades. Since its promises, such as objectivity,
generalizability, and prescription, have failed us for a long time, the authors
argue that we should duly move on to a ‘first person’ approach (i.e.
practitioner research).
Chapter 9 examines several developments of classroom research,
including discourse analysis, protocol analysis, and diary studies. They are
fundamentally descriptive. The authors, however, insist that these
developments, although not prescriptive, are still ‘third person’ in nature
because they are teacher-centred, theory-oriented, and grossly ignore the
social nature of classroom learning. They claim that we need research
techniques that give learners the opportunity to speak for themselves and
help ‘researchers develop their understandings in a way that also helps
learners (and teachers) develop theirs’ (p. 134, italics original).
In Chapter 10, the authors argue that Action Research, where teachers
themselves are the researchers in their own classrooms, is still problematic
in three aspects: (1) the continuing influence of the third party model; (2)
the consequent focus on the teacher, thereby possibly marginalizing the
learner; and (3) the focus on change rather than on understanding. They go
on to propose that EP is the form of research that will offer us a solution,
taking us beyond the third party model and prioritizing learner
understanding.
Chapter 11, an introductory chapter to Part III, makes full use of learner
and teacher stories, bringing to life the authors’ ideas about what can happen
when learners get involved as ‘key developing practitioners’ in particular
settings. In this chapter, the authors also emphasize the importance of the

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sustainability of research. They argue that it can be achieved when research

becomes part of the normal working lives of teachers and learners.
Chapter 12 illustrates how learners and teachers think about things that
are ‘puzzling’ (p. 176) to them, fine-tuning their initial questions and
beginning to work together on them. The authors also provide us with lively
stories that depict how learners and teachers have begun exploring their
puzzles. Chapter 13 demonstrates, again with many examples, how the
parties concerned can use familiar pedagogic activities to integrate research
fully into their classroom lives.
Chapter 14 elaborates on a powerful example of inclusive practitioner
research, experienced by the members of the Rio EP group, whose success has
been instrumental in producing the principles and practices of EP. The last
chapter in Part III (Chapter 15), after a brief review of the authors’ argument
in this whole volume, further illustrates how learners and teachers can ‘share’
(p. 239) their experiences and develop understandings in and beyond the
classroom.
To be honest, I had been troubled by the ‘abstractness’ or ‘elusiveness’ of
EP since the time I first encountered the concept at a conference. I felt then that
there existed a wide and distinct gap between what it proposes and what we
are able to do in a local context. It was also antithetical to what I had long
thought ‘research’ should be. I thus needed some scaffolding to at least digest
this new idea. This volume is it. It successfully offers me (as well as other
readers, I believe) a bridge over the troubling gap, with the help of persuasive
arguments, possible procedures, lots of case studies, concrete examples,
stories, and quotes. What the authors argue, especially in Parts I and II, is
extremely persuasive and to the point. I now think, after reading this volume,
that EP is ‘practically possible, even within current educational institutions’
(p. 16). This volume, I am certain, can help guide readers toward a much-
needed ‘understanding’ (p. 151) of EP.

Reference
Hanks, J. (2009) Inclusivity and collegiality in exploratory practice. In T. Yoshida, H.
Imai, Y. Nakata, A. Tajino, O. Takeuchi, and K. Tamai (eds.), Researching language
teaching and learning: an integration of practice and theory. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp.
33–56.

e-mail: takeuchi@kansai-u.ac.jp

© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd