| Body | By Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
In addition to utilizing research to inform practice, a useful approach for language students can also be doing their own research about language, the language learning process, and more general, but related, topics. While it might seem intimidating at first, learners can access information to make sense of the learning journey they are on. Below, we present three examples for the use of student research in the language classroom.
- Help learners create their own classroom data set. As students become adept at creating data and working with it, they can start to see patterns in language as well as learning processes that are relevant to their own context and experience. This week’s Activity of the Week outlines one way to do this as part of classroom practice.
- Ask learners to select one article about language learning and share what they find with their classmates. The article can be on any topic of their choosing, but can be especially helpful when tied to the learning process, learning strategies, or understanding classroom practice. As learners being to see why things happen in the classroom, they being to embrace the process of learning, and, in many cases, embrace types of activities to which they may not typically relate.
- Share a statement of best practices with the learners. Sharing a one page, research-based synopsis of how classroom activities contribute to their own learning. Then, as learners engage in different components of the class, the instructor can refer back to the synopsis. While the content of the information may vary based on the age of the learner, attention to the research behind best practices can be highly beneficial, no matter the age.
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