A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

1. make their listening lessons more interesting for 
students;
2. cater better for the needs of both high-achieving and 
low-achieving learners when doing group work;
3. improve the way they correct spoken errors.
Where would you advise them to look for ideas? Make notes 
or discuss with someone. 
Task 7.6
In Chapter Four you identified a topic to focus on for
your own Exploratory Action Research project and also 
identified your exploratory questions. You may have also 
begun the data collection process (Chapter Five) and the 
analysis of that data (Chapter Six). If not, you may want
to come back to this task when you have done these. 
Alternatively, for the purposes of this task, you can
imagine you have collected the data and analysed it. 
Now get a colleague or mentor to look at your table, 
especially the possible actions, and provide some 
feedback. Do they match the findings well? Does your 
colleague or mentor think they are good ideas? Can s/he 
think of other possible actions? You may even want to share 
your ideas with your learners: What do they think of the 
possible actions?
Complete the table for your Exploratory Action Research 
project so far: 
My topic
(see Chapter Four)
My exploratory questions
(see Chapter Four)
1.
2.
3.
4.
My key findings
Write a brief summary sentence or two.
Changes so far?
Note down whether you have already seen any changes 
as a result of your exploration.
Possible ‘actions’?
Note down what (kind of) actions you may now want
to implement, to bring about (further) change.

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What shall I change? | 
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7.4 Implementing the change as planned
Once you have identified your possible actions, and got 
feedback on them from colleagues / a mentor (and possibly 
learners), you will be ready to begin implementing the 
change. In this section we will share some advice that might 
help you, and also consider some of the possible challenges 
you may face.