‘A Necessity or Luxury?’ Publishing Practitioner Research in Language Education and Higher Education

Abstract

Since the 1990s, practitioner research (PR) has gained traction in language education with the goal of promoting language teachers’ reflective and exploratory practice, as well as enhancing students’ language learning. However, conducting and publishing PR is not an easy task, particularly in current higher education settings. This viewpoint paper provides a critical analysis of the challenges involved in writing and publishing PR and gives practical recommendations on how to cope with such challenges and create a symbiotic relationship between practice, research and publishing. The paper also calls for the long-term and concerted efforts of different stakeholders to foster a flexible and inclusive publishing culture, which recognizes and celebrates the nature (e.g., practice-based and context-specific), strength (e.g., a nexus between theory and practice) and rigour (e.g., ecological validity and critical self-reflexivity) of PR.