Researching Innovation in Language Education: The Case of the English Café

　This paper examines issues pertaining to research methodology that can arise during the planning and execution of studies designed to investigate innovations in language education. In order to address this topic, we draw on the three studies that we carried out in the English Café and the L-café, social spaces for language learning, located on the campus of Okayama University. These studies include an ethnography, a multiple case study, and a narrative inquiry. In this paper we adopt a narrative mode and tell the story of the research process. We begin by describing the research environments − the English Café and the L-café − and outlining the studies. We then examine the evolving theoretical orientation that informed the emergent design of the studies and guided the interpretation of the data. In this section of the paper, we take a close look at how our initial focus on the communities of practice construct led us to adopt an ecological approach that further expanded to encompass aspects of complex dynamic systems theory. In the final section of the paper we reflect on how the expanding theoretical orientation influenced the methodological design of the studies and consider the implications for doing research in innovative language learning environments.

論説 (Articles)