Gaining Deeper Understanding of Teaching Speaking Skills from Collaborative Inquiry

This chapter presents an account of a teacher working collaboratively with students to gain a deeper understanding of the ways classroom activities transfer into development of students’ spoken English. The Exploratory Practice (EP) processes of collaboration and inquiry, carried out within the Language Teacher Research (LTR) project, show how the teacher developed insights into aspects of teaching, and the factors which seem to account for the relationship between what is taught and what is learnt. The EP led to shared understanding with students, and to a new-found sense of confidence as a teacher, and new connections to the literature.