Book review - Language Teacher Research in the Middle East

Abstract

As part of TESOL's Language Teacher Research Series, this book presents a collection of action research from English language teachers in the Middle East. Series editor Thomas Farrell sets the stage for this collection in the introduction, stating that the "ultimate aim of this series is to encourage an inquiry stance toward language teaching" (p. viii) through individual language teacher's systematic reflection "on their own practice" (p. vii). Coombe and Barlow expand upon this concept in the initial chapter, explaining: "Teacher research involves teachers directly in the selection of immediate, compelling, and meaningful topics" (p. 1). Thus, this book promotes the field of second language pedagogy by establishing the presence of the teacher-researcher and impacting the field through public presentation (Freeman, 1998). The remaining twelve chapters of the book cover a range of topics with oft-time similar themes. For instance, Chapters 3, 5 and 10 consider student perceptions of good teaching. More specifically, Chapter 3 looks at the validity of students' teacher evaluations which, although designed for native-speaking students at North American universities, are adopted by Middle East institutions "without tweaking the instruments to fit the educational context" (p. 21). Chapter 5 uses an open-ended questionnaire to compare student perceptions of NESTs and non-NESTs at institutes of higher learning in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. In Chapter 10, the authors use semi-structured interviews to elicit notions of best teaching practices as perceived by both teachers and students.