Mentor Musings (Part 1): ESOL, action research & OTLA 8

Initial thoughts from the NATECLA strand of the OTLA (Outstanding Teaching, Learning and Assessment) programme. Research lead and NATECLA co-chair Rachel Öner kicks off our blog series with a few questions for the three mentors: Emily Bryson, Cathy Clarkson and Chloë Hynes.

Rachel: Can you tell me a little bit about what the OTLA project is?

Chloë:  OTLA (Outstanding Teaching, Learning and Assessment) is a national practitioner action research programme offering grants, development support and hosting sharing events to organisations spanning the breadth of the FE sector. The programme is delivered by ccConsultancy on behalf of the ETF and funded by the DFE. ccC have been proud to lead on the programme for many years and now OTLA is in its 8th iteration. During our time developing the programme, ccC has sought to work with partners (Skills for Life Network, Real Time Education and That Reading Thing) and fond family members (CARN, RaPAL and PDNorth). This year our subject themes explicitly include ESOL (can I get a round of applause?!) and for the next 3 years, NATECLA has joined the OTLA family as a partner. It is incredibly exciting to see two of my own work families (NATECLA + ccC) come together on a project that I feel most passionate about.

To get a feel for the OTLA programme, why not check out the interactive reports on the ccC website. There you can access videos, reports and a host of resources for OTLA 3, 4, 6, 7 and soon to be 8!

Rachel: Can you tell me why you decided to be a mentor on OTLA 8?

Emily: I was a mentor for lecturers at my college who were completing the Teaching Qualification for Further Education for a number of years. I really enjoyed the role. It was so diverse and it allowed me to learn about teaching from other perspectives and to build relationships with colleagues in other departments. 

When I saw the OTLA opportunity, I was intrigued to get more involved in Action Research. AR is something I’ve always done informally in my own classes. For example, in the last few years I’ve been playing around with using simple drawings and graphic facilitation techniques in my classroom. I thought this would be a great way to explore new ways of teaching and to share experiences and knowledge with practitioners further afield. 

Cathy: There are so many reasons I am delighted to be a mentor on OTLA 8. Mentoring has formed an aspect of my college role for many years, but as I now sit in the teacher education department, the only aspect of ESOL (as my first love!) is through delivering the CELTA. So I jumped at the chance to be a mentor for ESOL-specific AR projects. I am also really interested in Action Research, my MA dissertation was on an Action Research Network in the Skills for Life department, I have been engaged in several practitioner research projects, including OTLA 6, and I look forward to supporting others with their own AR.

Chloë: I was initially involved in the OTLA programme as a project officer. This role grew as my strengths (and confidence) did and I became more involved in organising the events, social media promotion, supporting practitioners to write blogs for PDNorth (now a passion project #FEtapestry) and writing our mailouts. Earlier this year ccC was involved in a small action research programme specifically for EDS (Essential Digital Skills) and my manager asked me if I’d like to mentor on it (as a dual specialist: ESOL and digital). To be frank: I wasn’t sure I was cut out to be a mentor; what could little old me offer to the project leads? What if I steered them down the wrong path? What if my knowledge of ESOL, digital and/ or action research wasn’t up to scratch? I batted off the second-guessing and just went for it! On reflection, that short, sharp and extremely intense action research programme working with 4 committed teams has been the highlight of my year. I enjoyed growing strong relationships with the groups, sharing my experiences and learning from theirs. When we put out applications for OTLA for this academic year I knew I had to apply again.

Rachel: What interests you about Action Research?

Emily: I think AR is so misunderstood. I think many people see the word ‘research’ and can be intimidated by it or think it must be academic. But in reality, most teachers do action research unknowingly and informally in the classroom every day. The end goal of AR is to enhance teaching and learning, and every teacher I know wants to do their best for their students so they naturally adapt and try new things. It’s such a simple way to explore and learn more about teaching and learning.

Cathy: The things that interests me most relates to three Cs - creativity, curiosity and collaboration. Doing action research is about being curious about your practice, wanting to understand it, making changes and evaluating those changes through having conversations with your students, colleagues and other interested parties. 

Chloë: My first experience of Action Research in a teaching context was during the first PLAR programme. For this a group of three of us explored ways to give feedback. At the time every learner had to complete a PLR (Personal Learning Record) to help with the RARPA (Recognising And Recording Progress and Achievement) process. I (and most other teachers and learners) weren’t comfortable with it as a one-size-fits all resource. For my part in the project, I redeveloped the PLR and helped to initiate a culture change within the organisation which led to the ability to amend and adapt the document as we saw fit for our individual learners. Ultimately, doing the project helped me to see the power of action research.

Rachel: What does practitioner action research in particular mean to you?

Emily: To me, practitioner action research is about improving your own teaching practice through self reflection, professional development and trialling new teaching techniques. It’s about finding a problem and playing around with possible solutions. In doing so, practitioners will chat to their peers, read around the topic, attend training sessions, trial new ideas then reflect on their learning. A record of the process can be kept through reflective journals, photos, audio files, lesson plans, learner feedback and then written up as a final report. The learning can then be shared to inform the practice of other practitioners.

Cathy: When I first started teaching I explored a different aspect of practice each year, such as the lexical approach; delivering listening skills; focus on writing; peer teaching vocabulary. Each year I’d have one thing that I’d focus on and it was a really powerful way to develop as an ESOL teacher and has really stood me in good stead as a teacher educator. It has allowed me to develop as a professional, take ownership of my own learning in collaboration with my students and my colleagues. While I don’t advocate a ‘one size fits all’ approach to anything, I do think that all teachers should do some practitioner research as it’s such a powerful way to learn about and improve your practice.

Chloë: It can be a way of (practitioner) work life; no matter your role. That sounds rather grandiose l but I have heard a number of practitioners in the past year have a light bulb moment where they realise that they have been doing action research for many years in one way or another, but never formalised it. Action research is the next step from reflective practice in practitioner development. We use the word ‘practitioner’ on the programme quite intentionally too; to include everyone who works in FE (not just those teaching in the traditional sense). 

One of the most impactful pieces of work I’ve done recently started 3 days before our first national lockdown last year, when we decided at the very last minute to take a full day CPD event online. This was our first time doing so and was the beginning of a year-long reflective process of curating full day online events (including both OTLA and NATECLA) that represent the kind of events we put on face to face: accessible, engaging and with a sense of community.

Additionally, as part of my ATS (Advanced Teacher Status) process last year, I completed an action research project looking at ways to nurture teaching communities online. This year I am doing a lot of mentoring for different programmes and am enjoying exploring graphic facilitation techniques largely inspired by a fellow creative mentor *looks at Emily gratefully*. These three projects have all been inspired by a challenge or problem that I had noticed and wanted to change. Throughout the cyclical and somewhat messy process that is action research I didn’t stop noticing. I think a lot of what we do as mentors, leads and project teams is in that ‘noticing’ and making sense of the messiness (if you have a moment, listen to David Powell talk more about this).

Rachel: What are some of the best outcomes you have seen from action research in your experience?

Emily: I attended an OTLA session where participants from last year shared their experiences and findings. There were so many inspiring stories. Haringey Adult Learning Service shared the positive impact that teaching phonics has on ESOL literacy learning. New College Durham shared their findings on how to improve memory retention with learners experiencing trauma. They found that mental health and learning were strongly connected and that repetition was highly beneficial for successful retention of vocabulary and spelling. Hull college explored ways to improve students’ email skills. At the beginning of the project, learners often sent emails with the main body of the text in the subject line. They used some simple teaching ideas to train them to send emails effectively. One activity was to ask them to reply to a short conversational question each week. This sums up what I love about AR. It can be the most basic changes to teaching practice that can make big changes to students’ lives. 

Cathy: Many of my practitioner research projects have involved exploring digital technologies. For me, a positive outcome has been a constructively critical view of such technologies. My experiences allow me to challenge some ideas that certain technologies have to be used. Being digitally literate isn’t just about having the technical skills to make a piece of software work, it is also about being able to evaluate the resource and consider the benefits of using it with your students, and being able to articulate this. Doing practitioner research on different technologies, in collaboration with my students, have made for some fun and interesting lessons, and my practice has developed through being able to hear my students point of view.

Chloë: I’m inclined to think about all the projects that have had huge dramatic outcomes that changed minds and cultures; from instigating a research culture within the organisation, to learner stories of awe inspiring impact, to bringing about change on a national scale. However, there is a lot to be heralded for all the projects that sing their song a little quieter: finding out new ways that they can work more effectively and collaboratively as a team or across departments, empowering practitioners to take charge of their own practice development, or even a simple change to a teacher’s practice that makes all the difference to their learners and their learners’ lives.

Rachel: What advice would you give to anyone considering taking part in an Action Research Project?

Emily: Small is beautiful. Try to keep your project simple and focused. Your initial idea may be to improve note taking skills, but you’ll soon find that this is a very broad field. Try to narrow it down. For example, training students to organise their notebook into sections, or to how to layout a page of vocabulary notes. And allow flexibility in your project. AR is a journey, you may find yourself starting on one path but re-routing multiple times. This is OK as long as your end goal remains improvement.

Cathy: Be brave. Be creative. Get your students involved, tell them you are trying something new and go for it. Keep a record of what you change, talk to your colleagues, talk to your students and try to find some space to look back at what you did and what you learnt from doing it. 

Chloë: There isn’t much I can add to the tips shared by my fellow mentors as their advice really is spot on. However, let me add this one final tip: find a mentor, a sounding board, a thinking pair, an action learning set, a friendly ear… whatever/ whoever you feel comfy with. Having someone else to bounce ideas off, give you advice if you need it or just be there to listen to you, can help you to gain some clarity when things feel a little messy. 

The images used to illustrate this blog were drawn by Emily as a ‘sketchnote’ of a new publication written by members of the OTLA team on behalf of the ETF. The guide, Doing Action Research - A guide for Post-16 Practitioners was written with the intention to demystify Action Research and make it accessible to all. It is well worth a read!