Week 12 ----the useful guidelines for doing research

Every time, when I read Hall’s book I will find some new ideas. This time I come across the ideology “sociocultural perspective” of research which is viewed as a natural component of all applied linguists’ activity. I found an interesting idea “good research is dependent not on one’s professional role- that is k whether one is, say, a university professor or classroom teacher. Rather, it depends on one’s degree of research expertise.” (P139)

The ninth chapter from Hall book is really helpful. The six steps of research circle show me a clear way of how to organize my own research. The actions include identifying concerns and pose questions, identifying appropriate approach and sources of data, collecting data, analyzing data, reflecting on the findings and share findings and take action.
Before I read this chapter, I read the report from William Labov about the “what is a reading error?” From his report, I realize that the question or the issues the author concerns are really concrete and accurate. The participants should be spotted and all the research aspects need to be narrow down into sentence, words even phonetic symbols. So from the very beginning of the research, after the researchers entails identifying particular concerns or issues arising from one’s professional life as an applied linguist.,(P160) the researchers can be priorities according to their importance or significance to the researcher, and for this ranked list a specific topic for investigation can be identified. (161) There is one thing that I never thought important before was when we are concerning about the questions the researchers should consider whether they are reasonable in light of any constraints he or she may have in terms of time, and availability of resources. (P161) However, the final goal of the research was to present the feedback to the readers or to be used into the practice situation. The final step is sharing the result with others where appropriate, taking action.

Chapter ten is talking about the contexts of research. Instead of teaching how to do a research, this chapter is talking about how we might identify topics and questions that are appropriate for empirical investigations. The examples form this chapter is really helpful for me, a newcomer to the field who has no idea of sociocultural perspectives to get some idea of the range of possibilities for exploration.