Exploratory Practice
Exploratory Practice (EP) is a form of classroom inquiry developed by Dick Allwright from the mid-1990s onward. It rejects the two standard models of research on teaching (research done to teachers by outside academics, and action research that asks teachers to add a research project to their teaching workload) and proposes a third route: teachers and learners investigate puzzles of their own classroom lives together, inside normal lessons, using normal pedagogic activities as the means of inquiry.
The Seven Principles
Allwright formalised EP through a set of principles that distinguish it from both mainstream research and action research:
- Put quality of life first: understanding matters more than achieving immediate change.
- Work primarily to understand life in the language classroom.
- Involve everybody, especially learners, as practitioners of understanding.
- Work to bring people together in collegial support.
- Work for mutual development.
- Integrate the work of understanding into normal pedagogic practice.
- Make the work a continuous enterprise.
The radical move is principle six. Instead of interrupting teaching to collect data, teachers use familiar classroom activities (discussion, writing, listening tasks) as "Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activities" (PEPAs) that double as investigative tools.
Puzzles Rather Than Problems
Allwright insists on "puzzles" instead of "problems." A problem implies something broken to fix; a puzzle is a genuine question about what is going on and why it matters to the people in the room. Learners frame their own puzzles alongside teachers, which reframes the classroom from a site where research is done to one where understanding is pursued as a shared activity.
Difference from Action Research
| Action Research | Exploratory Practice | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary goal | Problem-solving and intervention | Understanding classroom life |
| Who investigates | Usually the teacher | Teachers and learners together |
| Relation to teaching | Typically added on top of normal lessons | Integrated into normal lessons |
| Assessment | Measurable improvement | Mutual understanding |
EP's refusal to privilege change over understanding is its most controversial feature. Critics argue that understanding without action leaves institutional problems untouched; EP advocates reply that action without understanding produces the interventions that made EP necessary.
Influence
EP communities have grown in Brazil, Japan, the UK, and Turkey since the 1990s, often through teacher-researcher networks rather than university programmes. Allwright & Hanks's The Developing Language Learner (2009) is the standard book-length introduction. The approach has influenced broader conversations about teacher research, learner voice, and the ethics of classroom research.
References
- Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory Practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7(2), 113–141.
- Allwright, D. & Hanks, J. (2009). The Developing Language Learner: An Introduction to Exploratory Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Hanks, J. (2017). Exploratory Practice in Language Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan.