Allwright

TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol 17, No. 2, June 1983

CLASSROOM-CENTERED RESEARCH: STATE OF THE ART

Classroom-Centered Research on Language Teaching and Learning: A Brief Historical Overview
DICK ALLWRIGHT
University of Lancaster, England

This overview of classroom-centered research on language teaching and learning is a survey of themes, not of research findings. Beginning with the problems of definition and of research method, it then looks at the origins of such research in general educational and teachertraining studies and in the failure of method research in the sixties. It then traces the development both of the concerns and of the research tools of classroom-centered research on language teaching and learning. Finally, the development of a productive controversy over research methods is briefly described. Fundamental to the survey is the conception of classroom-centered research as an approach to the study of language pedagogy that draws its unity from the belief that the classroom is the proper place to look first for insights and understanding.

WHAT IS CLASSROOM-CENTERED RESEARCH? Classroom-centered research is just that—research centered on the classroom, as distinct from, for example, research that concentrates on the inputs to the classroom (the syllabus, the teaching materials) or on the outputs from the classroom (learner achievement scores). It does not ignore in any way or try to devalue the importance of such inputs and outputs. It simply tries to investigate what happens inside the classroom when learners and teachers come together. At its most narrow, classroom-centered research is in fact research that treats the language classroom not just as the setting for investigation but, more importantly, as the object of investigation. Classroom processes become the central focus. We want to understand why it is that things happen as they do in the classroom—how it is, for example, that some learners participate more and others less than planned by

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