CLER Conversation: Collaborative Relationships in Language Education Research

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Diana Mazgutova and Kamola Muradkasimova: Evaluating co-production as a guiding philosophy for EAP teacher training course development  

This paper is based on outcomes of an ESRC GCRF project. It considers the research philosophy of co-production for use in the field of English for Academic Purposes, where it has been little utilised as a guiding principle for research and development projects. The central question to be addressed is the appropriacy of co-production in a specific setting, and the challenges and benefits it brings to the research process. For projects situated in settings that are relatively unfamiliar to professional researchers, co-production provides a promising framework to i) ensure diversity of contextually appropriate perspectives, ii) engender collaboration and egalitarianism, iii) build capacity for action, and iv) engage with and bring together the community to work towards a common goal.  We explored the potential of co-production through a project aiming to improve EAP teaching quality in tertiary education in Uzbekistan.  The project was designed and implemented by one UK-based and four Uzbekistan-based team members who trained tertiary-level teachers to better instruct EAP, and it successfully reached approximately 300 teaching professionals across Uzbekistan. We detail how co-production brought value to the project but also ways in which it could not be fully implemented. We intend this paper to be an introduction to the application of co-production, through which others in EAP can explore its exciting possibilities.

Dr Diana Mazgutova is a Lecturer in Language Education at the University of Leeds (UK). Her professional interests include second language writing, academic writing, second language acquisition, materials design and EAP. She has publications in such journals as Language Learning, Journal of Second Language Writing, and Journal of Academic Writing.

Dr Kamola Muradkasimova is an EAP Lecturer and teacher trainer at the Uzbekistan State University of World Languages. Her main area of interest is language testing and assessment, especially language teacher assessment literacy. She has taught courses such as Methodology of Language Teaching, Research Writing, and Discourse Analyses.

Chair: Xiaowen Liu, Postgraduate Researcher, School of Education, University of Leeds

Contributions from Dr Peter Hart, Lecturer in Inclusion, School of Education, University of Leeds & Dr Huahui Zhao, Lecturer in Language Education, School of Education, University of Leeds.