research topics for english teachers

129 List Of Research Topics In English Language Teaching [updated]

English Language Teaching (ELT) is a field dedicated to teaching English to non-native speakers. It’s important because English is a global language used for communication, business, and education worldwide. Research in ELT helps improve teaching methods, making it easier for students to learn English effectively. This blog will explore a list of research topics in English language teaching.

What Are The Areas Of Research In English Language Teaching?

Table of Contents

Research in English Language Teaching (ELT) encompasses a wide range of areas, including:

• Language Learning: Understanding how people learn English well, like when they learn a new language and if there’s a best time to do it.
• Teaching Ways: Looking into different ways teachers teach, like using conversations, tasks, or mixing language with other subjects.
• Curriculum Design and Syllabus Development: Designing and evaluating language curricula and syllabi to meet the needs of diverse learners and contexts.
• Assessment and Evaluation: Developing and validating assessment tools, exploring alternative assessment methods, and investigating the effectiveness of feedback and error correction strategies.
• Technology in ELT: Exploring the integration of technology in language teaching and learning, including computer-assisted language learning (CALL), mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), and online learning platforms.
• Teacher Education and Professional Development: Investigating pre-service and in-service teacher education programs, reflective practices, and challenges in teacher training.
• Cultural and Sociolinguistic Aspects: Examining the role of culture in language teaching and learning, sociolinguistic competence, and addressing cultural diversity in the classroom.
• Learner Diversity and Inclusive Practices: Researching teaching strategies for diverse learners, including young learners, learners with learning disabilities, and learners from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
• Policy and Planning in ELT: Analyzing language policies at national and international levels, exploring the implementation of ELT programs, and examining the role of ELT in national development.
• Research Methodologies in ELT: Investigating qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research approaches in ELT research, including action research conducted by teachers in their own classrooms.
• Future Trends and Innovations: Exploring emerging trends and innovations in ELT, such as the impact of globalization, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in language learning, and innovative teaching strategies.

129 List Of Research Topics In English Language Teaching: Category Wise

Language acquisition and development.

• Second Language Acquisition Theories: Explore different theories explaining how learners acquire a second language.
• Critical Period Hypothesis: Investigate the idea of an optimal age range for language acquisition.
• Multilingualism and Language Development: Study how knowing multiple languages affects language development.
• Cognitive and Affective Factors in Language Learning: Examine the role of cognitive abilities and emotions in language learning.
• Language Learning Strategies: Investigate the strategies learners use to acquire and develop language skills.
• Input Hypothesis: Explore the role of comprehensible input in language acquisition.
• Interaction Hypothesis: Examine the importance of interaction in language learning.
• Fossilization in Second Language Learning: Study why some learners reach a plateau in their language development.

Teaching Methodologies and Approaches

• Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): Analyze the effectiveness of CLT in promoting communication skills.
• Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT): Explore the use of real-world tasks to teach language.
• Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): Investigate teaching subject content through English.
• Blended Learning in ELT: Study the integration of traditional and online teaching methods.
• Audio-Lingual Method: Assess the effectiveness of drills and repetition in language teaching.
• Grammar-Translation Method: Compare traditional grammar-focused methods with communicative approaches.
• Lexical Approach: Explore teaching vocabulary as a key component of language proficiency.
• Suggestopedia: Investigate the use of relaxation techniques to enhance language learning.

Curriculum Design and Syllabus Development

• Needs Analysis in ELT: Identify the language needs of learners and design appropriate curricula.
• Integrating Language Skills in Curriculum: Examine strategies for integrating reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.
• Syllabus Types: Compare different types of syllabi, such as structural and task-based.
• Task-Based Syllabus Design: Design syllabi based on real-world tasks to promote language acquisition.
• Content-Based Instruction (CBI): Integrate language learning with academic content in syllabus design.
• Needs Analysis in Specific Contexts: Conduct needs analyses for learners in specific professional or academic contexts.
• Cross-Cultural Communication in Curriculum Design: Incorporate intercultural communication skills into language curricula.

Assessment and Evaluation

• Standardized Testing in ELT: Evaluate the reliability and validity of standardized English language tests.
• Alternative Assessment Approaches: Explore non-traditional assessment methods like portfolios and self-assessment.
• Feedback Strategies in Language Learning: Investigate effective feedback techniques for improving language proficiency.
• Washback Effect of Testing: Study how assessment practices influence teaching and learning.
• Authentic Assessment in ELT: Develop assessment tasks that mirror real-life language use situations.
• Portfolio Assessment: Investigate the use of portfolios to track language learning progress over time.
• Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT): Evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of adaptive testing methods in ELT.

Technology in ELT

• Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL): Assess the impact of computer-based language learning programs.
• Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL): Study the effectiveness of mobile devices in language learning.
• Online Learning Platforms for ELT: Analyze the features and usability of online platforms for language education.
• Virtual Reality (VR) in Language Learning: Explore immersive VR environments for language practice and instruction.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tutoring Systems: Assess the effectiveness of AI-based tutors in providing personalized language instruction.
• Social Media in Language Learning: Study the role of social media platforms in informal language learning contexts.
• Gamification in ELT: Investigate the use of game elements to enhance engagement and motivation in language learning.

Teacher Education and Professional Development

• Pre-service Teacher Education Programs: Evaluate the effectiveness of teacher training programs.
• Reflective Practice in Teaching: Investigate how teachers reflect on their practice to improve teaching.
• Challenges in Teacher Education: Identify challenges faced by educators in training and development.
• Teacher Beliefs and Practices: Examine how teachers’ beliefs about language learning influence their instructional practices.
• Peer Observation in Teacher Development: Explore the benefits of peer observation and feedback for teacher professional growth.
• Mentoring Programs for New Teachers: Evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring programs in supporting novice teachers.
• Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Models: Compare different models of CPD for language teachers and their impact on teaching quality.

Cultural and Sociolinguistic Aspects

• Language and Culture Interrelationship: Explore the relationship between language and culture in ELT.
• Sociolinguistic Competence and Pragmatics: Study how social context influences language use and understanding.
• Gender and Identity in Language Learning: Investigate how gender identity affects language learning experiences.
• Intercultural Competence in Language Teaching: Develop strategies for promoting intercultural communicative competence in language learners.
• Language Policy and Minority Language Education: Analyze the impact of language policies on the education of minority language speakers.
• Gender and Language Learning Strategies: Investigate gender differences in language learning strategies and their implications for instruction.
• Code-Switching in Multilingual Classrooms: Study the role of code-switching in language learning and classroom interaction.

Learner Diversity and Inclusive Practices

• Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL): Examine effective teaching strategies for children learning English.
• Addressing Learning Disabilities in ELT: Investigate methods for supporting learners with disabilities in language learning.
• ELT for Specific Purposes (ESP): Explore specialized English language instruction for specific fields.
• Differentiated Instruction in Language Teaching: Develop strategies for addressing diverse learner needs in the language classroom.
• Inclusive Pedagogies for Learners with Special Educational Needs: Design instructional approaches that accommodate learners with disabilities in language learning.
• Language Learning Strategies of Autistic Learners: Investigate effective language learning strategies for individuals on the autism spectrum.
• Language Identity and Learner Motivation: Explore the relationship between language identity and motivation in language learning.

Policy and Planning in ELT

• National and International Language Policies: Analyze policies governing English language education at different levels.
• ELT Program Implementation Challenges: Identify challenges in implementing ELT programs in diverse contexts.
• Role of ELT in National Development: Examine the contribution of English language education to national development goals.
• English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) Policies: Analyze the impact of EMI policies on educational equity and access.
• Language Teacher Recruitment and Deployment Policies: Evaluate policies related to the recruitment and deployment of language teachers in diverse contexts.
• Language Assessment Policy Reform: Propose reforms to language assessment policies to promote fairness and validity.
• Biliteracy Development Policies: Study policies aimed at promoting biliteracy development among bilingual learners.

Research Methodologies in ELT

• Qualitative Research Methods in ELT: Explore qualitative approaches like interviews and case studies in ELT research.
• Quantitative Research Methods in ELT: Investigate quantitative methods such as surveys and experiments in language education research.
• Mixed-Methods Approaches in ELT Research: Combine qualitative and quantitative methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of research questions.
• Ethnographic Approaches to ELT Research: Conduct ethnographic studies to explore language learning and teaching in naturalistic settings.
• Case Study Research in Language Education: Investigate specific language learning contexts or programs through in-depth case studies.
• Corpus Linguistics in ELT Research: Analyze language use patterns and learner language production using corpus linguistic methods.
• Longitudinal Studies of Language Learning: Follow language learners over an extended period to examine developmental trajectories and factors influencing language acquisition.

Future Trends and Innovations

• Emerging Technologies in ELT: Study the integration of technologies like AI and VR in language teaching.
• Innovations in Teaching Strategies: Explore new approaches to teaching language, such as flipped classrooms and gamification.
• Future Directions in ELT Research: Investigate potential areas for future research in English language teaching.
• Wearable Technology in Language Learning: Explore the potential of wearable devices for delivering personalized language instruction.
• Data Analytics for Adaptive Learning: Develop data-driven approaches to adaptive learning in language education.
• Augmented Reality (AR) Applications in ELT: Design AR-enhanced language learning experiences for immersive language practice.
• Global Citizenship Education and Language Learning: Investigate the role of language education in fostering global citizenship skills.
• Eco-Linguistics and Language Education: Explore the intersection of language education and environmental sustainability.
• Metacognition and Language Learning: Explore how learners’ awareness of their own learning processes affects language acquisition.
• Peer Interaction in Language Learning: Investigate the role of peer collaboration and discussion in promoting language development.
• Heritage Language Education: Study strategies for maintaining and revitalizing heritage languages among immigrant and minority communities.
• Language Learning Motivation in Adolescents: Examine factors influencing motivation and engagement in adolescent language learners.
• Phonological Awareness in Language Learning: Investigate the role of phonological awareness in literacy development for language learners.
• Pragmatic Development in Language Learners: Explore how learners acquire pragmatic competence and understanding of language use in context.
• Digital Literacies and Language Learning: Examine how digital literacy skills contribute to language proficiency and communication in the digital age.
• Critical Language Awareness: Investigate approaches to developing learners’ critical awareness of language use and power dynamics.
• Language Teacher Identity: Study how language teachers’ identities shape their beliefs, practices, and interactions in the classroom.
• Collaborative Learning in Language Education: Explore the benefits and challenges of collaborative learning environments for language learners.
• Motivational Strategies in Language Teaching: Develop and evaluate motivational techniques to enhance student engagement and persistence in language learning.
• Heritage Language Maintenance: Investigate factors influencing the maintenance and transmission of heritage languages across generations.
• Phonics Instruction in Language Learning: Examine the effectiveness of phonics-based approaches for teaching reading and pronunciation.
• Language Policy Implementation: Analyze the challenges and successes of implementing language policies at the institutional, regional, and national levels.
• Language Teacher Cognition: Explore language teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and decision-making processes in the classroom.
• Intercultural Communicative Competence: Develop strategies for fostering learners’ ability to communicate effectively across cultures.
• Critical Pedagogy in Language Education: Explore approaches to teaching language that promote critical thinking, social justice, and equity.
• Language Learning Strategies for Autodidacts: Investigate effective self-directed learning strategies for language learners outside formal educational settings.
• Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in Higher Education: Examine the implementation and outcomes of CLIL programs in tertiary education.
• Sociocultural Theory and Language Learning: Explore how social and cultural factors influence language acquisition and development.
• Language Socialization: Investigate how individuals learn language within social and cultural contexts, including family, peer groups, and communities.
• Speech Perception and Language Learning: Examine the relationship between speech perception abilities and language proficiency in second language learners.
• Genre-Based Approaches to Language Teaching: Explore the use of genre analysis and genre-based pedagogy to teach language skills in context.
• Learner Autonomy in Language Learning: Investigate strategies for promoting learner autonomy and independence in language education.
• Multimodal Literacy in Language Learning: Examine the integration of multiple modes of communication, such as text, image, and sound, in language instruction.
• Community-Based Language Learning: Study language learning initiatives that engage learners with their local communities and resources.
• English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Communication: Explore the use of English as a global means of communication among speakers from diverse linguistic backgrounds.

Research in English Language Teaching covers a wide range of topics, from language acquisition theories to the impact of technology on learning. By exploring these topics (from a list of research topics in english language teaching), we can improve how English is taught and learned, making it more effective and accessible for everyone.

Continuous research and collaboration among educators, researchers, and policymakers are essential for the ongoing development of ELT.

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List Of Research Topics In English Language Teaching

English Language Teaching (ELT) is a fascinating and dynamic field, offering numerous opportunities for research. Whether you are a teacher, a student, or just curious about language education, exploring research topics in ELT can provide valuable insights. This blog will guide you through a list of research topics in English language teaching.

Overview: English Language Teaching

English Language Teaching involves teaching English to non-native speakers. It is a broad field that covers teaching methods, learning strategies, language skills, cultural aspects, and more. Research in this area helps improve teaching practices and enhances learning outcomes.

Why Research in English Language Teaching?

Research in ELT is essential for several reasons:

• Improving Teaching Methods: Research helps develop effective teaching strategies that cater to diverse learners.
• Enhancing Learning Experiences: It provides insights into how students learn best, allowing for a more tailored learning experience.
• Cultural Understanding: Research helps understand cultural differences in language use and learning, promoting a more inclusive classroom environment.
• Innovation: It encourages the development of new tools and technologies to aid in language teaching.

List of Research Topics in English Language Teaching

1. teaching methods and approaches, traditional vs. modern methods.

• Traditional Methods: These include grammar-translation, direct method, and audiolingual method.
• Modern Methods: Teaching where you focus on students talking to each other (CLT), learning by doing tasks (TBL), and studying subjects in English (CLIL).
• Example: Compare the effectiveness of the grammar-translation method and communicative language teaching in a high school setting.

2. Technology in Language Teaching

Digital tools and resources.

• Online Learning Platforms: Explore platforms like Duolingo, Coursera, or Khan Academy.
• Educational Apps: Apps like Memrise, Babbel, and Quizlet.
• Interactive Whiteboards and Smart Classrooms: How technology can make classrooms more engaging.
• Example: Investigate the impact of using educational apps on vocabulary acquisition among high school students.

3. Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) vs. English as a Foreign Language (EFL)

Esl vs. efl environments.

• ESL: Teaching English in a country where English is the primary language.
• EFL: Teaching English in a country where English is not the primary language.
• Example: Compare the challenges faced by ESL and EFL learners in mastering English pronunciation.

4. Language Skills Development

Focus on the four key skills.

• Listening Skills: Techniques to improve listening comprehension.
• Speaking Skills: Strategies to enhance speaking fluency and accuracy.
• Reading Skills: Methods to develop reading comprehension and speed.
• Writing Skills: Approaches to improve writing clarity and coherence.
• Example: Research the effectiveness of peer review in improving writing skills among high school students.

5. Learner Motivation and Attitudes

Factors influencing motivation.

• Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation: Understanding the difference and how each impacts learning.
• Cultural Influences: How a student’s cultural background affects their motivation to learn English.
• Teacher’s Role: The impact of teacher encouragement and feedback on student motivation.
• Example: Study the relationship between teacher feedback and student motivation in learning English.

6. Assessment and Evaluation

Types of assessments.

• Formative Assessments: Continuous assessments to monitor student progress.
• Summative Assessments: Final exams or projects to evaluate overall learning.
• Standardized Tests: TOEFL, IELTS, and their role in language proficiency assessment.
• Example: Analyze the effectiveness of formative assessment techniques in improving language skills.

7. Teaching English to Young Learners vs. Adults

Age-related differences.

• Young Learners: Techniques suitable for children, such as songs, games, and storytelling.
• Adults: Approaches that work well with adults, like discussion-based learning and practical language use.
• Example: Compare the effectiveness of storytelling as a teaching tool for young learners versus adults.

8. Cultural Issues in Language Teaching

Intercultural communication.

• Cultural Sensitivity: The importance of being aware of cultural differences in language use.
• Incorporating Culture in Lessons: Ways to integrate cultural lessons in language teaching.
• Example: Explore the impact of incorporating cultural elements in language lessons on students’ engagement and learning outcomes.

9. Teaching Pronunciation and Phonetics

Techniques and challenges.

• Pronunciation Drills: Exercises to improve pronunciation accuracy.
• Phonetic Transcription: Using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to teach pronunciation.
• Accent Reduction: Strategies to help students reduce their native accent when speaking English.
• Example: Investigate the effectiveness of using phonetic transcription in teaching English pronunciation.

10. Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Theories

Major theories.

• Krashen’s Input Hypothesis: The importance of comprehensible input in language learning.
• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory: The role of social interaction in language development.
• Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: The concept of an innate language faculty.
• Example: Compare Krashen’s Input Hypothesis with Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory in the context of classroom learning.

50 Research Topics in English Language Teaching: Category Wise

Teaching methods and approaches.

• Effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in high school classrooms
• Comparing Task-Based Learning (TBL) and Project-Based Learning (PBL) in language acquisition
• Impact of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) on bilingual students
• Traditional Grammar-Translation Method vs. Modern Direct Method
• Role of the Audiolingual Method in developing listening skills
• Benefits of the Silent Way method in enhancing student autonomy
• Comparing Natural Approach and Total Physical Response (TPR) in early language education
• The Lexical Approach in teaching vocabulary to ESL learners

Technology in Language Teaching

• The use of educational apps for vocabulary acquisition among teenagers
• Impact of interactive whiteboards on student engagement in language classrooms
• Role of virtual reality (VR) in immersive language learning experiences
• Effectiveness of online learning platforms like Duolingo and Coursera for language learners
• Benefits of flipped classrooms in ESL/EFL education
• Integrating AI-powered tools like chatbots in language learning
• Influence of social media on English language proficiency among students
• The role of gamification in improving language learning motivation

Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) vs. English as a Foreign Language (EFL)

• Challenges of ESL learners in mastering English pronunciation
• Effective strategies for teaching English in multicultural ESL classrooms
• Differences in language retention between ESL and EFL learners
• Role of cultural immersion in enhancing EFL learning outcomes
• Comparative study of ESL and EFL teaching methodologies
• Motivation factors among ESL vs. EFL students
• Teacher training programs for ESL and EFL educators
• Impact of local languages on English proficiency in EFL contexts

Language Skills Development

• Techniques to improve listening comprehension in ESL learners
• Role of drama and role-play in enhancing speaking skills
• Methods to develop reading comprehension in adolescent learners
• Peer review effectiveness in improving writing skills
• Integrating multimedia resources to enhance language skills
• Using storytelling to improve language skills among young learners
• Strategies to boost critical thinking through reading activities
• Impact of group work on language skills development

Learner Motivation and Attitudes

• Relationship between teacher feedback and student motivation in learning English
• Cultural influences on student motivation to learn English
• Role of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation in language learning success
• Impact of positive reinforcement on language learning attitudes
• Strategies to maintain learner motivation in long-term language courses
• Influence of peer collaboration on student motivation
• Teacher-student rapport and its effect on language learning outcomes
• Motivation differences between urban and rural language learners

Assessment and Evaluation

• Effectiveness of formative assessment techniques in language classrooms
• Role of summative assessments in measuring language proficiency
• Impact of standardized tests like TOEFL and IELTS on language learning
• Alternative assessment methods in ESL/EFL education
• Using self-assessment tools to enhance learner autonomy
• Peer assessment and its role in language learning
• Challenges of assessing oral proficiency in large classrooms
• Digital assessment tools and their effectiveness in language learning

Cultural Issues in Language Teaching

• Incorporating cultural elements in ESL/EFL lessons to enhance engagement
• The role of intercultural communication in language teaching

Additional Tips for Conducting Research

• Choose a Topic of Interest

Selecting a topic you are passionate about will make the research process more enjoyable and meaningful.

• Review Existing Literature

Before starting your research, review existing studies to understand what has already been done and identify gaps in the literature.

• Develop a Research Question

A clear and focused research question will guide your study and keep it on track.

• Use a Variety of Sources

Incorporate books, academic journals, online resources, and interviews to gather diverse perspectives.

• Stay Organized

Keep your notes and references organized to make the writing process smoother.

Ensure your research respects ethical guidelines, especially when working with human subjects.

By following these tips and exploring the various research topics in English Language Teaching, you can embark on a rewarding research journey that contributes to the field and enhances your understanding of language education.

Research in English Language Teaching is a broad and exciting field that offers numerous opportunities to improve teaching practices and enhance student learning.

Whether you are interested in technology, teaching methods, learner motivation, or cultural issues, there is a research topic for you.

By exploring a list of research topics in English language teaching, you can contribute to the ongoing development of effective English language teaching strategies.

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Research in the Teaching of English Article

August 2022 issue of Research in the Teaching of English

Research in the Teaching of English

Vol. 57, no. 1, august  2022.

A Run // on black study

University of California Santa Cruz

In response to an RTE editorial call for more postqualitative language and literacy studies, “A Run // on black study” is a performance in methodological pluralism, a postqualitative assemblage in two parts, a paper beside a paper. On one side, “A Run // on black study” preludes a poetic methodological departure, “A Series of Irreducible Reanimations, Seven Runs,” written beside it. Framed in cross-disciplinary projects in black study mostly in conversation with Fred Moten, Édouard Glissant, Saidiya Hartman, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Elizabeth McHenry, among others, the work of this double paper reframes my dissertation study of 8 or 9 years ago and ruminates on the work in poetic prolongation. “A Run // on black study” offers a theoretical context, defines “a run” as an antimethodological (and postqualitative) poetics in black study, and argues for an opaque retelling. Then the paper beside the paper, “A Series of Irreducible Reanimations, Seven Runs,” presents a nonreductive poetics of the data as a prose poem in seven parts.

Those of us who are given to black study serially return to this fugitive preoccupation. None of us can, and some of us would never, get away from it. Instead, we try to get away with it, get down with it, but it always runs away. There’s a logical fallacy concerning where it comes from and a wary negation of the wishful thought that, out of nowhere, it keeps on coming. —Fred Moten, 2018

So many of us who study the experiences of black students (and then, of course, in extension, the experiences of brown students, queer and gender-creative youth, differently abled youth, immigrant students and so on) in and outside academic environments do so while relying upon what Fred Moten (2018) calls “the regulative power of understanding,” or what I think of here as the limits of qualitative research methodologies. What use is it to report on how black and brown youth shape new worlds if we have to use old-world methods to talk about it?

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To get outside the trouble, to get beyond qualitative research and its limits, this double paper attempts to offer a new nonmethod, or an antimethodological thought experiment, to readers of Research in the Teaching of English who have already exhausted the limits of qualitative methods they learned in graduate school (Patel, 2019; Stornaiuolo et al., 2019). “A Run // on black study” is a performance and practice in otherwise (Crawley, 2020) language and literacy methodologies, a postqualitative assemblage in two parts, a paper beside a paper. “A Run // on black study” (the part you are reading now) preludes our methodological departure. The aim, on this conceptual side, is to situate the work to come — the body of poetic excess — in a black radical tradition of disruption, of being in excess beyond any regulatory apparatus of surveillance (Chandler, 2013; Judy, 2020; Moten, 2018). In order to talk about the excess, we need to practice making poetics. Think of “A Run // on black study” as a consort who lovingly introduces you to an unruly way of questioning, tarrying beside, and transcending qualitative research. Also, on this side of presumed clarity, I introduce “a run” as a surrealist means of translating data into something other than story. This antimethodological offering emerges as a poetics, in black study, which draws upon somatic knowledges—inherently black and indigenous, intuitive, decidedly artistic and sensual, improvisational. All the knowledges of a run emphasize movements and breathing, are situated in a former study whose outgrowth in the time between collecting the original data and years of rumination after has sprawled beyond the limits of qualitative research, and could be thought of as postqualitative. The poetics exceeds training, seeks to break the insufficient methodological tools we are given, and loves words too much to oversimplify them. The paper beside the paper, the secret inside the paper, “A Series of Irreducible Reanimations, Seven Runs” (the part to come), is a prose poem, a creative-philosophical enactment of a run, made possible through black study. In this nested piece I blur a single fragment derived from a series of phenomenological interviews (ife, 2016) into creative philosophical entanglement with a line from a poem written by black studies poet and critic Fred Moten. To get to the black opacity of this other paper, I have to situate you in the air from which it grew.

A Contextual (Under)Ground From 2012 to 2016, while a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I studied histories of black education in the United States, the global practices of writing, the spatiotemporal repercussions of writing, from its fifteenth-century bureaucratic origins onward, in the lives of black people. Between 2014 and 2015 I interviewed seven black women, all undergraduates at the university, to learn about their relationships with writing and each other, how they moved inside and outside performance, and the underground performance and poetics spaces they designed and inhabited. One of the women described an incessant tension she felt, “of being trapped / and feeling free,” and the others all shared a version of the same sentiment. Initially I thought of this shared feeling as a code, in that reductionist qualitative analytical sense, and in the years after, I continue to hear it as a mantra. Of being trapped / and feeling free, they all wrote poetry, many of them wrote songs, and they all were performance artists. The interviews led to observations of a blues theater ensemble created by one of the women.

The aims and curiosities and questions of that study were curated in the air of the afterlives of slavery, drawn up “in the wake” (Sharpe, 2016) of an ongoing decade of highly publicized state-sanctioned killings of black people. I was reading Scenes of Subjection (Hartman, 1997) alongside translations of Being and Nothingness (Sartre, 1943/1984) and Being and Time (Heidegger, 1927/1962) at the time, thinking about the shared existential phenomena of creativity in the lives of Black women. Because I remain interested in the material practices black people create through the materialist imposition of settler colonialism, I was thinking then, as I still am now, about the origins of writing in a bureaucratic European sense (Goody, 1986), against the black origins of writing in a historic United States black literary society sense (McHenry, 2002). I was also thinking about the legacies of black women’s writing (performing, singing, making), from the eighteenth century on, and trying to bring those histories into relief with the seven black women, alive in the twenty-first century, who participated in my study.

I am certain I failed in my attempt to offer the sort of bodiless fugitive poetics (ife, 2021b) I have been obsessed with writing ever since. It was impossible to get somewhere new with the questions I asked, questions that upheld categories of human distinction—specifically of race and gender—and more, it was impossible to get there through qualitative research. Even at its furthest limits, my dissertation could only reify an escape narrative we all want to escape. We came together in the context of that study, through the heuristic of qualitative research, of researcher and research subject, or in the more thoughtful case as research participants, all bound in subjectivity. What I could not hear then, I hear now. We traded different versions of the same (runaway) slave narrative, this imposition we cannot reconcile or resolve. Or ongoing trauma, the woundedness of blackness-as-race, the intangible realness of our everyday fugitive relationships to these various whiteness-as-propertied institutions we are still bound inside (and toward, in service of). It is not surprising that my interviewees answered my questions enraged by their experiences of mundane (and spectacular) racism in the snow. This country is racist, as all its institutions are racist, as all the institutional practices are racist—this, the most basic situation, we already know. What I wanted to know—their practices as writers and performers—was eclipsed by my questions, questions that put too much emphasis on categorical difference. I asked them questions about their writing, only after (and while also) asking them questions about their subject position of black womanhood. As the issue of race and gender filled the air between us, less attention was given to their practice, more attention given to a seething, unseen sensation of rage. Maybe because they are all performers, perhaps they gave me what they thought I wanted to hear, or perhaps, too, because I have listening issues, I heard what I wanted to hear. It was so easy to catch wind of a lone, angry, blues woman, a type of one-woman show carried forth in ensemble, melancholia both real and feigned, an air of being above it all, yet still inside it. A narrative account of seven entangled individual lives, I brought together into one unified story. A hot mess I have been trying to sublimate into art ever since (ife, 2021b).

What I have been working on (and through) in the years since finishing my dissertation is a poetics of blackness, to say something new (or at least in a new register) about language and (im)materiality in the lives of black people, about processes and practices of writing and imagining, without having to defer to the overwrought categorical social experiments of race and gender, or any modes of knowledge production that keep those categories intact. What I listened to years ago in the snow, the stories of the seven women who participated in my study, cannot be reduced. Though qualitative research necessitates transparency, a clear view into the study through a rigorous analysis of data, there are some data that are too opaque, that which cannot be reduced, and as Édouard Glissant (1990/1997) says, I too, “clamor for the right to opacity” (p. 194). Of course, I did reduce the data into something legible, something clear, for the purposes of defending my dissertation. In “A Series of Irreducible Reanimations, Seven Runs,” I offer an alternative rendering, the opaque data, a sort of transmutation of the irreducible. Which is to say, I refract the limits inherent in my former qualitative research study, bend the metaphorical light in such a way that if it were an image, us in my office back then, our mostly queer black human flesh would appear less characteristic, less propertied, less categorical, less legible, less straightforward. To get outside basic understanding I use an opaque poetics. I am a black poet working through protracted struggle, attempting to write about black life by way of an insufficient semiotic system. I cannot feign clarity where clarity does not exist. I have to fold the data onto itself, lose the data, get down somewhere else through a poetics.

This black antimethodological impulse, to run // on theory.

I am black. I am a black poet. I work inside the academy.

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My work concerns itself with matters of blackness, poetics, transcendence, transience, duration, intimacy, improvisation, confinement, making, and fugitivity. I begin each day in gratitude for having woken up, again, fueled by the magnitude of my inherited imagination. Born inside this country, sixth or seventh or eighth generation (indigenous) black American, caught inside the air of the afterlives of enslavement, poor, of people who worked the fields, who could not read, whose melancholia endured, who could not write, until all these years later there was me, descendent, or ascendant heir to nothing other than everything. The molten sentiment writhes inside my flesh, the anger I have for knowing (and existing) beyond the time I am in, all of this informs my writing. There is nothing neutral in my methods, my practice, or my study.

I linger inside black study, a prolonged critique of Western civilization, a radical cross-disciplinary exegesis on everything and nothing. Black study troubles ideas of (global) black sociality, ideas of black life (its origins, its presences, and its futures), offers us creative ways of living otherwise in and through terror, in and through the imminence of escape (Moten, 2003, 2017, 2018). To engage in black study is to practice friendship. To practice black study is to lose oneself inside the surround of the work (below ground, in the air). In the years since gathering the interviews and artifacts and observations associated with my dissertation, I have lost myself inside the surround of the work. At the level of surround I participate in a collective critique and refusal of the ontological insinuation of qualitative methodologies that attempt to codify black life and make black life known.

I situate my work, most closely, beside the creative and philosophical works of Fred Moten. Since his first book, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, Moten (2003) has slowly, serially enlivened a theory (and, too, a nontheory) of blackness imbued with improvisation, feeling-with, working-with. “A Series of Irreducible Reanimations, Seven Runs” grew out of black study while I was lost inside the vastness of the fragment, “of being trapped / and feeling free” and the expanse inside Moten’s study.

In Stolen Life , Moten (2018) suggests that modernity is an ongoing imposition of blackness, of blackness-as-race. Rather than codify blackness in terms of human taxonomy, Moten studies blackness as abstraction—or everything other than race. As a poet I spend a lot of time contemplating blackness. To my mind, blackness is all and nothing, beyond our shared human condition, beyond flesh. It bothers me when someone attempts to reduce blackness, in that Kantian way, to modernity’s imposition of race and racism.

Sometimes I like to run around inside the worlds channeled through artists who are also black, as much as I like to play inside the worlds channeled by black artists who are not black. Do you see what I did there? Moten reminds me, too, how difficult it is to be representative of my own blackness, as someone who is black, as someone whose conceptions of blackness are more concerned with difference in terms of creativity than difference in terms of human social conditions. Blackness is always more than race, but modernity keeps us locked in categorical difference. It’s not that I want to get outside this collective bios/mythos of blackness—I love my blackness, whatever it is. It’s just that I want space to think about what black people are able to create inside this myth other than what people who study race and racism presuppose black life is capable of rendering. To Moten (2018), it is not blackness we must overcome—and I agree with him—but the regulatory apparatuses of surveillance in the lives of black people as a condition of modernity. It’s the (modern) way we are trained to think about (modern) research in the (modern) academy, that maintains this (modern) imposition of blackness-as-race.

As much as I want to move around the postmodern, the post-post-postmodern imagination, I cannot get outside what Moten (2018) says about postmodernity’s impossibility, that we cannot profess postmodernity until modernity (as blackness, as a fact of money, as a fact of property) is done. Is it even possible to do something called postqualitative research, too, if the nature of qualitative research is dependent upon the trouble, or the problem, or the struggle of blackness-as-race? Because the regulatory apparatuses of surveillance, inherent in qualitative research, maintain categorical difference, I want to run. What tools we inherit (and master) through modernity and its imposition of blackness-as-race are insufficient to the insurmountable task of moving beyond race and racism. The material condition of the black body has always been a matter of captivity, of money, of circulation. Moten (2018) says the necessary condition of modernity is to circulate, through slave narratives, those necessarily storied accounts of brutality in the lives of black people, the regulatory choreography of containment. The only ones who live outside this condition are the ones who can get outside the need to tell a story. I am beginning to suspect all the matter in literacy, the “bureaucratic origins of writing” (Goody, 1986) and documentation, is what troubles us. Our first run, if I can think black sociality in collectivity for a minute, was documented through the eighteenth-century origins of a black literary tradition. The black poetics of the eighteenth century shifted into a functional apparatus of escape in the nineteenth century (McHenry, 2002). What the black literary traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries attempted to open has instead provided the ongoing brutal condition of black sociality, or the practice of writing black stories, black pain, as social currency, as actual money, as mechanisms of survival. Because I understand the legacies, the circumstances of blackness-as-race, then and now, I cannot undermine the work of nineteenth-century black writers. Yet I do want to trouble how we think about the black literary tradition—its origins, its intentions, its limits—what story we tell ourselves and our students about black literature. Elizabeth McHenry (2002) says the nineteenth-century black literary tradition emphasized moralizing, respectability, citizenship. Jonathan Osborne (2020) might say conservative black rhetoric, as it has flourished in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, was first imagined inside those nineteenth-century black literary societies whose struggle to get out led them into politics. And nineteenth century black sociality was purely a matter of politics. Or maybe this is just how I see it. Survival, the inadvertent conservative material consequence, or condition, of nineteenth-century black literary societies flows beyond politics too. Qualitative research methodologies, when used in studies that aim to humanize their black and brown subjects, no matter how radical, are inherently conservative. Black writers (literary and academic) are expected to reproduce, over and over, different versions of the same slave narrative. Or the impulse to tell a survival story within contemporary qualitative research studies is an ongoing materialist condition of modernism. We tell stories about the lives of poor black (and brown and otherwise other) youth and make money through these troubled stories and how close are we to thrivance? The thing is, story is dead, has always been dead. It was never interested in life or liberation, just money. Moten (2003, 2014, 2017, 2018) listens to this narrative—a recurring sound, a wailing black musical intonation, a blues tradition, a cut, an open wound the market cannot let go. And this sound of black imposition, as it floods the music market, is the highest-paid performance a black artist can aspire to. When my interviewees—who are poets and performance artists, many of them also singers and songwriters and actors and filmmakers—describe the tension of being trapped and feeling free, I consider the narrowness of the entertainment industry in this country (and also globally), I consider the expectation for black artists to create the soundscape and sensory apparatus for the entire world, I consider the entire project of black life as it was imagined on our behalf, wonder how to get beyond the necessity of constant entertainment and escape rooms. We cannot get outside modernity if we can only think, speak, write, or perform modern.

The trouble is, ethnographic history, its singular eye, looks out at all the black others, somewhere foreign in an open field, speculates inside a journal, uses the notes from the journal to build the study. Even the most radical studies, if they are qualitative in nature, emerge from the same primordial eye, the same archaic hand. And from these studies, a singular story of an eponymous “we”: we are never meant to transcend the social and financial circumstances we inherit at birth. We are prevented from moving. We are situated in constant struggle. We can only aspire to a myth of some future that will never come. We can only compete, agitate, infuriate, attempt to make, but we never really get anywhere. The air inside this story suffocates us, persists through regulatory apparatuses of capture. And those regulatory apparatuses of capture need us to perpetuate our sorry role in this sad story, need the story to perpetuate a financial enclosure, to perpetuate an agrarian economy. It’s like every time a black person’s life is looked at, prodded, then documented as troubled, the regulatory apparatus of capture grows a new limb, the afterlives of slavery is a perennial phantom limb.

What do I do with my knowledge of freedom, when I know freedom is not anything anyone can actually see? So much of what has been written about black people, or by black people, or analyzed in the lives of black people relies on a preoccupation with the racist condition of black sociality, with looking at and reproducing our material precondition as a mechanism of survival. Some of the most radical, delightful, thought-provoking studies in this journal on language and literacy in terms of black students, in terms of humanizing black students—like the critical work of my friends Gholnecsar Muhammad, Latrise Johnson, Sakeena Everett, Valerie Kinloch, Tanja Burkhard, Carlotta Penn, and Hanna Sullivan—are so clear, so clean, so precise, so survival-based (Everett, 2018; Johnson, 2017; Johnson & Sullivan, 2020; Kinloch et al., 2017; Muhammad, 2015). And clarity is what a strong qualitative study should aim for, right? These papers intend to open something else in terms of black life, or suggest a means of celebrating black life—and they do—but as I read these papers, as much as I am interested in the interventions they offer, I lose interest at their methodological epicenter not because the methods are underdeveloped, but because the methods are too sure of themselves, too compositionally sutured to surveillance, to a particular way of looking and seeing and talking about black life. And, because surveillance esteems itself through its precision, there is not enough mess or irreducibility to open something else in (and through) the work; there is not enough room to run around in (and beside and outside) the opaque data. I could say the same about so many other articles inside this journal, and know it is a matter of what Research in the Teaching of English sounds like, or how we speak to each other in these pages. After conducting all these studies on “humanizing,” “recentering,” “reclaiming,” and “celebrating,” polyvocality in the lives of young black and brown people, is it possible to redirect some of this insurgence back into our inherited methodologies, to trouble the methods, to refuse to participate in the type of banal surveillance which gazes at black people to teach presumed racial others something specific about black life? Can we do so using multiple, many-tongued, polyvocal ways of speaking from our data?

What I’m saying is, the entire project of ethnographic research, and by extension sociological qualitative research, and by extension social groups such as nineteenth-century black literary societies, and by extension contemporary radical qualitative research rely on (de)humanizing black life by way of grammar, by way of clinging to this lucid narrative tradition we are trained to use to frame our thinking. In our constant clarity, what is made apparent, over and over again, is our incessant preoccupation with human socialities and identities. Maybe our preoccupation with humanity (Wynter, 2003) is insufficient to our task of studying language and literacies in the twenty-first century. And I know it’s a weird statement, but perhaps it is possible to get deeper inside languages and literacies by “losing the categorical human” (ife, 2021b). I don’t know. Perhaps we can start to think more in terms of more-than-human, in terms of (im)materiality, not in terms of machines or electronic technologies, but in terms of what else our hypersentient flesh offers us, and how else we decide to talk (and not talk) about it. I want to engage with more secret studies in language and literacy, studies where a researcher invites black and brown students to shape new worlds and then the researcher refuses to show it clear, submits to opacity in order to save the participants from an external gaze, the possible infiltration or theft of those worlds through outside gazing. The thought of transcending modernity, of practicing otherwise, Moten and Harney (2013) remind us, is the work of the university, the task for those of us preoccupied in the depths of study, those of us in debt to our study. Inside all this debt, all I have is my propensity to study.

Research and Teacher Education in English Language Teaching: Section Introduction

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Chapters in this section explore how research can contribute to English language teachers’ professional development. They present different traditions of research, including action research and heuristic research approaches, as paths for language teachers’ professional development. They also illustrate how research conducted according to different approaches such as classroom research, conversation analysis, (auto)ethnographic research, and critical research can help English language teachers enhance their professional practice. Other chapters in the section concern different aspects of language teachers’ professional lives and development, including teachers’ emotional labor, teacher cognition, classroom instruction, technology-enhanced professional development, and collective efficacy.

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Gao, X. (2019). Research and Teacher Education in English Language Teaching: Section Introduction. In: Gao, X. (eds) Second Handbook of English Language Teaching. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02899-2_67

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