Professional Development through Action Research

This case study explores how conducting action research affected a teacher learner's professional development within the English language curricular refonm context in Korea. The subject of this study was a high school teacher palticipating in a graduate seminar that was taught by the researcher. The participant's action research paper, reflective joumals, and group work projects were collected as data, and the subject was also interviewed by the researcher. The Vygotskian notion of concept development was adopted as a theoretical lens to understand the teacher learner's development. The findings indicate the positive innuence of action research on her professional development in the area of understanding diverse research methods, externalizing her perceptions about the curricular refonns, applying theol)' to classroom realities, and attempting to transfonn her instruction. However, her instructional practices were not fully transformed due to contextual constraints such as an exam-oriented setting. As such, action research revealed the status of her concept development and helped to identify areas in which she needs support for further professional growth in the context of curricular refonns. Appropriately structured and supported action research has the potential to promote teacher learners' concept development by linking scientific knowledge (theoretical knowledge) to their everyday concepts (experiential knowledge), and thus should be included in teacher education programs in the educational reform context. Further implications are provided for L2 teacher education programs and L2 teacher educators as well as for teachers themselves.