CIRCLE

Current inquiry and research conversations in language education

CIRCLE is a resource for second or foreign language teachers at all levels, anywhere in the world. Our mission is to bring relevant language education research to the attention of teachers of second and foreign languages through selected open-access readings, interviews with researchers, and encouragement to discuss these materials with other language teachers.

CIRCLE has been created by two teachers from the Department of Teaching and Learning at Stockholm University using public funding. There is no charge to access the site, and you can participate in any or all of the modules as you wish. You can use the materials freely as a basis for collegial discussion in your own context.

Tips for reading research articles

Research articles may not always be well-written or easy to read, but there are some strategies you can use to approach an article systematically.

  1. Read the abstract if there is one – it will let you see quickly what the article is about and whether it is of interest to you.
  2. Look for the research questions – what are the authors setting out to find out?
  3. What is the context of the study – when and where was it carried out, and who were the students (if any)? Obviously, findings about pre-schoolers in Mexico may not be relevant to upper-secondary students in Sweden.
  4. What are the findings of the study? What are the pedagogical implications if any?
  5. If the study is of particular interest you may want to consider the methodology and theoretical framework. What kind of data was collected? How was it analysed? Is the study convincing?

circle.did@su.se
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.