By word of mouth: the case for teacher-to-teacher research dialogue

Abstract

Abstract The current study investigated factors that potentially influenced the pedagogic practices of 132 EFL teachers from 28 secondary schools in a large city in Poland. The teachers completed a questionnaire about the factors that impacted their teaching practices. The primary influences on teaching practices turned out to be the course textbook and the secondary school exit exam. The data were further analysed using cluster analysis to identify groups of teachers with similar profiles. The results indicated two main clusters. One cluster was favourable to research-related resources, such as publications, conferences, and workshops. A second cluster was less favourable towards research. We interpret this result as highlighting the importance of within-profession dialogue in which research awareness and useful evidence-based practices are shared among teachers.