Data collection

Data collected for this study focus on both process and reflection from the workshop. They included pre-workshop observation and interviews, questionnaires, video recordings, teachers’ journals, and students’ writing assignments.

3.3.1. Pre-workshop classroom observation and interviews:

Two months before the workshop, I observed several AEL English classes taught by three different Chinese English teachers. The purpose of the observation was

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three-fold: a) to understand the language proficiency levels of the AEL learners; b) to understand the contents of cultural learning and awareness in the classroom; c) to understand the approaches of current teaching methodology and identify learning outcomes of the pedagogy. I then interviewed these three CTs after the classes to understand in details about the current direction of EFL pedagogy.

3.3.2. Questionnaires:

On the first day of the workshop, before the workshop started, the participants took 30 minutes to complete a questionnaire in which two categories of questions were listed, a) background regarding their demographical data and English learning experiences before the 7th grade; b) their reflection on their English

learning experience (see Appendix iv). All participants completed the questionnaires.

3.3.3. Video recordings:

During the three-day workshop, the two assistant CTs helped to document the whole process, excluding the first session on the second day in which the foreign teacher (FT) conducted the three-hour forum in the auditorium for a viewing and discussion of a movie. Given the spirit of participatory action research which seeks to explore the meaning making process rather than the outcome of the study , video recording provided detailed documentation of the participants’ development of attitude and behavior, and how they changed during the process. This helped me to recall details of the workshop afterwards, and in doing to discern overall patterns and meaning of actions of the participants. It was also crucial in helping me to explain what lead to an action and what a resulted action would develop into.

In total, 12 DVDs were produced for this 3-day workshop, and the visual and audio quality was quite good except for the first DVD when the two interns were trying to familiarize with the operating of the camera. All documented materials were then produced by the Media Centre of MEHS. As previously agreed, MEHS owned the copyrights of these DVDs, and the researcher would be allowed to use the DVDs and all materials related to this workshop in the context of her thesis.

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3.3.4. Workshop journals

Both the researcher and the two DTs kept journals during and after the workshop. These journals are used in the team meetings every day. These notes of the

workshop documented and tracked the on-going reflections of the teachers and the researcher, and helped to synthesize and summarized observation and reflections generated in the process. They also recorded the participants’ interactions with one another and with the DTs. Possible interpretations of the causes and patterns of interactions were also recorded in the journals. In this way the journals did not simply document what was viewed and valued by the

teachers, they were providing also means through which teachers and the

researcher were able to reflect on their approaches and perspectives, and deepen the level of reflectivity in data analysis.

The further reflections and discussion in each after-session discussion among teachers were also recorded. These written records became the researcher’s clues to make sense of the data.

3.3.5. Students’ writing assignments

The participants’ work sheets and two assignment tasks were collected and

analyzed. These included a) a letter to Jennifer, which was done in the first evening of the workshop, and 2) a reflection on the workshop, which was done one month after the workshop in the form of a winter break assignment. The first assignment, a letter to Jennifer, revealed the degree of the participants’ projection and

identification through the protagonist’s story, i.e. evidence that show the degree of understanding and perception of the world. To a certain extent, writing these assignments enabled a deeper understanding and reflection of the participants of the world and thus encouraged a more critical view. The second writing practice, a reflection on the workshop, helped the participants to reflect on their learning in this process.

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3.3.6. Interviews with Chinese drama teachers

Two weeks after the workshop, an interview with the two drama teachers were conducted. With an aim to explore the effects of the project, this interview asked the teachers to evaluate their approaches with regard to the objectives they set before the workshop. During the interview, the focus was intended to be a comparison of educational impact on the participants (see Appendix viii).

However, in the interview, it happened that the two teachers primarily referred to the reflections of the pedagogical approaches from the teachers’ perspectives. Out of concern that a discussion of the pedagogical aspects of the data would lead to another research focus, i.e., a focus on the teachers' perspectives and how they responded to the innovations, this set of data was not the main focus of the data analysis in this study.