May 30th Class (please posting your reflections and questions here)

Dear All,

Because this forum only give the users 20M for uploading files, I created a shared folder in baidu pan (百度云盘). I will upload the reading materials and Peter's class PPTs for each class there everyday. You need to click the link below and type the password, then you can get access to the folder. All the materials are available there for downloading.

Here is the link: http://pan.baidu.com/s/1bGr758         Password: i6av

The folder name is Peter's course materials.

Also, please post your reflections and questions on today's class under this topic (80-100 words). Thank you.  


Best,
Wendy

First of all, I’d like to thanks Mr. Costa for you coming as well has your course in the following 2 weeks. We have to make the thesis proposal next semester, so this class is essential and I believe it will make a clear clue for us about how to write a qualified thesis.

My major is linguistics and applied linguistics, so at the beginning of this morning, I knew more opinions in this field according to everyone’s speech at present, which is not only restricted in my experiences.

According to the guidelines, I know some key points in details: the introduction, literature review, discussion and conclusions, each of them has its own methodology. And this is important for me because I think I cannot handle a kind of method systematically, which is a required skills for a undergraduate student.

Question:
I am a TA of SEU, who is teaching English academic writing for non-English majors, but I usually feel puzzle when I taught them. So I wander to know what is the most important teaching point in this course? Is there any relationships or experiences between your course and our teaching practice?

Class 1 Reflection & Question
Reflection
In today’s class, we first looked at again what is applied linguistics and undoubtedly we had a more deeper thinking about it. And the most thing that impressed me was that applied linguistics is really a science where you need combine theory and practice. What’s more, in this first class, I met with some new terms I have never thought about in applied linguistic research such as ethnographic research, practitioner research and different research paradigms etc. so I am very looking forward to the following lectures.
Question
Are ontology and epistemology the premise of methodology?

I think this course is well designed for it is a combination of both theories and practices of previous researchers. I have learnt a lot today:
I know more about the definitions of AL.
One needs to be patient to publish research papers.
While doing a research, ethical considerations should be involved.
Content and structure are very important for a research paper.
There are three common mixed methods designs: one-after-the-other design, dominance design and side-by-side design.
I expect to learn more research methods and processes in the next lesson.

Question: I have previewed the paper, and I wonder how to decide the p-value of a research? Say, whether it is 0.01 or 0.05, who decides this?
Thx.
Doris  

Reflection:
What impressed me most in today’s class can be summarized as follows:
1. Quantitative and qualitative research methods are of equal importance while conducting an academic research;
2. In quantitative research, to analyze data systematically is essential;
3. Beginners may benefit from reading articles from others of similar research field not only in gathering literature to refer to, but in learning the proper writing modes;
4. To provide one’s own understandings that are distinct from the previous studies is necessary for a qualified thesis;
5. Participants’ information should be protected as one carries out academic researches.

Question:
In a research interview or questionnaire, how can one be sure that the participants tell the truth about themselves or do the best they can to solve the problem?

Dear Peter,
The following is my reflection on today's teaching contents.
The lecture started with an interesting self-introduction, including personal understanding of applied linguistics and research interest, which I think is a good way to get us closer. The professor gave us a background information introduction of thesis and dissertation writing. He also addressed issues like the context of theses or dissertations writing, their particular social and cultural context, approaches to knowledge and learning and cross-cultural issues and so on. The professor also divided us into 6 groups to discuss two papers, through which I get to know dimensions such as primary versus secondary, cross-sectional versus longitudinal, quantitative versus qualitative research, and also concepts of validity, trustworthiness, reliability and research ethics. I am very grateful to have Professor Peter De Costa, Professor Ma, Professor Han and Wendy here today, thanks for their coming and sharing with us.
Question: How can we get access to the submission information of international journals?
Best,
Evelyn Lu (陆义莹)

I appreciate the lecture very much. Firstly, Mr. Costa gave us the syllabus of the course. I think it is an important premise of a well-designed course setting to offer the students not only informative content but also well-arranged construction. Secondly, Mr. Costa introduced us the TESOL Quarterly Research Guidelines. The information he listed was very valuable and efficient, from which I learned how to check my works before submission.
Question:
Is it true that an experimental research article is much easier to be accepted by the journal than a survey research article?

Reflection: I really benefit a lot from today's lecture. Of course, it is almost impossible for me to get may paper published in TESOL Quarterly. What I learned a lot is the general outline of the five types of research, especially that of the ethnographic research which takes the social contexts into account. Actually speaking, I think it is a little hard to conduct such kind of research since it relates to some kind of subjective matter such as the daily behavior of the participants. Fortunately, every introduction is accompanied with a sample study which is easy for us to better understand different researches and make a comparison among them.
Question: After reading the TESOL Quarterly Research Guidelines, I am a little puzzled with practitioner research(PR). It does not follow a traditional format or style, intead varying according to target audience. As a result, the findings cannot be applied to every audience. So such research is a little bit time-consuming and impractical. When shall we adopt this type of research? Can you provide me with some preliminaries? Thank you very much.

Nearly all the students presented in the classroom are majoring in Applied Linguistics, so both the general and specific instructions given on thesis writing are enlightening, and we really appreciate it.
Actually, many linguists find it hard to give a precise definition to Applied Linguistics, so Peter acknowledged that students have different interpretations of AL according to their current knowledge and experience, and also we have various interested areas and preferred methodologies in conducting research.
For me personally, the introducing the reviewing process of TESOL Quarterly part was informative,it gave us an idea of what qualities a thesis should possess in order to get published, and different types of research ,including general format and issues related in conducting our own research, all of which are of practical significance.
QUESTION: what if your research findings contradict with your hypothesis and you fail to get any implications from your research, would that mean all your previous efforts are in vain?

Dear Peter,
Thank you very much for the interesting ice-breaking activity and brief introduction of thesis and dissertation writing this morning. For one thing, it can be seen that you are very easygoing which greatly shortens the distance between us. For another thing, your way of explaining some difficult terminologies like ontology and epistemology is not dogmatic, easy to understand. I will appreciate it very much if you continue this way. I also learn some key points of how to get accepted by high-quality journals. Thank you! I hope that after the eight-day lectures, I can solve my puzzle of how to make my thesis more academic, persuasive and innovative.
By the way, I wonder whether you will show us some real case studies during the course since many researchers are stressing the importance of mass data nowadays. I’m interested in the pragmatic application of case study.
Best wishes,
Lucy.

The new course about how to conduct a research is very important for us. Though soon we need to write a postgraduate thesis by ourselves, we are not very clear about the detailed steps of conducting researches. The classroom atmosphere is relaxing and every one of us has engaged in the discussion. However, the theory is a little abstract especially about the research paradigms, so it may be better to combine the theory with practical examples. Besides that, sometimes I can’t follow the Professor very well. Maybe I should preview the reading more deeply or we should also do some other Chinese readings about research method and thesis writing.
My question: How to find some creative points in thesis writing?

First of all, I really appreciate it that Professor Peter can be here and give us these lectures on thesis writing and research methodology, which are going to help us to pave the way for the completion of graduation thesis in the near future.
In today's class, I get to know more about the general issues in thesis writing in Applied Linguistics, such as the various research areas of AL, the procedures to submit an article, and etc. Also, Professor Peter has given us a better understanding of how a qualified thesis comes into being, covering topics like the research methodologies that can be employed, the standard format and structure that we should follow, as well as the method designs involved.
In the class, you mentioned that one of the main reason for rejected articles is "not enough data", and I want to know what if the data is too much for you to manage? What is the more sufficient way to deal with a sea of data?

Hey, Peter! It's a nice day since you and Wndy came to our class!
We had an ice-breaking activity with the little teddy bear, I really appreciate it. for this course, I expect to learn something that is really helpful and useful in our future research from you, and I hope you can get a chance to know me~
For this class, we were divided into six groups, right? Each group were given a topic. It's an honor that the other two fellows and I is the first group with the given topic: experimental research. You showed us the TESOL quarterly, where I have downloaded many articles before. And, the general process of experimental research: Introduction, literature review, method,results, discussion and final conclusion. Actually, I want to know more details about your academic writing experiences~~
What's more, I hope we can cooperate well in these days, to see some difference, maybe we can have some discussions for half of the class, instead of lecture...So, this is what I want to share with you, nighty-night!
Aha, questions: I do not know clearly about our groups' tasks, so can you tell us next time? ^0^

Reflection on the Writing Class
First, I feel honored to have peter as our professor, which makes the class special and unique. Since it is our first class, we have spent a large amount of time figuring out what is applied liguistics in everyone's mind. In my opinion, it is quite necessary and important for us to make it clear because it can help us know the significance of our research as well as the importance of writing a sucessful reserach paper.
Second, peter has mentioned how to publish papers and what we should pay attention to when writing papers. He tells us it is normal to be rejected when submitting a piece of writing and what we should do is to make revisions again and again. It is not a bad thing, instead, it can help us a lot, not only polishing our writings but also stengthening our language competence. For this point, i am quite inspired.

Before writing the reflection for today,I want to say thanks to Peter and Windy. Two weeks’ concentrative course would be a tough task not only for us,but also for you. Whatever, I believe we will have a good time and we students can really learn something which would be quite useful in our thesis writing in the future.(some words unrelated with the reflection topic in that this is the reflection of the first day,haha)
Today’s reflection:
1.methods in the thesis is not only to classify yourself well,but also a good way to let others examine your research results.
2.Questions and literature review in the thesis should also be mentioned besides the certain parts,which can help others as well as yourself to better understand author’s ideas through stressing ,comparing and contrast.
3.Show others how you did something wrong is also a good way to show what you have achieved and better way to help other researchers solving their problems.
Qs: What is the biggest difference between Chinese and American students? What should we learn from them?