Pergamon PII: S0346-251 X(97)00027-4 System, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 347-360, 1997 © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0346-251X/97 $17.00+0.00 LEARNING BY LISTENING TO LANGUAGE LEARNERS DAVID BLOCK Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WCIH OAL, U.K. I begin this paper by describing my personal version of the action research cycle. I then describe two of my own research experiences to make the point that when we carry out research which involves listening to language learn- ers, we can learn in two very different but equally important ways. First we learn something about the research question we are exploring. Second, we learn something about how to better carry out research. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd INTRODUCTION In the literature on action research which has been published overthe last two decades (see recent publications such as McNiff, 1988, 1993; Elliot, 1991; Edge and Richards, 1993; Hopkins, 1993; and McKernan, 1996; McNiff et al., 1996), there is much talk of cycles which researchers go through. Typically, presentation of this cycle is accompanied by a diagram. My personal adaptation of this cycle, as it applies to my own experience (and without a diagram), looks as follows: 1. As a practising language teacher I am puzzled or intrigued by something in my language teaching experience and my contact with language learners. 2. I bring to bear on the problem my own experience. This experience contains ideas derived from reading I have done which might be relevant to my puzzlement as well as my personal contacts with teaching contexts. 3. I think about how I might go about finding an answer to my puzzle. I fine tune my original puzzlement into a researchable question and then proceed to think about who my informants will be and how I will collect data. 4. I collect data, analyze them and construct an answer to my puzzle. 5. The process might end here and then at some later date I might start it up again with an entirely different puzzle. In this case, I feel satisfied that my question has been answered and perhaps I decide to change something about my teaching. I say perhaps, because it is after all possible to carry out research in order to find out more about an issue without that extra understanding leading to a change in practice (see van Lier, 1988, for a discussion of the difference between wanting to know and wanting to help). I might therefore simply be content to know more than I knew before. 347