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Editorial 

 

Scholar-Practitionership as a Way of Being in the Field of EAL Teaching and Learning 

 

Scott Roy Douglas 

University of British Columbia (Okanagan School of Education) 

 

Abstract 

 

The BC TEAL Journal continues to serve as an open-access peer-reviewed publication for 

scholar-practitioners in the field of English as an additional language (EAL) teaching and 

learning. This editorial affirms the multiple possibilities that exist within the scholar-practitioner 

identity and outlines key habits of mind that define a stance bringing together theory, research, 

and practice to strengthen teaching and learning. The current issue of the journal offers five 

examples of scholar-practitionership on topics related to LGBTQ+ representation in teaching 

materials, the transition from face-to-face to online learning, English for academic purposes 

(EAP) student presentation skills development, key issues in classroom language education 

research, and EAP curriculum intercultural communicative competence learning outcomes. The 

editorial ends with an invitation for readers to live within the hyphen of scholar-practitionership 

and offers support to contributing back to the field through publishing in the BC TEAL Journal.  

 

From the Editor 

 

The BC TEAL Journal is a peer-reviewed publication for scholar-practitioners in the field of 

English as an additional language (EAL) teaching and learning, with this characterization of the 

journal community understood as being expansive rather than restrictive. The readers, authors, 

peer reviewers, editors, and other journal volunteers are scholar-practitioners each in their own 

way, giving evidence to the multiple possibilities of the scholar-practitioner identity (Macintyre 

Latta et al., 2017). It is a bricolage that brings together a wide range of experiences, knowledge, 

methods, activities, and approaches (Jenlink, 2005). Within this diversity, adaptive expertise, 

continuous growth, community contribution, articulated practice, research application, theory 

exploration, intellectual wellbeing, and professional discernment are some of the common habits 

of mind that broadly define what it means to be a scholar-practitioner (Macintyre Latta et al, 

2017). It is a stance that brings together EAL theory, research, and practice to further learning 

and enhance teaching. It embraces scholarly inquiry into practical language-related and real-

world issues and draws on different understandings, methods, and traditions to meet those issues 

(Brumfit, 1995). In turn, this scholarly inquiry adds to the knowledge base of EAL teaching and 

learning, with the potential to inform policy and practice and the goal of encouraging and 

strengthening the field as an academic discipline in its own right (Ding & Bruce, 2017; Dlouhy-

Nelson et al., 2023; Scrivener et al., 2016; TESOL Research Agenda, 2014).  

 

 The current issue of the BC TEAL Journal offers five examples of scholar-

practitionership that resonate with the definition above. The first paper reported a research 

project examining LGBTQ+ representation in newspapers for EAL learners and how local 

materials may lead the way for greater inclusion (Freimuth & Walter, 2023). Next, Chang et al. 

(2023) described the transition for English for academic purposes (EAP) students from in-person 

https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.548


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BC TEAL Journal Volume 8 Number 1 (2023): i–iii 

https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.548 

instruction to online teaching and learning in a foundation research and writing course offered by 

their university’s library. While there were online benefits, results point to the effectiveness of 

blended approaches and the importance of collaborating with EAL experts. The third paper in 

this issue described how an EAL instructor was able to support presentation skills development 

in a post-secondary EAP course. The teaching and learning cycle was described in detail, with 

design and activity descriptions ready for uptake by other EAL teachers (Martin, 2023). Next, 

Curtis (2023) has authored a powerful description of three key problems he sees in classroom 

language education research. He has outlined the “doing research on” versus the “doing research 

with” problem (p. 43), the “publish or perish” problem (p. 45), and the “trickle down problem” 

(p. 47). His descriptions of these three problems serve to trouble common understandings of 

research and offer ways out of these problems for the field of EAL teaching and learning. 

Finally, this issue closes with a research paper that examined how the inclusion of intercultural 

communicative competence learning outcomes in an EAP curriculum supports EAP students 

with their lives both on and off campus. Easier academic transitions, greater friendships, and 

increased community engagement were key findings in this paper (Landry, 2023).  

 

 This editorial ends with an invitation for readers to live within the hyphen of scholar-

practitionership, drawing inspiration from the above peer-reviewed journal articles to assume an 

inquiry stance in relation to their own educational practice (Macintyre Latta et al., 2017). 

Readers can seek out puzzles that drive their curiosity about EAL teaching and learning and 

develop understandings of those puzzles that directly connect to their own contexts. It is an 

ongoing and enjoyable process that can focus on the quality of life in the classroom, benefit 

teachers and students, and bring colleagues together to grow within a community (Allwright, 

2003). Thus, teachers become students of learning who ask questions and wonder about the 

answers (Maley, 2016). This wondering can bring people to reflect on their own practice, read 

what others have written, engage in discussion, and make their own contributions in turn (Borg, 

2009; Kupo, 2014; Megyes, 2017). When that time comes to contribute back to the field, the BC 

TEAL Journal is ready to support scholar-practitioners through a publication process that guides 

writers step-by-step from submission, peer review, and revisions to copy editing, proof reading, 

and layout. Sharing expertise and supporting English language education is at the core of BC 

TEAL’s mission and vision (BC TEAL, 2023), and the readers of this editorial are encouraged to 

join the ranks of the authors in the current issue as part of the journal’s scholarly community. 

 

References 

 

Allwright, A. (2003). Exploratory practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language 

teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7(2), 113–141. 

https://doi.org/10.1191/1362168803lr118oa  

BC TEAL. (2023). Our mission and vision. https://www.bcteal.org/mission-vision-grid.php  

Borg, S. (2009). English language teachers’ conceptions of research. Applied Linguistics, 30(3), 

358–388. http://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amp007  

Brumfit, C. J. (1995). Teacher professionalism and research. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhofer (Eds.), 

Principle and practice in applied linguistics (pp. 27–41). Oxford University Press. 

Chang, D. H., Lane, J., & Power, H. (2023). A preliminary investigation into the effectiveness of 

online modules for teaching research and writing skills to multilingual international post-

secondary students. BC TEAL Journal, 8(1), 8–28. https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.499  

https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.548
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BC TEAL Journal Volume 8 Number 1 (2023): i–iii 

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Curtis, A. (2023). Three key problems in classroom language education research. BC TEAL 

Journal, 8(1), 43–55. https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.541  

Ding, A., & Bruce, I. (2017). The English for academic purposes practitioner: Operating on the 

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https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2023.2197188  

Freimuth, H., & Walter, L. (2023). An examination of LGBTQ+ representation in a Canadian 

ELT newspaper. BC TEAL Journal, 8(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.501  

Jenlink, P. M. (2005). On bricolage and the intellectual work of the scholar-practitioner. Scholar-

Practitioner Quarterly, 3(1). 3–12. 

Kupo, V. L. (2014). Becoming a scholar-practitioner in student affairs. New Directions for 

Student Services, 147, 89–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20103  

Landry, M. H. (2023). Intercultural communicative competence learning outcomes in EAP: A 

tool for supporting post-secondary students with life on and off campus. BC TEAL 

Journal, 8(1), 56–80. https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.546  

Macintyre Latta, M., Cherkowski, S., Crichton, S., Klassen, W., & Ragoonaden, K. (2017). 

Investing in communities of scholar-practitioners. Teacher Learning and Professional 

Development, 2(1), 32–47. https://journals.sfu.ca/tlpd/index.php/tlpd/article/view/31  

Maley, A . (2016). “More research is needed”—a mantra too far? Humanising Language 

Teaching, 18(3). Available at http://old.hltmag.co.uk/jun16/index.htm  

Martin, J. L. (2023). The problem of presentations: An EAP lecturer’s approach to teaching 

presentation skills. BC TEAL Journal, 8(1), 29–42. https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.539  

Medgyes, P. (2017). The (ir)relevance of academic research for the language teacher. ELT 

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Scrivener, J., Cardoso, W., Medgyes, P., Saraceni, M., Bao, D., Farrell, T., Kiss, T., Watson-

Todd, R., Thornbury, S., Hill, D. A., Tomlinson, B., Ellis, R., Bolitho, R., Ur, P., & 

Underhill, A. (2016). Responses to the chapter: More research is needed—A mantra too 

far? Humanising Language Teaching, 18(3). Available at 

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TESOL Research Agenda. (2014). TESOL International Association. 

https://www.tesol.org/media/zbyaoumx/2014_tesol-research-agenda.pdf  

 

 

 
The BC TEAL Journal is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 

Copyright rests with the author(s). 

 

 

https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.548
https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.541
https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2023.2197188
https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.501
https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20103
https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.546
https://journals.sfu.ca/tlpd/index.php/tlpd/article/view/31
http://old.hltmag.co.uk/jun16/index.htm
https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v8i1.539
http://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccx034
http://old.hltmag.co.uk/jun16/index.htm
https://www.tesol.org/media/zbyaoumx/2014_tesol-research-agenda.pdf
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

