Mediating across the sustainable ecology: Researchers and practitioners as collaborating epistemic arbiters in developing a Global Englishes-informed coursebook

Abstract

This article draws on the concept of ‘language policy arbiter’ (Johnson, 2013) to propose collaborative epistemic arbitership as a way of understanding the relationship between applied linguists and practitioners as they work to jointly close the research-practice gap. We draw on data from a project to develop practitioner-friendly instructional materials for Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) in dialogue with teachers in a municipal district of eastern Thailand. We see GELT as emblematic of how the current push for research productivity can widen the gap between researchers and practitioners, since although GELT is oriented toward practical transformation, it has thus far led to the development of few resources that teachers can adapt, particularly alternatives to global coursebooks. The project engaged teachers from 11 secondary schools in the collaborative development of a GELT-informed coursebook. We use data from classroom observations, focus-group discussions, interviews, and researchers' reflections to examine the dynamics of collaborative epistemic arbitership between researchers and practitioners. Our findings highlight tensions that occur when scholarly ideas are mediated into practice, focussing particularly on the complexity of up-scaling practitioner experience and concurrent down-scaling of theoretical concepts, as well as how such negotiation must take account of the professional culture around it.