Exploring the compatibility of Complex Systems Thinking and Exploratory Practice. Paper presented by Susan Dawson at the Manchester Roundtable on Complexity and ELT. The University of Manchester, 15 April 2015  

1. Exploring the compatibility of
Complex Systems Thinking and
Exploratory Practice
Susan Dawson
Manchester Roundtable on Complexity Theory and ELT
April 2015

2. Outline
1. Complex Systems Thinking, Exploratory
Practice and me
2. Complex Systems Thinking and Exploratory
Practice in the classroom

3. My story as a practitioner …
It’s all
about
ME!
It’s all
about the
LEARNERS!
Who’s it all about?

4. Discovering Exploratory Practice
The seven principles:
1. Put ‘quality of life’ first.
2. Work primarily to understand language classroom life.
3. Involve everybody.
4. Work to bring people together.
5. Work also for mutual development.
6. Integrate the work for understanding into classroom practice.
7. Make the work a continuous enterprise.
Sustainability
Collegiality
Understanding
Quality of Life
(Allwright 2003: 128-130)

5. Discovering Complex Systems Thinking
Classroom as a complex adaptive
system (Burns and Knox , 2011)

6. ‘Light bulb’ moment
It’s all
about
US!
Complexity thinking
… 'as a way of
thinking and acting’
(Davis and Sumara, 2006: 18)
collective possibility
AND
self-interest
(Davis and Sumara, 2006: 85)

7. EP and CST compatible?
‘Education – and, by implication, educational
research – conceived in terms of expanding the
space of the possible rather than perpetuating
entrenched habits of interpretation, then, must
be principally concerned with ensuring the
conditions for the emergence of the as-yet
unimagined’
(Davis and Sumara, 2006: 135, Italics mine)

8. Our story
EUS 9/PG Prep

9. Exploratory Practice in action
 Puzzles about their language learning lives
 Investigate those puzzles – come to the best
understanding they can
 Dissemination

10. Bert, Eshrag and Bena’s puzzle
Why do I always speak English in wrong grammar,
although I know how to use grammar?

11. Why I chose this puzzle …
(self-interest)
When I was talking with others I was always thinking
about what to say and how to say. I could make others
understand me, but I didn’t do well in the grammar. If I
wanna speak in right grammar, I may have to correct it
several times. When talking, this is impossible. When I
was writing, I could do better than speaking. I can find
the wrong and have time to correct it. But, what can I do
when I am speaking? (Bert)

12. Why I chose this puzzle …
(self-interest)
I have chosen this puzzle because I was also in
trouble with this puzzle. Sometimes, I could not
create complex sentences when I spoke because I
didn’t know how to apply the grammar to use.
Moreover, I always speak just a present simple
tenses, whereas, I know the structure of many
tense. (Bena)

13. Collective possibilities
(expanding the space of the possible)
 Don’t be shy to speak with others, especially the
native speakers.
 Do more practice – we can speak mother tongue
language because we speak it everyday for long
time, the foreign language will be better if we
do more practice everyday.
 Learn more vocabulary because its very useful to
create the sentences.

14. Final reflections
(expanding the space of the possible)
It has helped me know that our puzzle was very common
for everyone. Bert
I learnt how … can I deal with other students and know
about their problems. Eshrag
After I had analysed my data, I had found new puzzles
… Bena

15. EP and CST compatible?
‘Education – and, by implication, educational
research – conceived in terms of expanding the
space of the possible rather than perpetuating
entrenched habits of interpretation, then, must
be principally concerned with ensuring the
conditions for the emergence of the as-yet
unimagined’
(Davis and Sumara, 2006: 135, Italics mine)

16. Crunch point
The puzzle
work isn’t
helpful
We find out the
puzzles, but
cannot find out
the solutions
It wastes a lot of
time to research
puzzles
It does not help us
with our goals
(IELTS)
It does not fit to
our level

17. Emergence and freedom
‘Critical education guides learners by presenting them
with alternatives which complicate the scene,
unsettling the doings and understandings of others. It
intentionally opens up the spaces of the possible.’
(Kramsch, 2012: 18)
‘Fear of Freedom’ and ‘Security of Conformity’
(Freire, 1970)

18. Learners
Personal
goals
Language
learning
experience
Classroom
External
pressures
Attitudes
and
beliefs
Institutional
policy
My learners as a complex adaptive system
(adapted from Burns and Knox, 2011)

19. Questions for discussion
1. What is the value for language education of
‘expanding the space of the possible’?
2. How may we create ‘conditions for the
emergence of the as-yet unimagined’?

20. References
• Burns, A., & Knox, J. S. (2011). Classrooms as Complex Adaptive
Systems: A Relational Model. TESL-EJ, 15(1). Retrieved from
http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume15/ej57/ej57a1/
• Davis, B., & Sumara, D. J. (2006). Complexity and education:
Inquiries into learning, teaching, and research. New York:
Routledge.
• Freire, P. (1970/2006). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London:
Continuum.
• Kramsch, C. (2012). Why is everyone so excited about complexity
theory in applied linguistics? In Mélanges CRAPEL (Vol. 33).
Retrieved from http://www.atilf.fr/IMG/pdf/02.pdf