Why Are Innovation And Research Important

Answer the following questions. Support your answer on Carless (2013) and Coombe and Sheetz (2015).

1. Why are innovation and research important for ELT?
Innovation and research are important for ELT for a number of different reasons, notwithstanding, we might point at the fact that both terms bring with them the idea of improvement as well as that of making education more effective.
On the one hand, innovation is important in the sense that it may help schools to keep up-to-date with the latest developments or research findings, and can also be a force to encourage educational equity and fairer opportunities for diverse sections of society, as stated in Carless (2013).
On the other hand, the research teachers do is outstanding, for it

What is the relationship between scholarship, practice, teaching and research?
In order to answer this question I will use Coombe and Sheetz’s (2015) idea, for it summarises quite accurately the relationship of these four terms. In the view of both authors, there is an interdependence of scholarship, practice, research and teaching in the sense that research is the systematic exploration of the unknown for a socially useful purpose. Research informs both practice and scholarship. Scholarship informs practice and depends on research for new knowledge. Practice reveals needs for scholarship and for research and teaching is a special form of practice where the practice is promoting scholarship. To put it simple, though, we might say that scholarship is a part of the map in which research is situated and that is intended to generate personally useful knowledge. Practice is another part of this big map, and it is the application of what is known (addressable through scholarship) and what is not known (addressable through research) to personal situations. Therefore, practice is the activity where both the known and the unknown must be dealt with at the personal level. Finally, teaching is a form of practice whose main concern is the facilitation of scholarship or “the deliberate act of helping learners to develop understanding and skills” (Ball and Forzani, 2007:530, cited in Coombe and Sheetz

What are the main barriers teachers may find when they face innovation and research? What are the most difficult ones to overcome according to your own thoughts?
As it is stated in Carless (2013), reforms which are perceived by individuals as having greater relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, and observability and less complexity are likely to be adopted more rapidly and efficiently than other innovations.
Furthermore, as it is explained in the same article, the main barriers facing innovation can be broadly grouped into three categories: teacher-related, which include obstacles having to do with the lack of teacher ownership or understanding of the innovation, changes that are not congruent with existing teaching values and beliefs, negative attitudes often engendered by the additional workload entailed, teachers that are often emotionally bound up in existing practices and changes that can be personally