Dear Liu Hui,

Thank you for your action research report -I find it a stimulating and exciting piece of writing. I have some suggestions for you - please feel free to adopt or reject them.

Might I suggest that you reposition your section on methodology - I would prefer to read about the context (national, local and College) before I engage in how you have undertaken your action research. That way I can engage with why your research is important to your nation, to your colleagues and students, and to you. You communicate such excellent details about your context a little later - I would cut and paste the section to appear little earlier. I commend you in the clarity of your explanation about why you have selected these particular students as foci for your study and I impressed by the inclusion of the very frank and helpful feedback from your colleagues that you include in your account - there is an openness' to others' views that I admire and which is not always so evident in teacher research accounts. I do need more explanation and explication of your claim 'I affirmed the educational values I hold' - what are these values, do they change over time and how do you (and I) know that your claim to affirm your values has actually occurred- what evidence could you give me?

I feel there is nothing necessarily 'wrong' with the ways you have been learning in the past - it's just that we refine and develop or ways of learning through engaging in action research. I applaud your observation that you are on a 'learning journey' - that is such a wonderful expressive way of communicating the process you are engaged in with your students here.

You suggest that you and Moira agreed about your research question - I would be interested to know a little more about how you came to this consensual view. Was it enabled through dialogue? How do you enable one another to define your question in a way that satisfied you and related to your professional values? When I began reading your account, I confronted a question How do I know that a growth in students' confidence will improve their learning of English? I realise that the new Curriculum suggest this link - how is it evidence based there? If it isn't, can you create a critical engagement with appropriate literature within your research account to supply this missing link? If you type in Motivation and Language Learning into a Google search on the Internet you will find some useful leads and the Cilt site at www.cilt.org.uk has a wonderful teachers' forum called Linguanet where you could join in the discussions ...

Your research is validated through the comments you have recorded of others teachers about what occurs in your classroom - could you begin to incorporate student comments too?

Your inclusion of a photograph brings your context to life for me - please include ore photos and encourage other members of your research group with Moira's expert help to do so too. I thoroughly enjoyed the insights you have given about how Moira works with you in a mentoring and co-enquiring way - this is a focus of my research on www.MentorResearch.net and I would appreciate your assistance in understanding the process of reseach mentoring so I can improve my own practice. Thank you for providing me with such interesting reading!

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