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In:Child-centered Approaches to Applied Linguistic Research
Edited by Yuko Goto Butler and Annamaria Pinter
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 13] 2025
► pp. 131–148

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Chapter 8
A walk through time

From research on to research with children and adolescents

 | Curtin University
Published online: 5 September 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rmal.13.08oli
Abstract
For more than thirty years I have undertaken research that focuses on second language acquisition involving mostly children and adolescent participants. This paper provides my reflections on how my approach to working with young people has evolved over time. To do this, I provide a chronology of my work beginning with a discussion of my early interaction and feedback studies — research that was very much conducted on my participants. Next, I discuss how my research moved to studies concerned with student perceptions, namely their attitudes towards different languages and their accounts of language learning strategies. I then move to describe my task-based research, including needs analyses which involved a high level of participation from Aboriginal youth and that involved the use of the culturally appropriate data collection method of ‘yarning’. Finally, I provide an account of my most recent translanguaging and educational research which highlights my transition into collaborative research with my participants. In this way I show how my research has moved from treating children as ‘passive’ participants to those who are not only ‘active’ but who have agency, becoming important co-researchers in the process (Pinter, 2018).
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Early child interaction research
  • Task-based research within authentic classrooms
  • Child language learning attitudes and learning strategies
  • Working with young people
  • Co-researching
  • Conclusion
  • References
References (45)
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