The current study investigated the impact of a language teacher education course focused on ISLA in nurturing L2 teachers' research mindset, defined as teachers' cognition and action toward research. The course was designed following an inquiry-based approach, with course activities focused on promoting teacher learners' curiosity about ISLA issues and their engagement with and in ÍSLA research. Findings revealed that the inquiry-based course activities enabled the participants to adopt a stronger research mindset: they were able to articulate and experience first-hand the importance of research for teaching practice, as well as to gain confidence in conducting research.
Recent research on language teacher research engagement has documented several attempts to promote research involvement among second language (L2) teachers through a wide range of professional development activities. Not much light has been shed, however, on the role of teacher education in nurturing L2 teachers' research mindset, or their cognition and action toward research. The current study addresses this gap by investigating the impact of an inquiry-based teacher education course in nurturing L2 teachers' research mindset. One hundred and thirty pre/in-service L2 teachers of various nationalities participated in a teacher education course on Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) at an Australian university. The course was designed following an inquiry-based approach, with course activities focused on promoting teacher learners' curiosity about ISLA issues and their engagement with and in ÍSLA research. Data were collected before, during, and after course participation, using a pre-course survey, participants' written reflections, and focus group interviews. Findings revealed that the inquiry-based course activities enabled the teacher learners to adopt a stronger research mindset: they were able to articulate and experience first-hand the importance of research for teaching practice, as well as to gain confidence in conducting research. They also showed an inclination toward research-informed teaching and were keen to maintain their newly-established favourable relationship with research, despite acknowledging concerns about their future actual research engagement, mostly due to time constraints and lack of institutional support. These findings suggest useful implications for nurturing language teachers' research mindset within L2 teacher education courses.
