A reflexive account on my positionality in a collaborative action research project in a Seychelles secondary school

The paper is based on a doctoral action research project in which three ESL teachers and the author in one secondary school in the Seychelles focused on strategy instruction in the process approach to writing instruction with the aim of helping students become effective writers. The project enabled the author to establish relationships with the participating teachers as educator, facilitator and collaborator. To ensure the trustworthiness of the research, the author needed to clarify and explore the complex relationships to the setting and participants being studied. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, the author reflexively discusses the development nature of my research: language learning strategies (LLS) and draw upon my experience of working with three ESL Seychellois teachers in the reflection and planning stage of the Core Action Research project to critically reflect on the negotiation of my position in practice.

Reflecting on the author’s positionality in relation to how the teacher participants constructed the identity has helped the author to be more reflexive and engage with the research process in a more meaningful way.

The author’s experience suggests that one’s positionality is never fixed and stable, but rather may be characterized as changing and fluctuating according to the context, content, feelings and ideas expressed.