Readings for Week 3

The readings this week were helpful to at least get my ideas flowing about how to conduct research this semester, but they didn't stimulate too many ideas about what to research. I noticed that in both the MCM and HDB readings that at least one teacher had done research on error correction techniques. I thought that this was interesting because as teachers we obviously don't want to alienate our students by over correcting them, but at the same time we know that some sort of error correction is necessary in order for our students to learn. I think that it's this common self-consciousness as teachers that makes a subject like this worth investigating because if we believe that there is a better way to teach we will be determined to figure it out. 

Of course there is another side to this coin though. That is, if we know many teachers and professionals have already done a ton of research on a subject like this then is it really necessary for me to do similar research or would it be more advantageous for me to just read up on the subject? I don't know about other teachers, but I would rather become informed by the wealth of knowledge that is already out there on a subject such as this and then choose something else that is a little more mysterious for my research. I'm not saying as current students in a teaching program that we should be on the cutting edge of TESL research, but I think that it is important for us to at least uncover a small and practical question rather than rediscover what is already in the common knowledge of the TESL field.