The CATESOL Journal

By merging legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and action research (Nunan, 1992), this paper encourages teachers to question their pedagogical choices in relation to those of their teaching community(ies) of practice. This paper discusses two questions: (a) How can action research–based methods be used to highlight crucial differences between novice and expert instruction in the same teaching community?; and (b) how did the author’s pedagogical decisions reflect legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and hence “situated learning,” or fuller participation in the teaching community in which the author’s “bridge” class was situated. The reason for this twofold examination is to develop a dynamic understanding, or “meta-awareness” (Ramanathan, 2002), of how teaching choices were related to those of the local teaching community. Such “metaknowledge” is important in that it allows teachers to more effectively embrace or resist their teaching community norms.