Revisiting the Research–Practice Divide: Teacher Agency, Institutional Conditions, and Practitioner Inquiry in EFL Contexts

Abstract

The gap between the rhetoric of teacher-as-researcher and the daily reality of the classroom remains a significant chasm in English Language Teaching. While modern policy discourses frequently frame the EFL teacher as a proactive ‘knowledge producer’, the lived experiences of practitioners tell a more fractured story. This article reflects on a series of teacher narratives to interrogate the structural conditions that shape, and often stifle, engagement with practitioner inquiry. By looking back at these professional stories, we can expose the persistent tension between an idealised professional agency and an institutional reality marked by depleted time, inadequate training, and a lack of structural scaffolding.