Introduction

English language teaching professionals in Mexico have a variety of teacher training backgrounds. However, university foreign language departments (FLDs), many of which are public Mexicanuniversities, are among the most common providers of language teaching training in México (Ramírez Romero, 2013). Most of these FLDs offer four-to-five-year undergraduate ELT programs. Many Mexican ELT professionals, therefore, enroll in pre-service ELT programs, usually right after they finish their high school studies, at 17-19 years of age.

Meanwhile, due to Mexican national policies (Méndez López, 2016), faculty members at these FLDs are not only expected to do research (Hernández Méndez & Reyes Cruz, 2014) and publish research (Marsden & Kasprowicz, 2017), they are also expected to teach pre-service teacher training students how to conduct research. Although there are alternatives for students in ELTprograms to obtain their BA degree (e.g., portfolio, research seminars, MA degree), most Mexican universities require that their BA in ELT program students write and defend a thesis or final research paper as a degree requirement (Busseniers, Giles, Núñez Mercado & Rodríguez Luna, 2010; Sayer, 2007). Successfully writing and defending a thesis a thesis or final research paper allows these students to not only obtain an ELT degree,but to also become members of their FLD research community as novice researchers (Castineira, 2012).

In other countries, EFL teachers have also been encouraged to engage in research, essentially to inquire about and inform their classroom practice (Borg, 2009). Teacher research projects carried out by ELT practitioners and guided by ELT organizations around the world have been of interest to describe research cultures and to provide evidence of active engagement of teachers with instructional practice (Borg, 2013; DikilitaÅŸ, Wyatt, Hanks, & Bullock, 2016). This paper analyzes the case of three Mexican EFL teachers who conducted research, wrote a thesis and defended this formal piece of academic writing in an oral exam before an academic committee, more than15 years after having finished their coursework. Participants were interviewed and asked to describe the period of time they dedicated to thesis writing. In their account, they were guided to recall what drove them to successfully write and defend a BA in ELT thesis 15 years after they had finished their ELT program coursework. It was hopedthat participants would provide information related to their engagement with research in the EFL field, perhaps as consumers of research or as producers of research (Borg, 2013). In addition, their story could situate thesis writing as a social practice embedded within a specific community, namely a FLDresearch community in a large public university in Central Mexico. Therefore, the research questions for this study are as outlined below:

RQ1. How does a FLD research community become visible through the participants’ accounts?

RQ2. Do participants view themselves as novice researchers? If so, do they view themselves as part of the institutional FLD research community?

RQ3. Is there any other community in which participants view themselves as members? 

Literature review

Research in the ELT field

According to Borg (2013) and Dikilitas, et al. (2016), research in ELT could be carried out to inquire about one’s teaching practice, to investigate instructional practice based on institute requirements to obtain an ELT degree for professional competitiveness, or to achieve two or all of these objectives. Further subdivisions of these categories, however, can result in other objectives as well. Some researchers may focus on how experienced ELT researchers and researchers in similar fields can get involved in training students or less experienced researchers (Ariza Pinzón & Aquilar González, 2016; Wyatt & Pasamar Márquez, 2016), whereas other researchers may be much more concerned with exploring how researchers report and share their findings with interested researchers through colloquia and publications (Trujeque Moreno, Encinas Prudencio, & Thomas-Ruzic, 2015; Nygaard, 2017).Some other researchers may be focusedon the conditions under which the reading and writing of thesis writing took place and how those conditions contributed to successful thesis completion, especially at the graduatelevel (Difabio de Anglat, 2011). There has also been interest among researchers inquiring about the writing processes and the conditions under which graduate students finish a doctoral or master’s thesis, while others explore how these students become members of a research community where they can fully participate with their research contributions (Ramírez García, Pérez Colunga, Soto Bernabé, Mendoza Tovar, Coiffier López, Gleason Guevara & Flores Zuñiga, 2017). However, there is very little research that investigates thecase of undergraduate BA students in ELT and their view of themselves as writers, how this impacts the thesis writing process, and their involvement in the FLD research community.

While there is a marked interest in how undergraduate students cope with writing assignments in an effort to design teaching strategies to improve students learning and writing performance (Itua, Coffey, Merryweather, Norton & Foxcroft, 2014; Stockall & Villar Cole, 2016), there are few papers that focus on how they cope with a final research paper (i.e.,thesis) at the end of their studies. Also, available research about undergraduate students who have been successful thesis writers considers participants whose ages range from 22 to 29 (Calvo López, 2009; Olmos López, 2010). There is no, or little direct, research where thesis students are 40 or older completing a BA thesis in ELT. This paper aims to fill this gap in theresearch by discussing the case of three undergraduate pre-service EFL teacher training students in their 40s, who completed their thesis writing in two yearsabout 15 years after they finished all their program coursework while they were also serving in in-service English teacher training practicums. 

Research on thesis writing

In a reviewof writing trends, Cuatlapantzi Pichón and Lima Xalteno (2017) describe the social-cognitive focus of these trends of writing practices that have been shaped by institutional and micro-social contexts; one such context is thesis writing. Thesis writing has generallybeen conceptualizedas a jointlearning journey during which a thesis supervisor and a thesis writer work closely together. The thesis writer engages in the craft of writing for a frequently unknown or seemingly hidden-for-him/her audience and where the thesis supervisor is the primary resource to conceptualizing this process for a long time to come (Ramírez García,et al., 2017). Similarly, Difabio de Anglat (2011) states that supervisors do not guide thesis writers in a void, as all tasks they perform during thesis supervision have to promote the thesis writer’s access to the culture of research into a very specificcommunity of practice: a discipline-specific research community. Access conditions to interact with equals and those in higher ranking positions in such a research community have to be createdandenhanced in order for thesis writers to understand what is expectedfrom them and their writing as determined by the culture of the academy (Calvo López, 2009; Difabio de Anglat, 2011). 

As a whole, thesis writing has also been said to be a complex and beneficial-for-the-writer process. Ramírez García et al.(2017), for example, assert that writing a master’s thesis is an opportunity to grow personally and professionally, as well asto learn to be a scholar and a researcher in university and academic settings. Learning to build on previous knowledge in order to fulfill ones owns research is the primary outcome of graduate thesis writing; however, undergraduate thesis writing is often understood to be the beginning of the journey. Calvo López (2009) explains how knowledge and transformation processes become evident at different stages for undergraduate thesis writers. Where the relation of conceptual literature to their research arguments isnot the difficulty, but rather expressing and owning the manner of doing in their writing are considered as the obstacles. Similarly, Cuatlapantzi Pichón, Lima Xalteno, Sánchez Hernández and Encinas Prudencio (2017) assert that learning how to write implies cognitive and social learning that enable undergraduate pre-service teacher trainer students to think and act as members of theirprofessions by using the concepts and discursive tools that are usedin their disciplines. To become members of a FLDresearch community, therefore, undergraduate pre-service teacher trainer students needto learn how to write a thesis, which involves reading research, doing research and reporting about research under the supervision of a scholar who is familiar with all three competencies aforementioned.

Research on writing and reporting about research

Undergraduate, pre-service teacher trainer students in FLDsmay not be in contact with research, reading research, and doing research until they start writing a thesis or final research paper at the end of their BA studies. Tapia Carlín (2010) and Reyes Cruz, Rueda de León-Barbosa and Murrieta Loyo (2017) analyze undergraduate students’ beliefs about research to determine whether they hold any misconceptions about the thesis writing process and to determine whether these misconceptions are in any way related to maturity and seniority when enrolled in such programs. Findings in Reyes-Cruz et al. (2017) match Wyatt and Pasamar Marquez’s (2016) study in that they all found that participants may not have been old or mature enough to process what research entails and how research is reportedin academic writing.Also, Wyatt and Pasamar Marquez (2016) did not anticipate in their study how intimidating it was for their first-year participants to approach individuals in order to collect data for their studies. Nevertheless, these and other studies (Ariza Pinzón & Aguilar González, 2016; Hunter, Laursen, & Seymour, 2007) suggest a consensus about the need to involve university students and pre-service language teacher trainer students in research degree programs as early as possible in order to create and enhance a culture of consuming and conducting research. This acquired understanding and knowledge of the academic research culture can in turn ease interpreting research texts and working with these texts in the building up one’s written texts to produce research and thesis (González De la Torre, Jiménez Mora & Ignacio Rosas, 2016). 

Similarly, teacher educators in FLDs may be more familiar with reading research and doing research than with writing and reporting about research. As is the case with many academics, these language professionals may also be struggling to find the time to read and do research, or to write research reports and to make this publicin the shape of research products such as journal articles or book chapters (Méndez López, 2016; Nygaard, 2017). In their study with faculty members and institutional administrators from a university in southernMexico, for example, Hernández Méndez and Reyes Cruz (2014) discuss how the goals of the community can encourage the increase and sustainability of research among its members. They point out to the fact that a national policy requires tangible research outputs as evidence to receive funding and the right to reward programs and incentives. In her study, Méndez López (2016) critically analyzed whether diversifying teachers’ roles does bring positive impacts to themselves as teacher-researchers and their university students. Although faculty participants’ motivation to conduct research can also reside in recognition and respect in academia (Alhor Martínez, 2018; Reyes Cruz, Murrieta Loyo, & Perales Escudero, 2018), a point is madeby Mendez López (2016) about faculty not feeling entirely attracted by research as it seems to be perceivedas a results-oriented part of their workload. Moreover, participants in her study report feeling immersed in a competitive and individualistic culture that does not promote mentoring amongst colleagues. Overall, factors such as primarily teaching-oriented workloads, the need for experienced researchers to help in the process, insufficient research training and insufficient research articles writing experience also add to the challenging transition to become researchers in the foreign language field (Alhor Martínez, 2018; Mendez López, 2016; Reyes Cruz, et al., 2018).

On the other hand, Hajdarpasic, Brew, andPopenici (2015) offer a view to complementthe benefits of teacher educators engaged in research focusing on how undergraduate students feel they benefit from being taught by researchers at an Australian research-intensive university. In their study, Hajdarpasic et al. (2015) weigh the positive and negative impacts of research faculty on undergraduates. A positive aspect reported by undergraduates, for example, is that they have the chance to be directly involved in research and can learn from the experience first-hand. A negative aspect of being taught by the research faculty is that students may feel that these research facultyare busy and unavailable to see them on a one-to-one basis. Benefits found by Hajdarpasic et al. (2015), however, surmounted the negative aspects since evidence for transferable skills and better rapport with faculty who seemed much more enthusiastic about their subject matter were significant motivating factors for undergraduates. Moreover, an increase in motivation to undertake postgraduate study was reportedby students participating in the study. Although it clearly results in a challenging combination (Méndez López, 2016; Nygaard, 2017), language teaching professionals do benefit from research experience in their role as university scholars, especially when inner curiosity and a sincere desire to build on previous knowledge for the betterment of their lives, environments, and circumstances drive their efforts. This true enthusiasm for reading, doing, and reporting the researchappears to be positively perceived by undergraduate pre-service teaching students, who might see their research-teaching staff as role models they want to be like and learn from (Hajdarpasic et al., 2015; Reyes Cruz et al., 2017) 

Research on conceptions and beliefs about research

Language teachers might already belong to or wish to become members of specific communities, one of which may be an academic research community. Some research has focused on how language teachers and other professionals view research and the research communities they wish to belong to. Banegas (2017), Borg and Liu (2013) and Tabatabaei and Nazem (2013) use Borg’s (2009) questionnaire to determine how EFL teachers, describe, perceive and understand good research, to describe how they perceive their institutional culture in relation to research, and to determine how they engage in research. Their results confirm many of the findings in Borg’s (2009) original study in that respondents tend to associate research with rigorous scientific inquiry. As reported from those studies, participants also believe that large samples have to be studiedin statistical terms in order to prove hypothesis so that findings from studies can be generalized, made public and made practical for intended audiences. In a related study, Roux, Mora, andTrejo (2013) also analyze the conceptions of Mexican EFL teachers about research. Their two participants, 56 and 32, are of interest to the present paper in that they graduated from BAs in ELT from Mexican public universities. Roux et al. (2013) analyzed written accounts produced by their participants in response to thinking about the last time they conducted research. In these four studies by Borg (2009), Banegas (2017), Roux et al. (2013) and Tabatabaei and Nazem (2013), the researchers conclude that EFL teachers and teacher trainers’ engagement with research highly depends on how involved and accepted in the research communities they already belong to they feel they are. 

Using follow-up interviews, Banegas (2017) and Borg and Liu (2013) discuss how participants’ background plays a role not only in research viewsbut also how they affect attitudes towards research. Banegas’ (2017) participants who were basedat Argentinian secondary schools, for example, viewed research as an activity where researchers were distant university intellectuals who came to their schools to obtain information, were not interested in working with classroom teachers and had no idea of teaching practice. His study suggests it is necessary to understand teacher researcher identity by describing who the researchers are, what researchers study (themselves or others), where the research takes place, and what the purposes of conducting research there are. Nevertheless, these participants’ concept of research seems to be more influenced by the practices deriving from their experiences from their master’s degree in Applied Linguistics and TESOL from a British university than by their previous BA studies. As acknowledged in other studies, being a member of research-based communities encourages school teachers (Vangrieken, Meredith, Packer, & Kyndt, 2017), university teachers and other academics (Ng & Pemberton, 2013) to make room for research despite the limited time that teaching might leave for it. The case of participants in Roux et al.(2013), therefore, is a valuable follow-up study to learn how participants’ experience and job positions as coordinators could allow them to promote research among teachers who work under their supervision. 

Research supervision for in-service teacher trainers may not only be offered by school coordinators, but also by teacher educators on university campuses. Vergara Luján, Hernández Gaviria and Cárdenas Ramos (2009), for example, illustrate the case of in-service school teachers who are taughthow to researchby Colombian university faculty. In a similar study, DeLuca, Bolden, & Chan (2017) describe how satisfied Canadian elementary school teachers were to have participated in a collaborative inquiry policy whose aim was to establish a systemic learning culture and to eventually improve student academic achievement. Further, DikilitaÅŸ et al.(2016) report on several successful cases of in-service teachers enthusiastically engaging in teacher research as a result of joint efforts between IATEFL organization and their universities and schools. In yet another study (Burns & Westmacott, 2018), Chilean university staff and school teachers were offereda pilot version of a teacher action research program supervised by a distance facilitator and a local mentor liaison. This last study emphasizes that involved teachers were able to submit a journal article or a conference proposal, which are highly valued program outcomes in their research communities. 

Vergara Luján et al. (2009:172) firmly believe that classroom research “lends teachers the opportunity to confront knowledge generated in other areas, to develop the necessary confidence and security to transform their practice in a way that responds to the needs and possibilities of their particular contexts and to develop the feeling of being professionals, which fosters a sense of belonging to the teaching profession.”Similarly, Dikilitas et al. (2016) highlight the benefits of teacher research for participant teachers’ professional development in someareas: personalized learning, systematized inquiry, a muchdeeper understanding of their practicum and teaching contexts, a development of autonomy and a feeling of more cohesively belonging to their workplace. Going by different names, classroom research, practitioner research, action research and teacher research (Borg, 2013), research seems to rightfully extend beyond university premises.For the case of the present study, university research is a starting point since participants are to be considered university students in the first place. These university students, however, are in-service teachers already immersed in a discourse community of their own (Nistor, Daxecker, Stanciu & Diekamp, 2015; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002), which is the workplace that inspires their research topic. The general objective of this paper is to determine a possible sense of belonging to the university research community they came back to: a FLD research community in Central Mexico. In turn, this could lead us to assert that participants have started to develop a teacher research identity (Taylor, 2017).

Methodology

This paper intends to understand how participants perceive a specific social phenomenon by eliciting in-depthdescriptions of their lived experiences as BA thesis writers, which is a potentially crucial moment in their personal lives and professional careers. Thesis writers who are 40 to 50 years old are of special interest to achieve this paper’s objectives because they are believed to be able to reflect on events that affect their lives more deeply. In addition, the chosen participants are seen as strongly committed and resilient individuals who may be able to describe processes in more detail than their 20 to 25 year-old counterparts. In order to access participants’ understanding and emotions towards the possibility of becoming fully accepted researchers and belonging to a FLDresearch community, a case study, qualitative design to approach data collection and analysis were used (Creswell, 2014).

Participants

The three participants in this study were female undergraduate ELT students in their forties who wrote their BA thesis in ELT 15-20 years after they finished their BA coursework. They are all married and have worked as EFL teachers in the high school or junior high schools in the Mexican public-school system. They all were accepted at their workplacesas “pasantes,” according to Sayer (2007), “someone who has finished the coursework, but not the final thesis requirement” (p. 72). They all live in urban areas and have two children. Although no information about the reasons why they had to write and defend the thesisto be able to graduate was elicitedfrom them, it is assumedthatas Olmos López (2010) describes, they “failed or retook a course during BA studies” (p. 160). Appendix E shows how the compulsory thesis writing and defense policy for all BA students at this large public university works. Two of the participants belonged to the 1992-2008 BA in ELT program, while a third participant expressed being from the very first BA program, 1984-1991. The first participants worked with the researcher in this study on a “tesista-director” (undergraduate thesis writer-thesis supervisor) relationship, and the latter was introduced to the researcher by staff members in the FLD when she was doing her after-oral defense paperwork. Pseudonyms for the first two participants are Ruth and Loren, and the third participant is called Ellie.

Instruments

Data for this study was collectedconducting one-time in-depth interviews with each participant.An interview protocol in Spanish was prepared, along with retrospection visual aids (Gass & Mackey, 2000), which were (1) a timeline regarding the thesis process, (2) a diagram showing two circles, one for indicating the people who were around the thesis writer at the beginning of the process, and a second circle to depict who were around the thesis writer at the end, (3) a printed copy of the participant’s thesis and (4) pictures of students using a computer or a library. See Appendix A for English version of these materials, or Appendix B for original Spanish version.The objective of the interview was to help the participant recall the periodshe invested in writingher thesis. The timeline, for example, was intended to frame that periodand to give perspective as to the amount of time that passed between individual events and when events occurred. The two-circles diagram was intended to reveal whether people who were around the thesis writer were the same as those people in the final stages of their thesis writing process, and the last two aids were intended to help participants articulate how they proceeded to channel their thesis writing efforts.

Data collection procedures

Participants were contactedvia email and by telephone 4-10 months after their oral defense took place. They all consented to be interviewedabout their thesis writing experience and audio recorded for research purposes. Then, they agreed on a date for the face to face interview. Contacting, meeting and interviewing participants were all conducted in Spanish. Ruth, a school teacher who had afternoons free at the time, agreed to be interviewed on a weekday afternoon within the premises of the FLD. Loren had two jobs at the time, one in a morning school and another one in an afternoon after school. For this reason, she was interviewed during school holidays, in a shopping mall of her choice for convenience. Ellie lived in another state at the time, and she could not drive or travel alone due to an illness. For this reason, she was interviewed on a Saturday morning, when she was in town to visit family, in a shopping mall of her choice for convenience. Participants were interviewedin a one-to-one format, and they were askedfor their consent to be audio-recorded; only the researcher was with them during the interview. Retrospection visual aids were usedduring interviews. The interviews were audio-recorded and fully transcribed.  

Data analysis procedures 

Data consisting ofSpanish transcripts from in-depth interviews were analyzedmanually using theme analysis (Creswell, 2014). The three transcriptions were readat three different times: a month after data was collectedin order to allow for researcher objectivity, then another month later for data analysis, and another time while sharing preliminary findings with colleagues via forum and colloquia. The objective of the first holistic reading was to see each participant as an individual with a story to tell. Preliminary commonalities among the three participants were drawn, such as the reasons for writing their thesis, their academic and research skills, and opportunities for professional development. The participants appeared to have several more areas of commonalities in analyzing data collected through visualaids during in-depth interviews. Those commonalities, which included elements such as age, number of children, and residence details were transferred to a summarizing table (see Appendix C). The objective was to set these participants’ characteristics aside in order to focus on themes and patterns that could help answer the research questions. 

Results and discussion

The analysishere focused on (a) the writing of undergraduate thesis as a social practice, (b) what thesis writing anddoing research requires the writer to do, and (c) a wish or need to continue researchinga new member of the research community. Each theme and salient relationships among them were then cross-referenced to refine initial coding into less overlapping themes. Quotes from participants that are relevant for the analysis below were translated by the researcher and are presented here. Original quotes in Spanish can be seen in Appendix D, each of them identified with numbers between square brackets []. The first section of this analysis tries to answer RQ1. How does a FLD research community become visible through the participants’ accounts?The following section attempts to answer RQ2. Do participants view themselves as novice researchers?If so, do they view themselves as part of the institutional FLD research community?,and RQ3. Is there any other community where participants view themselves as members? 

The writing of EFL undergraduate thesis as a social practice

The participants’ accounts reveal the existence of a community in which socialpractices need to be acknowledged and respected. Some of these practices were referred to several times throughout their interviews and were highlightedas part of the social conventions they had to adhere to in order to write their thesis. The most notable practice was that the thesis writer has a thesis supervisor, not two or three, but one supervisor. This thesis writer–supervisor relationship was dictated by the supervisor in that he/she (1) determined how frequently, when and where they met, (2) indicated what needed to be changedin the writing, and (3) decided when thesis writing finished. Examples of all these points were foundin all participants accounts. Ellie and Ruth explained that it was hard for students not based in the city the FLD supervisors worked in to attend or reschedule meetings. As well, supervisors who stopped working temporarily or permanently at the FLD would leave thesis writers to their own resources. An additional problem seems to be related to the fact that participants were not allowed to choose a supervisor. All three participants indicated that a supervisor was appointedfor them. The writing of an undergraduate thesis as a social practice appeared to be in full control of the FLD, or at least it seemed to be the case for students who were far from the FLD premises anddisengaged from its academic culture. This tight control may not necessarily be negative, as it could be a way to prevent students from being unattended since administrative staff in the FLD is formally involved in the thesis writer-supervisor relationship. Further details about whether thesis writers would find this control helpful, however, are not available in the present data. 

Analysis of data does reveal some of what occurs during sessions with supervisors as participants indicate what supervisors would do and say to them. These interactions with supervisors seem to reveal that there were instances where thesis writers felt lost and unsure about how to proceed. A clear power-relationship in which thesis writers are placedin an unequal position in relation to their supervisors becomes evident here. As an example of that, two participants were not sure whether they were allowed to ask their supervisor what was required of them, while Ellie ventured to ask her supervisor about what he wanted her to do. Thiscould also suggest that thesis writers believe that thesis writing is donewith the help of experts who correct their English writingand that they are expected to find their writing experts so as not to bother their supervisors. As expressed by both Ellie and Loren, they were or were not lucky to have someone who helped them with their English. While Ellie was fortunate enough to have someone to help her with her writing continuously, Loren had to do all the writing on her own as no one wouldvolunteer or have the skills to help her. Please see Appendix D for original Spanish quotes from participants, each of them identified by numbers between square brackets []:

Loren: “…There were many people who gave me moral support, who encouraged me, but to write, I did it all by myself… There,
           in the teachers’ room and at home, in the dining room, always alone, writing….”[1][1]

Thisis a curious finding, and it would be interesting to see whether other thesis writers would believe that thesis writing is to be donewith an expert who helps them with their English, or not. Finally, the participants’ accounts reveal the presence of other community members, especially as thesis writers and supervisor worked towards finishing the writing in order to reach the next stage of the process. Also, participants report that the supervisor was not only the person who asked for corrections to be madebut also a source of support and encouragement:

Ruth:   I feel that with all those issues, I could have quit in the middle of it all, but luckily it didn’t happen because my supervisor
            stayed with me until the end.[2]

Loren: Yes, yes, May 8th. Yes, I perfectly [remember], I will never forget it, I will never forget that day. It was myoral examination, 
            my theses defense, before mycommittee; they were Professor J and Professor L and my supervisor; ... [3]

 Ellie:   First of all, my supervisor, here. Andback at home,I had David [native-speaker colleague]; in fact, I just stopped by his
            home last week and gave him a copy [of thesis],because I mention him at the beginning.[4]

Ruth appears to believe that the supervisor would not be present for the oral dissertation at the end which, as confirmed by Loren’s comment, was not the case. The committee for the oral dissertation is composed oftwo professors and the thesis writer’s supervisor. This committee, from Loren’s comments throughout the interview, appears to be entitled to reject the finished thesis at the end of the oral dissertation and to act as gatekeepers (Castineira, 2012) of the research community she could become a member of if not rejected. Finally, Ellie’s comment reveals the presence of people she was grateful to, and whomshe had in mind when she was asked to write dedications at the beginning of her finished paper.

Thesis writing: reporting about doing research?

Participants’ accounts in this section describe (a) thesis structure, (b) academic writing conventions, (c) specific research-related tasks and (d) how they worked and organized their time. Here, I attempt to determine whether participants perceive these elements of research activity as traits that could define whothey are as EFL teaching students, teaching practitioners, teacher-researchersanduniversity FLD researchers. Participants’ accounts are therefore scrutinizedin order to unveil a wish or need to continue researchingas new members of this FLD research community. The way they perceive their theses and thesis writing activity is therefore analyzedfor any signs of enjoyment and feelings of belonging to this research community. 

First, all three participants were able to describe thesis structure according to the conventions of the research community at this FLD. They all identified five chapters, but they were not perfectly certain about what each chapter should be about. Participants showed different degrees of certainty about what they did in their role of novice researchers in each chapter or section of their papers. This sort of full reliance on memory much more than on practical experience could lead us to believe that they had not engaged in similar research activity after their thesis writing and oral examination took place. Although reasons for why this occurred are not available for the present study, it could be thought that their workplace did not solicit or encourage them to produce any research-related product such as a report, a briefing or a presentation (Borg, 2013; DikilitaÅŸ et al., 2016). There is, however, some evidence in the participants’ accounts to believe that they enjoyed themselves while they did research. For example, when using the academic writing conventions that this FLD research community asked for, they felt seriously challenged; but they managed to cope with it with the help of their children:

Ruth:  It was like, the fear [of using the computer]…mysupervisor used the computer, andI said, oh no, not that, and little by little
           trying to overcome it.

           The help, with the computer, I said, come, help me, how do you do this? Andthey [her children]tried to help me.”[5]

Ellie:  Mum, how’s your thesis going? The quotes, how are you doing?’ He [older son] was taking academic writing [at the junior
          high school]… He said,‘I know they go like this, mum, but if not, we can look it up,’ and because he understands the web
          perfectly, he surfed and all and said, ‘Look, it’s like this.’ [6]

Loren: I asked them, I said, ‘Son, come help me here’; the computer, it was hard, not to type, but what the computer does; he
          said ‘Ok, but pay attention. It was frustrating.’ [7]

Although most of the participants’ concerns seemed to be related to the use of technology, there were several other skills that participants had not anticipated would be necessary to carry out research. From their accounts, the research community at this FLD expected participants to carry out researchas fully equipped EFL teaching training students. Unfortunately, all three participants reported not feeling prepared fullyfor this novice research experience due to the time that had passed between finishing their coursework and embarking in thesis writing. Yet,there are instances where participants seem to enjoy some of the conducting research experience. For example, when they describe specific research-related tasks, how they worked and organized their time, they seem to re-picture themselves in the places where they worked with a fairly positive attitude:

Ellie:   Yes, first, I had it all in cards, I had the first books in cards, then the last ones I have them in my laptop, andthere I read
           them; I underlined the most important things, all that is there in my laptop ….

           I also had a little notebook, to write my summaries, when I considered the information to be difficult or complicated; I took
          out my notebook and made notes, to type them later in my thesis, in my own words, andin a simpler way….

           I read constantly, there was always something when I looked for things to read; I was looking for something and another
           thing came up and I said ‘oops, well, I’ll save it for another occasion’ and kept looking, and what I found I read it right
           there, then I came back to what I saved before which was sometimes very good information. [8]

Ruth:  Well, I liked the FLD library because it was a quiet place, where one could think, read, like in quiet places where I could sit
           down to write and think or read.

           I had like, at home, the computer, there was internet, it was basically what I needed; when I read my summaries, I liked
           sheets better, than the computer, I still can’t get used to study like that, then I prefer to write things in sheets, recycled
           paper where I could write my notes and then, I saved them for later because they helped me, to remember, a note, to
           remember things…I kept all mysheets. [9]

Loren: Well, I sat down, took out my laptop, my bibliography, I sat down to try to write and write and write which was… Write and
           write and I put everything else asidea little, I turned off the radio, turned off the TV, asked mykids to be somewhere else so
           they would let mework, during the holidays, especially. That June-July period was when I was fully dedicatedto that, write,
           write, write and write, when I was not working.

           At first, I came to the library, to look for information, but the place to sit down and write was home, there I had the
           evenings to sit down in the dining room and write. [10]

The use of verb tense in the participants’ accounts above could also be an indicator of how ingrainedthe reading-writing activity was in their self-perception of novice researchers. While Loren uses finished past tense verbs and expressions, “the place was… I had the evenings to… that period…it was when I was fully dedicatedto that,”Ruth incorporates habitual behavior descriptions: “I still can’tget used to studyinglike that, and then I prefer to write things in sheets.”Ruth’s perception of thesis writing could, therefore, be a changing academic-skills oriented experience that she might be willing to undergo. Ellie’s use of recursive tenses as in “I took out my notebook and made notes, to type them later in my thesis,”could reveal that she was able to see reading, writing, andresearch as a cyclic, back and forward activity. Furthermore, her use of present verb tenses as in “then the last ones I have them in my laptop and there I read [present tense] them”can be an indicator of her considering using her still-in-her-computer materials again. As it can be seen, although all three participants express some excitement when describing the research-related tasks they had to do, not all of them seem to be fully attracted to doing these tasks and to researchingas a whole. 

When describing moments of frustration, Loren and Ellie explain why their writing time did not last for very long. One difference between them has to do with the amount of control they had over the source of interruptions. While Ellie took advantage of how her duties at work were evenly distributed, Loren had to cope with unexpected interruptions she was not able to escape from. These interruptions came from the comings and goings of colleagues who would ask her how much she had already written. These comments provide evidence of participants interacting with members of communities other than the research community at this FLD: the students and coworkers at their workplace. As for Ruth, she would express frequent lack of concentration in this FLD’s library, which may be related to her feeling alien to the setting (Nistor, Daxecker, Stanciu & Diekamp, 2015; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002). Nevertheless, further evidence for this assumption would have to be gathered.

Feeling a member of the institutional research community

In this section, each participant’s case is analyzed separately, as participants’ feelings of belonging (Nistor, Daxecker, Stanciu & Diekamp, 2015; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002) are thought to be of fairly different degrees. Ellie, for example, seems to be the most enthusiastic about being a student again, especially one who would carry out novice research in the form of academic tasks such as reading about her topic of interest, writing with the help of an expert and feeling curious about her findings, issues in the field and how this process flows through her as a novice scholar.

Ellie:    It was almost towards the end of my writing that, I found the term, the message and I said, ‘I should have started there’;
           … I am left like; Ifelt like I needed to continue, researching about my topic, I feel it is important; … I feel it’s not all perfectly
           clear to me like, like I want to learn more about these terms because I feel they are more complicated; I feel that if I
           investigate a bit more, I would have a clearer idea.

            As I went on, as I got involved, I felt more and more interested… to investigate, to know more…in fact, now that I finished
           my thesis, I started another project at work and, my colleague Aura, she said, Oh God, it’s been barely a month you
           finished andyou are already doing something else’ and I said, ‘Believe it or not, writing my thesis resulted in this anxiety to
           want, to be doing something, to investigate more….’ [11]

Ruth describes the experience as attractive, but she feels that she was underprepared. This feeling seems to prevent her from fully belonging to the research community she is now a member of. Her achievement, though, changes her status at her workplace, a community she entirely feels a member of, which appears to boost her self-confidence and her readiness to undertake another research experience in the future.

Ruth: Well, what I feel now is that I was ‘short,’ I should have read much morebecause there is a lot ofinformation, isn’t there? I
         feel that I had to read much more, to commit to it much more.

         And like, I ended up with that feeling, working under pressure, and that you have to study, you have to do research, you
         have to find things, likeI need it to some point, because I got used to that, that is the way one has to work, under pressure,
         and I think I need it.

         There, at school for example, I am in a list now, that I now have… because I had a ‘pasante’ status, and right now I have
         my degree so, I have the… intention, to keep on studying, not just up to there and er…I now feel… good, I feel ok and at
         peace, I feel relieved, better now. [12]

Loren’s case, however, is entirely different. She claims that it was a painful and overwhelming experience, and there are no comments which suggest she would like to go through it again. Loren even acknowledges using avoidance strategies to escape from her novice researcher duties momentarily. This avoidance is constantly referredto as a result offear to produce academic writing, which she weighs against other skills she feels better at. It is encouraging, however, that she would choose to do academic work in her language to restore her confidence in being a student capable of coping with academic demands: 

Loren: It was a diploma course I decided to take, a teaching certification. So I dedicate more time to the diploma course, I leave
           my thesis. It tormented me because it was very difficult because it was hard for me. The thought of sitting down and write
           [in English] scared me, I felt panic. So, I did my diploma course assignments that were in Spanish.

           I feel that I am better at speaking, at expressing myself orally than at writing, I feel that it was one of my problems during
           my studies, to write. Teaching, I think that I can teach my students, I can do that. I explain, they understand, but for me to
           write texts… when I started this [thesis writing] I realized it was very hard for me; it is not my thing, I am not good at it.[13]

Loren’s unevenly felt language skills seem to have pushed her somehow in the end, as she seemed to look forward to her oral defense, where family and friends were allowed to physically enter into the research community that was to welcome her as a new member. The presence of gatekeepers (Castineria, 2012), it seems, triggered most of the support she was given. Her oral defense appears to have put an end to a painful journey, as she recalls from a visit to her doctor sometimelater: 

Loren: That day, my oral defense day, I had many text messages on my mobile, many colleagues from work congratulated me,
           friends, very close friends sent me text messages ‘break a leg! Youcan do it, Loren!’ I received lots of moral support that 
           day.

           My doctor asked, ‘How is your blood pressure problem?’and I said, ‘I don’thave a headache anymore’ and he asked me
           whether I had had my oral dissertation and I said yes. He said, ‘You see? I told youit was stress’; I had been there to see
           him because I could not see with this eye, about three weeks before the oral defense.

            I was not going to be able to do it, like, due to my age, to all the time I had been away from school, to my children, my
            work, all that; this day seemed so far and difficult to get to.[14]

Unfortunately, Loren’s case is one where thesis writing is conceivedas a finishing line. It is a point to get to in order to be allowed to keep her job. Ruth and Ellie, on the other hand, do welcome the possibility of seeing themselves as novice researchers even thoughthey were also first forced to start thesis writing for the same primarily instrumentally-motivated reasons (Borg, 2013). Their sense of belonging into the FLD research community under study is, however, rather weak, forthey refer to this research community as a distant group of academics who require them to do a series of tasks and go through a series of steps to authorize the quality and worthiness of the academic research paper they have to write.

Limitations

Since it was not possible to contact participants for a second time, study findings are limited to one-time-collected data. For this reason, the present study cannot venture to assert that participants have found a way to participate in some form of research design, implementation or dissemination beyond their final research paper writing and defense. In addition, the answers from two of the participants in this research might have been biasedby the fact that they were interviewed by their former thesis supervisor, even though this interview took place almost a year after oral defense. In addition, interviewing conditions may not have been ideal for research purposes, even though they all seemed comfortable and willing to talk about their experience. Should the possibility to interview these participants again be given, care to do it within FLD facilities would be taken. Thiscould allow for video recordings of participants, which could produce much richer and more precise data.

Conclusions

Participants had somedifficulties, all of them related to the 15-20 year gap between finishing their coursework and writing a final research paper from scratch. First, the FLD where they studied had changed greatly. Two curriculum plans had been implementedafter theirs, anda new plan was already being considered. Improvements aimed to fully equip undergraduates in these new curricula to write research proposals and final research papers. Expectations for participants in the present study were therefore high, both linguistically, and in terms of research. In addition, they were not in close contact with this rapidly developing FLD research community to get familiar with variants of research design, new foci in English language learning and teaching, ways to incorporate research on their regular practice, and ways to disseminate research for other interested ELT professionals during those years. These participants’ accounts, however, reveal that this FLD may have to (1) explicitly describe how things are done or expected to be donein this research community; (2) make these expectations public for current students and for students who return after some time.

Since participants in this study did not at any point of their accounts refer to rules or a protocol given to them at the beginning of their thesis writing process, potential supervisors at this FLD research community may be taking for granted that potential thesis writers are familiar with supervisor assignation protocols, as well as with other supervisor-thesis writer relationship elements such as:

• how communication between supervisor and thesis writer should occur
• whether supervisors are willing to correct the writer’sEnglish or just content
• how often face-to-face meetings should occur and how long they are
• how thesis writers should prepare for face-to-face meetings
• whether supervisors are flexible or demanding with thesis writers
• how long thesis writers can see the supervisor / what deadlines they have
• what to do in case a supervisor is no longer or never available
• whether any paperwork could formalize the thesis writer-supervisor dyad
• whether the supervisor plays any role at the thesis writer oral dissertation

In addition, thesis writers who have not been permanently in contact with this FLD research community could seriously benefit from a summary of academic, IT, academic writing and research skills that they are expected to have before a supervisor is appointed to them. Although these details may be explicitly described in research methodology textbooks that students at this ELT training program might be using during their coursework, it feels necessary that they are also described by the FLD research community in order to fulfill its very own specific objectives. In case there are already official documents that thesis writers and supervisors use to regulate their work such as writing rubrics, telling teaching students who come back after many years where those can be accessed (e.g., an official web page or a learning platform) would clear the months to come for many of them. In case there are no official documents that thesis writers can refer to, these would have to be created, approved by the FLD research community and made public for students and teachers’ use. This document or documents could also highlight expected behaviors such as:

• Learning to view thesis writing as a form of research
• Understanding the cyclic nature of academic writing
• Developing academic reading strategies
• Perceiving research as an integral part of our teaching lives

Not only could teaching students who come back after some years benefit from such a public document, but current students and their supervisors would have a common document to refer to when working together in their joint enterprise – thesis writing. Finally, this FLD research community should be prepared to acknowledge and celebrate individual differences among current teaching students and teaching students who come back after some time to get their degree. As much as we would like to see every undergraduate go through thesis writing and defense, it may not suit everyone, and it could collapse some practitioners’ already successful ELT careers (Sayer, 2007). This two-year enterprise did not come easy for the three participants in this study, and it was their determination and affectiveenvironment which appear to be the key factors that took them all the way to the end. As Ojeda and Encinas (2013) and Banegas’ (2017) acknowledge, ELT professionals in secondary and high school contexts might experience ways to professional development entirely differently from academics. 

These three participants managed to carry out research, and to report on it following basic research standards, both orally and in writing with very little or no prior research experience. Thethree managed to go through the social practices of writing for a research committee, who would, in turn, decide whether each of these participants was to be acceptedas a new member of this FLD research community. Finally, not only have the three participants become rightful members of the ELT research field, but two of them have also expressed their personal desire to be somehowinvolved in research again. This desire is an essential ingredient to become consumersof research, which should go hand in hand with eventually producingresearch. As for practitioners who do not express a desire to be involved in research again, a FLDresearch community should be ready to welcome much more practical and just as honorable exits for undergraduates to obtain their degree. Some of these options could include putting together a portfolio about their teaching practicum, design course materials or develop curriculum for language learning contexts in need (Sayer, 2007). Learner differences in student teachers and teacher trainers alike should allow for an effort to cater toas many of these learner differences as possible. In the end, what FLDs want are ELT teachers who fully engage with their workplace as a result of becoming more reflective, pro-active and less dependent on expert advice (Borg, 2013; Dikilitas et al., 2016). 

Directions for further research

Collection of subsequent data to confirm first-time collected data feels crucial to inform an individual’s specific reasons betterto continue his/her professional development and to take any further steps to participate in some form of ELT research. Alternatively, a larger number of participants would yield better insights as to whether there are any real patterns in undergraduates’ circumstances that lead to common decision-makingprocesses and similar coping strategies. In both cases, a longitudinal study design might better serve data collection purposes, analysis, andoutcomes. Larger amounts of data could also be used to explore Ellie’s use of recursive tenses further, as they could reveal that participants might perceive reading, writing, andresearch as a cyclic, back and forward activity. Although this FLD is primarily interested in providing undergraduate students with all necessary research skills and knowledge while they are doing their ELT program, it feels necessary to be alert about undergraduates who come back after several years to obtain their degree (MacKeracher, 2004; Merriam, Cafarella & Baumgartner, 2007). While some policies have been enforced in an effort not to employ degreeless undergraduates, the ELT context in Mexico might become lax again (SEP, 2018). Thiscould result in the possibility of our current undergraduates finding job positions now and coming back to us for thesis writing later. 

Close collaboration with colleague researchers who are also interested in undergraduates in similar conditions across the country may seriously be consideredfor future work. Conducting forms of research where briefings or reports for school committees are expectedcould also encourage a more informed problem-solving mindset, self-criticism, andmuch more collaborative practitioners. These undergraduate-student participants could be invited to collaborate in research groups in universities in a follow-upphase, which would undoubtedly enrich research outcomes within our and other FLDs. Former participants’ collaboration in our research groups could, in turn, help them become more active agents of change and improvement in their workplaces, or research sites (Patton & Parker, 2017), as well as to enjoy systematic inquiryand to feel constantly curious and challenged about language teaching.

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