ABSTRACT
Participatory action-research is based on a significant interaction between theory and practice (praxis), by virtue of which theory provides orientation to practice while practice informs and materializes theory. In participatory action-research investigation is regarded as a sociocultural practice in which all agents involved (teachers, teacher trainers, scholars, students, school board and others) engage in a symmetrical relationship irrespective of their degree of expertise. This relationship allows them to actively collaborate towards a shared goal: understanding the learning-teaching processes that unfold in the L2 classroom to improve them and adapt them to the needs of the context. Applied to these processes, participatory action-research does not aim to merely generate more scientific knowledge, but to transform educational practices throughout a both investigative and formative process in which professional practice and scientific theory establish a dialectic, complex and sometimes contradictory relationship.
