Humanizing TESOL Research Through the Lens of Complexity Thinking

Humanizing complexity research is already strongly advocated by much of the literature on complexity (Kramsch, 2011; Larsen-Freeman, 2011; Sampson, 2016) and yet there is a recent trend towards a potentially alienating approach, which could confound readers, utilising a dense vocabulary and overly technical methods. We advocate a more practical approach to complexity thinking, which continues on from McKinley's (2019) paper on the teaching-research nexus by advocating more practitioner-based research which can provide emic and contextually situated insights into the language classroom.