This paper aims at demonstrating how English language (EL) teachers in a continuing education program could produce local and contextual changes in their language classrooms through collaborative action research. The role of collaborative tension, as the process is named here, in the implementation of these changes has been highlighted. Three public school teachers took part in the study in two different stages in 2004 and in 2006.The results have shown that the teachers participating in this research have built the bridge between theory and practice and were thus able to produce heuristics to diminish the problems identified in their classroom routine.
collaborative-action research; teachers education; educational change