Educational Action Research(EAR), derived from the teaching pattern of “self-reflection”, has in recent years become a pedagogical
theory and research method in the research and practice of educational circles in foreign countries. Not only an effective method in teachers' training but also a short-cut for on-the-job teachers to improve themselves, it is in the meanwhile one of the means to avoid the divorce of teaching from research. EAR focuses on the concept that teachers should be researchers and should be able to make in-depth self-examination in actual instruction, analyse the problems, work out plans to solve them and enhance the teaching so as to ensure sustained development of education and teaching. Such flexible, pragmatic and dynamic concept and approach can be applied to
foreign language teaching so that progress can be made through classroom experiment and investigation in its theory, methods, quality and development. This paper presents a concise summary on the fundamental concept, characteristics, significance and pattern of EAR and on its enlightenment to foreign language teaching.