Ethnography in ESL

                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                  Christykim
Defining the Essentials states what ethnography is and what ethnography can do for us in ESL.  It states that ethnography is a type of research that is holistic and studies people’s behavior in a natural setting over a long period of time with a focus on the influence of culture on behavior.  Watson-Gegeo emphasizes long-term because she wants to separate it from some ethnographic research that is impressionistic with short periods of observations called “blitzkrieg ethnography”.  She states these are very superficial and not true ethnography.

Watson-Gegeo goes over some principles of ethnographic research.  First, ethnography focuses on people’s behavior in groups and on cultural patterns in that behavior.  However she also states that ethnography can focus on an individual and in that case the individual is treated as representative of a group.  Second, ethnography is holistic and so any aspect of culture or behavior has to be explained in relation to the whole system in which it is a part so we must look at every type of interaction such as during the lesson, the organization of the classroom and even the influence of society and much more.  Third, ethnographic data collection begins with a theoretical framework to direct the researcher.  Watson-Gegeo states the role of theory seems to be poorly understood outside of anthropology so sometimes the research is guided only by the observer’s “implicit ontology”.  But this doesn’t mean that ethnographic observation and interpretation are determined by the theory.

Watson-Gegeo also discusses the role of ethnography in ESL.  Ethnography can answer questions such as what is going on from moment to moment in ESL settings and how culture influences the behavior of the participants.  Ethnography offers a way to systematically document interactions to develop a theory based on the collected data.  Ethnographic studies can assist ESL teachers by informing them of the influence of the local culture and the expectations from that culture.

           After reading the paper by Watson-Gegeo I have to agree with her on two things.  First, ethnography is useful for ESL since ethnographic research creates theory based on observations in natural settings and takes into account the influence of culture on behavior.  As mentioned before, this information could greatly assist teachers who are teaching in a foreign culture especially here in Korea.  A teacher who teaches adults ESL at companies has stated to me that sometimes the students don’t get participate actively.  Later one of the students told the teacher that many of the students don’t actively participate because they are in the class with a person who has a higher position than them.  The student said if they speak too much then it may seem like they are showing off so they just stay quiet.  After learning that information, the teacher got the student of higher position more involved and therefore increased the activity of the rest of the students.  Now, if the teacher had received some cultural training from some ethnographic research then that situation may have never occurred.  I wonder how many other classes have the same problem and how many teachers still don’t know the reason why. 

           Second, I agree that ethnography needs to have some theoretical framework to direct the researcher.  As Watson-Gegeo stated, if observation is not guided by an explicit theoretical framework then it will be guided by the observer’s “implicit ontology” so this just leads to the observers own opinion.  I know the observer has a lot of knowledge to base the opinion on but in the end it is still just opinion.  Also, without a theoretical framework then it would be difficult to compare the results of one study with that of another.  I think it is important to be able to reproduce a study in several locations to see the variations in the results.  The results could give information whether something is just a local, regional or global phenomenon.  That kind of information could help future observers create new theory.