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Journal ArticleDOI

Ethnography in ESL: Defining the Essentials

Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo
- 01 Dec 1988 - 
- Vol. 22, Iss: 4, pp 575-592
TLDR
In this article, the promise of ethnography for research and for improving teaching and teacher training is addressed, and some principles of quality ethnographic work are discussed, including the focus on behavior in groups, holism, emit-etic perspectives, comparison, grounded theory and techniques of data collection and treatment.
Abstract
Ethnography has recently become fashionable in ESL, second language classroom, and educational research. But many studies bearing the name ethnographic are impressionistic and superficial rather than careful and detailed. This article addresses two questions: What is ethnography? And what can it do for us in ESL? Ethnography is defined, and some principles of quality ethnographic work are discussed, including the focus on behavior in groups, holism, emit-etic perspectives, comparison, grounded theory, and techniques of data collection and treatment. The promise of ethnography for research and for improving teaching and teacher training is then addressed.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Motivation: Reopening the Research Agenda

TL;DR: The authors provide an overview of research into motivation in mainstream education and demonstrate the utility of other concepts of motivation to the SL field and as the basis for a research agenda for SL investigations of motivation.
Journal ArticleDOI

Does Washback Exist

TL;DR: The notion of "washback" is common in the language teaching and testing literature, and tests are held to be powerful determiners of what happens in classrooms as discussed by the authors, but their nature and presence have been little studied.
Journal ArticleDOI

Changing Perspectives on Good Language Learners

TL;DR: McDermott as mentioned in this paper argued that language and culture are no longer scripts to be acquired, as much as they are conversations in which people can participate, and that the question of who is learning what and how much is essentially a question of what conversations they are part of.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Negotiation of Teachers' Sociocultural Identities and Practices in Postsecondary EFL Classrooms.

TL;DR: The authors explored the complex interrelationships between language and culture, between teachers' sociocultural identities and teaching practices, and between their explicit discussions of culture and implicit modes of cultural transmission in their classes.
Journal ArticleDOI

L2 Literacy and the Design of the Self: A Case Study of a Teenager Writing on the Internet

TL;DR: In this article, a case study of a Chinese immigrant teenager's written correspondence with a transnational group of peers on the Internet was presented, which showed how this correspondence relates to his developing identity in the use of English.
References
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Book

The Discovery of Grounded Theory

TL;DR: In this paper, the discovery of grounded theory is discussed and grounded theory can be found in the form of a grounded theory discovery problem, where the root cause of the problem is identified.
Book

The ethnographic interview

TL;DR: In this article, the developmental research sequence method is used to find an Informant and make an Ethnographic Record, making a taxonomic analysis, and making a componential analysis.
Book

Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms

TL;DR: In this article, the piedmont: textile mills and times of change, and the teaching of how to talk in Trackton and Roadville, are discussed, as well as the teachers as learners and the townspeople.
Journal ArticleDOI

Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms

Crawford Feagin, +1 more
- 01 Jun 1985 - 
TL;DR: In this article, the piedmont: textile mills and times of change, and the teaching of how to talk in Trackton and Roadville, are discussed, as well as the teachers as learners and the townspeople.
Book

Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research

TL;DR: Kirk and Miller as mentioned in this paper discuss the scientific status of field data and provide a practical guide for participant-observation fieldwork, and present a process model for fieldwork.