Vol 29 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUARTERLY Volume 29, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1995
A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

and of Standard English as a Second Dialect
Editor
SANDRA McKAY, San Francisco State University
Guest Editors
KATHRYN A. DAVIS, University of Hawaii at Manoa
ANNE LAZARATON, The Pennsylvania State University
Teaching Issues Editor
BONNY NORTON PEIRCE, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Brief Reports and Summaries Editors
GRAHAM CROOKES and KATHRYN A. DAVIS, University of Hawaii
at Manoa
Review Editor
H. DOUGLAS BROWN, San Francisco State University
Assistant Editors
MARILYN KUPETZ and ELLEN GARSHICK, TESOL Central Office
Editorial Assistant
CATHERINE HARTMAN, San Francisco State University
Editorial Advisory Board
Lyle Bachman, Nancy Hornberger,
University of California, Los Angeles University of Pennsylvania
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Donna M. Johnson,
Indiana University University of Arizona
Ellen Block, Patsy M. Lightbown,
Baruch College Concordia University
Anna Uhl Charmot, Brian, Lynch,
Georgetown University University of Melbourne
Keith Chick Mary McGroarty,
University of Natal Northern Arizona University
Deborah Curtis, Bonny Norton Peirce,
San Francisco State University Ontario Institute for Studies
Zoltàn Dörnyei, in Education
Etövös University Patricia Porter,
Sandra Fotos, San Francisco State University
Senshu University Kamal Sridhar,
Sharon Hilles, State University of New York
California State Polytechnic University, Vivian Zamel,
Pomona University of Massachusetts
Additional Readers
Joan G. Carson, Graham Crookes, Rod Ellis, Eli Hinkel, Thomas Hudson, Anne Lazaraton, May Shih,Jerri Willett
Credits
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Copyright © 1995
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.
US ISSN 0039-8322
VOLUMES MENU
QUARTERLY
CONTENTS
To print, select
SPECIAL-TOPIC ISSUE: PDF page nos.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN ESOL in parentheses.
ARTICLES
Qualitative Theory and Methods in Applied Linguistics Research 427 (10-36)
Kathryn A. Davis
Qualitative Research in Applied Linguistics: A Progress Report 455 (38-55)
Anne Lazaraton
Becoming First Graders in an L2: An Ethnographic Study of
L2 Socialization 473 (56-86)
Jerri Willett
An Ethnography of Communication in Immersion Classrooms
in Hungary 505 (88-120)
Patricia A. Duff
Cultures of Writing: An Ethnographic Comparison of L1 and L2 University
Writing/Language Programs 539 (122-151)
Dwight Atkinson and Vai Ramanthan
THE FORUM
The Theory of Methodology in Qualitative Research 569
Bonny Norton Peirce
TEACHING ISSUES
Qualitative Research and Teacher Education 576
From the Ethnography of Communication to Critical Ethnography in ESL
Teacher Education
Kelleen Toohey
Asking “Good” Questions: Perspectives From Qualitative Research on
Practice, Knowledge, and Understanding in Teacher Education
Donald Freeman
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES

Interviewing in a Multicultural/Multilingual Setting 587
Tara Goldstein
REVIEWS
Guides for the Novice Qualitative Researcher 595
Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction
Corrine Glesne and Alan Peshkin
Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences
Bruce L. Berg
Volume 29, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1995
Ethnography: Principles in Practice

Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson
Reviewed by Rosemary Henze
Language Planning in Multilingual Contexts: Policies, Communities, and Schools

in Luxembourg
Kathryn A. Davis
Reviewed by Nancy H. Hornberger
Research Methods in Language Learning
David Nunan
Reviewed by Salah Troudi
The Study of Second Language Acquisition
Rod Ellis
Reviewed by Julie Kearney
Problem/Solution: A Reference for ESL Writers
Patricia Byrd and Beverly Benson
Reviewed by Suzanne House
Making Business Decisions: Real Cases from Real Companies
Frances Boyd
Reviewed by Coleman South
Expressions: Stories and Poems
Pat Fiene and Karen Fox
Reviewed by Christine I. Hawkes-Lewis
Culturally Speaking (2nd ed.)
Rhona B. Genzel and Martha Graves Cummings
Reviewed by Rhonda S. Dennis
English Connections: Grammar for Communication
Isabel Kentengian, Linda Lee, Catherine Porter, and Elizabeth Mincz
Reviewed by Allison Petro
Write More! An Intermediate Text for ESL Writers
Eileen Prince
Reviewed by Sally Ross Carpenter
BOOK NOTICES
Compiled by H. Douglas Brown 613
Information for Contributors 617
Editorial Policy
General Information for Authors
Publications Received 624
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OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE BOARD 1995-96

President Jo Ann Aebersold Donald Freeman
JOY REID Eastern Michigan School for International
University of Wyoming University Training
Laramie, WY Ypsilanti, MI Brattleboro, VT
Charlotte Groff Aldridge Joe McVeigh
First Vice President University of Maryland University of Southern
DENISE E. MURRAY College Park, Maryland California
San JOS é State University Language Academy
San José, CA Natalia Bochorishvili David Nunan
Moscow State University University of Hong Kong
Moscow, Russia Hong Kong
Second Vice President Barbara Schwarte
NICK COLLINS Mary Ann Christison
Snow College Iowa State University
Capilano College
Ephraim, UT Ames, IA
Vancouver, Canada
Sharon Seymour
Fred Genesee City College of San Francisco
Executive Director McGill University San Francisco, CA
SUSAN C. BAYLEY Montreal, Canada
Pat Spring
Alexandria, VA Chatswood High School
Ellen Ducy Perez
Universidad National Sydney, Australia
Treasurer Pedro Henriquez Urena Susan Stempleski
MARTHA EDMONDSON Santo Domingo, Dominican City University of New York
Washington, DC Republic New York, New York
QUARTERLY
Editor’s Note
■ This special issue of the TESOL Quarterly is devoted to the topic of

qualitative research in ESOL. I wish to thank Kathryn A. Davis and Anne
Lazaraton, the guest editors of the volume, for their excellent job in
conceptualizing and selecting articles for the issue. Taken as a whole,
the articles address important theoretical and methodological issues in
qualitative research and provide outstanding models of such research.
Our hope is that the issue will stimulate further qualitative research in
ESOL exemplifying the rigorous research standards demonstrated in the
studies presented here.
The Autumn 1996 special-topic issue will be devoted to Language Plan-
ning and Policy and the English Language Teaching Profession, guest
edited by Nancy Hornberger and Thomas Ricento. Abstract submission
for this issue is closed. However, included in this issue of the Quarterly is
a Call for Abstracts for the 1997 special-topic issue on Language and
Social Identity, guest edited by Bonny Norton Peirce. General guidelines
for guest editing or contributing to a special-topic issue are contained in
the Information for Contributors.
Sandra McKay
In This Issue
■ This issue of the TESOL Quarterly involves three main goals: (a) to
offer overviews of the current status of qualitative research in applied
linguistics; (b) to consider the main philosophical, theoretical, and method-
ological issues involved in conducting interpretive qualitative research;
and (c) to provide models of interpretive qualitative studies that focus on
second language acquisition (SLA). The studies reported in this issue
involve interpretive qualitative research conducted in a variety of SLA
situations, including immigrant and sojourner ESL learning in a U.S.
423
elementary school, EFL learning in a Hungarian immersion secondary
school, and the teaching of writing to international students in a U.S.
university. Through the discussions and models presented here, we hope
to dissolve some of the current confusion and contribute to a dialogue
concerning the role of interpretive qualitative research in the SLA field.
●
Kathryn Davis, coeditor of this issue, explores research traditions,
definitions of research, and interpretive qualitative research theory
and methods in efforts to dispel some of the confusion currently
surrounding the use of qualitative methods in the SLA field.
● Anne Lazaraton, coeditor of this issue, focuses on the status of qualita-
tive research in applied linguistics by describing an informal survey
of published journal articles in the field and examining key issues
concerning the use of qualitative methodology.
● Jerri Willett offers a thick description of children’s socialization into
the particular English language routines, forms of interaction, and
strategies operating within a U.S. first-grade classroom community.
Willett argues that, to gain a comprehensive understanding of SLA,
we need interpretive qualitative studies of the ideologies and sociocul-
tural factors that affect language learning in the specific situations
in which that learning occurs.
● Patricia Duff provides both macro- and microlevel interpretive quali-
tative analyses of the transformations in English language teaching
and learning that have occurred within recently created English im-
mersion (dual-language) secondary schools in Hungary. This study
suggests the ways in which SLA pedagogical methods both affect and
are affected by sociopolitical and cultural conditions.
●
Dwight Atkinson and Vai Ramanathan utilize ethnography in explor-
ing the cultural dimensions of thinking about and teaching writing
in a mainstream composition program and an ESL program, both
situated in a large U.S. university. The authors suggest that classroom
practices within the composition program are based on culturally
determined theoretical expectations that may negatively affect the
academic performance of international students. They also point out
that nonnative speakers may experience disjuncture in crossing over
from ESL to composition classes as a result of differences in writing
expectations between the two programs. Atkinson and Ramanathan
argue for examination and articulation of the largely unconscious
and culturally situated nature of university writing programs.
Also in this issue:

● The Forum: Bonny Norton Peirce escribes the basic tenets of con-
ducting critical ethnography and explores ways in which critical eth-
nography can inform SLA research. Peirce draws on her study of
the language learning experiences of immigrant women in Canada
424 TESOL QUARTERLY

to illuminate the contributions critical research can make to our un-
derstanding of the power relationships operating in SLA.
● Brief Reports and Summaries: Tara Goldstein draws on her ethno-
graphic study of bilingual life and language choice among Portuguese
immigrant workers in a Canadian factory to discuss culturally appro-
priate interviewing and use of bilingual coresearchers.
● Reviews: Among other reviews appearing in this issue, Nancy Horn-
berger critiques Kathryn A. Davis’s Language Planning in Multilingual
Contexts: Policies, Communities and Schools in Luxembourg (1994), an
ethnographic study of language choices and uses. In addition, Rose-
mary Henze contributes a comparative review of three books on
interpretive qualitative research methods.
We would like to thank our colleagues on the Editorial Advisory Board
of the TESOL Quarterly for providing us with the opportunity to edit this
issue. We are especially grateful to Sandra McKay for her support and
the editorial help she provided.
Kathryn A. Davis and Anne Lazaraton, Guest Editors
IN THIS ISSUE 425

Call for Abstracts
Language and Social Identity
The TESOL Quarterly announces a call for abstracts for a special-
topic issue on Language and Social Identity to appear in 1997. In
this edition, we would like to provide a forum in which contributors
interested in language, gender, race, class, and ethnicity can share
their research and practice with the wider TESOL community. We
are particularly interested in the way contributors conceptualize
identity and what methodologies they use to address their research.
We encourage submissions from a wide constituency and are
interested in full-length, previously unpublished articles that explore
social identity in relation to:
1. Reading/Writing
2. Listening/Speaking
3. Classroom practice
4. Curriculum development
5. Assessment and evaluation
In addition to full-length articles, we solicit short reports that address

identity construction in specific sites, present preliminary findings of
research, or raise topics for debate. Contributions from all regions of
the world are welcome.
At this stage, we are soliciting two-page abstracts for full-length

articles and one-page abstracts for short reports. For all submissions,
send three copies, a brief biographical statement (maximum 50
words), a full mailing address, and daytime/evening telephone
numbers. E-mail addresses would be particularly helpful. Abstracts
should be mailed to the address below and should be received no
later than:
December 31, 1995

Bonny Norton Peirce
Modern Language Centre
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ont. M5S 1V6
Canada
TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 29, No. 3, Autumn 1995
Qualitative Theory and Methods in

Applied Linguistics Research
KATHRYN A. DAVIS
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
T his article reviews basic issues of theory and method in qualitative

research approaches to applied linguistics research. As pointed
out by Lazaraton (this issue), a great deal of debate, misunderstanding,
and confusion currently surrounds the use of qualitative research
methods in the applied linguistics field. Much of this controversy ap-
pears to center around three interrelated issues: research traditions,
definitions of research, and qualitative research theory and methods.
In this article I examine these issues with a view toward dispelling
some of the confusion and illuminating the ways in which qualitative
research can contribute to our understanding of language acquisition
and use.
RESEARCH TRADITIONS
Applied linguistics includes a broad range of research perspectives

that have evolved over nearly a century of scholarly interest in language
acquisition and use. The various research approaches utilized by ap-
plied linguists are the result of the particular philosophical and theoret-
ical considerations they have consciously or unconsciously adopted. In
this way, a number of parallel research movements have developed
that have tended to remain separate, rather than inform the field as
a whole. Three of the diverging areas of study within applied linguistics
that are directly related to second and foreign language teaching are
second language acquisition (SLA), ethnography of communication,
and sociolinguistics.
Second Language Acquisition
SLA researchers have generally accepted the use of the research

techniques and philosophy dominant in the social sciences, particularly
psychology. In adopting psychological models for explaining how lan-
guage is acquired, theorists and researchers tend to view SLA as a
427
mental process, that is, to believe that language acquisition resides
mostly, if not solely, in the mind. Thus, a range of research approaches
and techniques have been developed or adopted by SLA researchers
to specifically examine acquisition from a mentalist perspective. Both
case studies and elicitation techniques (e.g., introspection and retro-
spection) have been designed to get at language learners’ mental strate-
gies in acquiring an L2. For example, longitudinal case studies have
been conducted by Butterworth (1972), Hakuta (1976), Huang (1970),
and Schmidt (1983). Diary studies using both observations and intro-
spection such as Bailey’s investigation (1980) of her experience as a
French student have also focused on the psychological nature of lan-
guage acquisition. Discourse analysis has been used to uncover the
ways in which native speaker input may affect nonnative speakers’
learning strategies (e.g., Celce-Murcia, 1980; Chaudron, 1987; Kasper,
1982, 1984).
By the early 1980s, SLA researchers had generally adopted the
psychological research trend toward statistical analyses based on what
are broadly called logical-positivistic approaches. These approaches es-
sentially suggest investigation into the facts or causes of social phenom-
ena. Researchers attempt to gain objective data by controlling human
and other extraneous variables and thus gain what they consider to
be reliable, hard data and replicable findings. Researchers within the
SLA field saw ready applications of statistical analyses to language
testing and L2 methods (e.g., Brown, 1989, 1995; Hudson, 1991).
Findings on the appropriateness of tests and methods could be general-
ized beyond the individuals participating in the study to those through-
out the population from which the sample was drawn. SLA researchers
now commonly utilize the quasi-experimental and experimental re-
search paradigms and designs also developed within the field of psy-
chology. To facilitate data collection, SLA quantitative researchers have
drawn on previously developed elicitation techniques and adopted a
number of others from related fields (e.g., reading aloud, structured
exercises, elicited imitation/translation, story retelling, and oral inter-
views).
SLA researchers have generally utilized the research techniques
dominant in psychological studies that are characterized by the philo-
sophical perspectives of mentalism, behaviorism,1 and individualism.
In contrast, another research paradigm, the ethnography of communi-
cation, which was developing during the 1970s within the field of
applied linguistics, focused on the social meaning of language within
the context of particular groups (cultures).
1
By behaviorism I mean studies based on observable behavior and findings interpreted from
the external (to the population under study) perspective of the researcher observer.
428 TESOL QUARTERLY

Ethnography of Communication
Linguistic anthropologists interested in language acquisition began

to argue in the 1970s against sole reliance on Chomskyan psychological
models and definitions of language. In 1974, Hymes suggested that
Linguistic theory treats of [ sic ] competence in terms of the child’s acquisition

of the ability to produce, understand, and discriminate any and all of the
grammatical sentences of a language. . . . Within the social matrix in which
it [ sic ] acquires a system of grammar a child acquires also a system of its
use, regarding persons, places, purposes, other modes of communication,
etc.—all the components of communicative events, together with attitudes
and beliefs regarding them . . . . In such acquisition resides the child’s
sociolinguistic competence (or, more broadly, communicative competence),
its ability to participate in its society as not only a speaking, but also a
communicating member. (p. 75)
The inclusion of social and cultural considerations and, in particular,

the use of associated ethnographic methods in the study of language
acquisition essentially resulted in a split between those who took this
position and mainstream SLA researchers. Linguistic anthropologists
such as Ochs and Schieffelin (1984) and Scollon and Scollon (1981)
began to conduct ethnographic studies of child socialization into lan-
guage within diverse cultural settings. Drawing on notions of language
socialization, Heath produced her classic study (1983) of language
socialization within African-American and European-American work-
ing-class communities. She suggested that children from communities
whose language socialization patterns differed from those of the main-
stream schools experience extreme academic difficulties because of
these differences. Based on the theory of academic difficulties due to
home/school differences suggested by Heath and others (e.g., Erickson
& Mohatt, 1982; Philips, 1983), bilingual education researchers began
to conduct ethnographic studies in the U.S. in which they compared the
language/social norms of mainstream schools with those of immigrant
communities (e.g., Ortiz, 1988). An enormous number of ethnographic
studies focusing on L1 and L2 acquisition and use within homes, com-
munities, and schools have been conducted since the early 1980s.
Whereas some of these studies focus on home/school differences as a
source of school failure, others examine the larger political context
within which schools and communities function (e.g., Ogbu, 1989;
Willis, 19’77). However, these studies of language socialization have
largely remained within the field of education through publication in
journals such as Anthropology & Education Quarterly and Linguistics and
Education or in books edited by scholars affiliated with schools of educa-
tion (e.g., Cazden, John, & Hymes, 1972; Langer, 1987; Trueba, 1987).
QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 429

Sociolinguistics
As suggested by its name, sociolinguistics focuses on the social aspects

of language use and encompasses a broad range of theoretical concepts
and research techniques drawn from sources such as linguistics, eth-
nography (specifically ethnography of communication), sociology, dia-
lectology, psychology, componential analysis, ethnoscience, paralin-
guistics and kinesics, folklore, ethnomethodology, discourse analysis,
stylistic, pragmatic, and language planning.2 Although applied lin-
guists have generally recognized the contributions of studies in this
area, sociolinguistics has commonly played a separate, if sometimes
complementary, role in SLA research. In other words, the social and
cultural aspects of language acquisition generally have been viewed
as distant from the mental processes of language acquisition and thus
of less importance theoretically or for explanatory purposes.3 In addi-
tion to a dearth of socially situated SLA studies, many sociolinguists
have also drawn on the dominant philosophy and methods of psychol-
ogy in conducting investigations from a positivist perspective, collecting
data using experimental techniques or surveys, and analyzing data
using statistical methods.4 For example, in examining speech acts or
functions (pragmatic), although these phenomena are viewed as hav-
ing social origins, sociolinguists also have tended to assume that native
speakers possess a set of social rules in their minds; these social rules
can then be discovered and taught to nonnative speakers (Davis &
Henze, in press). Researchers in the area of pragmatic have examined
speech acts and functions using elicitation techniques such as role
playing and completion tasks. In addition, experimental designs and
statistical data analyses have been used to identify the use of social
rules by native and nonnative speakers (Kasper & Dahl, 1991). Finally,
although ethnography of communication has often been included
within the domain of sociolinguistics, researchers trained in ethno-
graphic methods have tended to work and publish outside of the SLA
and ESL fields in areas such as education, anthropology, and the
sociology of language.
This separating out of the social and cultural from the mental along
with the common use of statistical methods and experimental designs
by sociolinguists has inevitably resulted in a great deal of confusion,
2
Anthropology has also drawn on and contributed to the theoretical concepts and research
techniques included in sociolinguistics.
3
Beebe (1988) and Preston (1989) have argued for the inclusion of sociocultural considera-
tions in SLA research.
4
Quantification is certainly called for in particular kinds of sociolinguistic studies, for exam-
ple, domain analysis (Fishman, Gertner, Lowy, & Milan, 1985).
430 TESOL QUARTERLY

especially among SLA researchers, over what constitutes a mentalist-
based, socially situated, quantitative, or qualitative study.
RESEARCH DEFINITIONS
With the increasing acceptance of qualitative research in education,

many researchers who conduct L2 research in classrooms and schools
have become interested in the ways in which qualitative studies can
inform the SLA field. Because of this interest and generally more
open attitudes, some researchers who have been trained in applied
linguistics, anthropology, and education are also beginning to consider
contributing more directly to SLA research. However, until the confu-
sion surrounding the various research traditions operating within ap-
plied linguistics is dispelled, it will most likely be difficult to effectively
utilize qualitative research in the SLA field.
Much of the difficulty in incorporating qualitative studies into SLA
may be the result of the particular research traditions experienced by
those in the field. Gee (1990) suggests that individuals are socialized
into particular Discourses or ways of believing, behaving, and valuing
that include not only our early childhood experiences but also those of
our chosen fields of interest.5 For example, the terminology, interactive
styles, and philosophical and theoretical assumptions shared by SLA
researchers are inclusively a Discourse that is likely to be extremely
different from the Discourse of the ethnographer of communication.
Therefore, we should be no more surprised that communication breaks
down between those from different applied linguistics disciplines than
we are by miscommunication between those from different cultures.6
Gee (1990) also suggests that incoming students of any particular
field are socialized into or, more accurately, apprenticed to that field’s
Discourse by taking classes and otherwise interacting with professors
and other students who are further along in their studies. This notion
of Discourse apprenticeship suggests that we should also carefully
examine the extent to which we expose students of SLA and ESL to
various ways of understanding, researching, and applying SLA issues.
The first step in moving toward a comprehensive view of SLA research
involves examining some of the current misunderstandings among
those from various disciplines within applied linguistics.
In the field of SLA, the predominance of psychological and, thus,
5
Gee is a sociolinguist who has worked toward incorporating theory and methods from
anthropology and education into theories of language acquisition.
6
Communication breakdowns between disciplines are not as severe or complex as those
among different linguistic and sociocultural groups and, thus, should be easier to rectify.

mentalist philosophical, theoretical, and methodological traditions has
resulted in a relatively narrow view of what constitutes a qualitative
study. Essentially, SLA researchers (e.g., Larsen-Freeman & Long,
1991) commonly understand qualitative studies as those that utilize
nonquantitative techniques (e.g., open-ended interviews) and/or natu-
ralistic data (e.g., conversational analysis, diary studies, classroom dis-
course analysis, participant observation). However, this limited defini-
tion of qualitative research ignores the philosophical, theoretical, and
methodological considerations involved in conducting any form of
qualitative research and has allowed for a number of associated prob-
lems of definition and legitimacy. One such problem is the perhaps
largely unconscious, but common, view that quantitative studies (exper-
iments, correlational studies, or what Brown, 1991, calls statistical stud-
ies) produce reliable, “hard,” and replicable data whereas qualitative
studies do not. Although some quantitative and most qualitative re-
searchers now suggest that neither form of research can actually pro-
duce facts about the human condition, the default assumption is that
qualitative studies are not rigorous. On the contrary, just as with experi-
mental or statistical research designs, each and every legitimate qualita-
tive method is dependent on particular conceptual and methodological
procedures to ensure credibility, dependability, and transferability
(Davis, 1992).
The form of qualitative research, alternately known as naturalistic,
ethnographic, or interpretive, that is of current interest to researchers
in the SLA field has its origins in the philosophy, theory, and methods
of anthropology and subsequently has been adopted by educators in
exploring issues associated with learning. Linguistic anthropologists,
ethnographers of communication, and other qualitative researchers
interested in language issues have offered an alternative to mainstream
SLA studies in viewing acquisition not only as a mental individualistic
process, but one that is also embedded in the sociocultural contexts in
which it occurs. From this point of view, mental processes are not
unimportant, but they are situated in a larger sociocultural context
that is equally important. In other words, ethnographers and other
qualitative researchers take a holistic perspective in conducting re-
search.
To arrive at an understanding of social influences on language acqui-
sition, socioculturally oriented qualitative researchers take a semiotic
approach. The central consideration in conducting research from a
semiotic perspective is the immediate and local meanings of actions,
as defined from the actors' point of view (Erickson, 1986). Geertz, in
his classic book The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), centers on the
notion of culture in describing an interpretive research perspective:
432 TESOL QUARTERLY

Believing, with Max Weber, that man [ sic ] is an animal suspended in webs
of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and
the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of
law but an interpretive one in search of meaning. It is explication I am
after, construing social expressions on their surface enigmatical. (p. 5)
Educational researchers such as Erickson (1986) base their understand-

ing of qualitative research on a semiotic perspective and now commonly
refer to studies that take this approach as interpretive. A distinction
often made between interpretive qualitative studies and ethnographic
studies is that the former focus on the construction or coconstruction
of meaning within a particular social setting (e.g., classroom) whereas
the latter focus on the shared meaning of a particular social group
(culture) and/or on interactions among cultural groups.7
Studies based on a semiotic perspective clearly presume a philosophy
that is substantially different from those utilized by mainstream psycho-
logical schools both in theory and in practice. One fundamental differ-
ence involves the reliance on emic versus etic theory and data collection
procedures. An interpretive qualitative study utilizes interviews, obser-
vations, and other forms of data collection within the time frame
necessary for gaining an understanding of the actors’ meanings for
social actions (an emit perspective). For example, in my ethnographic
study of language planning in the multilingual country of Luxem-
bourg (Davis, 1994), I participated in daily life and conducted inter-
views and observations over the course of 1 year in order to determine
the patterns of meaning different languages held for individuals and
the ways these meanings affected language behavior within different
socioeconomic communities. In this way, the study focused on SLA
in terms of the societal and cultural factors that affected individual
acquisition. SLA qualitative studies, on the other hand, have predomi-
nately taken a psychologically oriented etic (or outsider’s) perspective,
such as the traditional case study in which the researcher interprets
the acquisition strategies of a L2 learner.8
7
However, differences between interpretive qualitative and ethnographic studies are cur-
rently being challenged in that classrooms and schools can be considered cultural communi-
ties (with shared values, attitudes, and beliefs). In addition, the boundaries around particular
cultures are becoming increasingly blurred with evolving patterns of cross-cultural interac-
tion (Rosaldo, 1989). Thus, the meanings of social actions may be more individual than
shared (Wolcott, 1991), or meanings may be shared only among those who experience the
same juxtaposition of cultures (Rosaldo, 1989).
8
In quantitative research, an etic approach underlies data collection, data analysis, and
interpretation. Essentially, quantitative researchers determine the variables under investiga-
tion, collect data by examining or controlling externally (to the population under investiga-
tion) derived variables, analyze the data according to external perspectives (e.g., researcher-
determined categorization schemes), and interpret data according to external criteria.

The failure of researchers within the field of SLA to make explicit
the philosophical and theoretical perspectives guiding their studies has
created other problems of definition as well as those involving research
legitimacy. Erickson (1986) delineates these problems in describing
interpretive qualitative research:
The issue of using as a basic validity criterion the immediate and local meanings
of action, as defined from the actors’ point of view, is crucial in distinguishing
interpretive participant observational research from another observational
technique with which interpretive research approaches are often confused,
so-called rich description. What makes such work interpretive or qualitative
is a matter of substantive focus and intent, rather than of procedure in
data collection, that is, a research technique does not constitute a research
method. The technique of continuous narrative description can be used by
researchers with a positivist and behaviorist orientation that deliberately
excludes from research interest the immediate meanings of actions from
the actors’ point of view. Continuous narrative description can also be used
by researchers with a nonpositivist, interpretive orientation, in which the
immediate (often intuitive) meanings of actions to the actors involved are
of central interest. (p. 120)
As an example of “rich description,” Erickson (1986) refers to the

“play by play account of what an observer sees observed persons doing”
(p. 119) first employed by psychologists in child study. This technique
also often used by sociologists and anthropologists during the first half
of the century, assumes a positivist, behavioral (see footnote 1), and,
thus, etic perspective. In contrast, the interpretive qualitative concept
of thick description involves an emit perspective, which demands descrip-
tion that includes the actors’ interpretations and other social and/or
cultural information. In addition, qualitative researchers have argued
that thick description “means taking into account all relevant and
theoretically salient micro and macro contextual influences that stand
in a systematic relationship to the behavior or events one is attempting
to explain” (Watson-Gegeo, 1992, p. 54; also see Diesing, 1972, pp.
137–141), that is, a holistic and theoretically based research per-
spective.
Within applied linguistics, making a distinction between interpretive
qualitative research and other SLA nonstatistical studies involves the
question of whether the study takes an emit, holistic, semiotic approach
or an etic, discrete, mental-process approach. Thus, conversational
analysis could constitute an interpretive qualitative study if the mean-
ings of actions from the actors’ point of view are of central interest
and appropriate techniques (e.g., interviews and observations) are used
to gain an understanding of those meanings. In fact, ethnographic and
other interpretive qualitative studies often involve extensive analyses of
discourse (e.g., Erickson & Shultz, 1982; Heath, 1983; Henze, 1992;
434 TESOL QUARTERLY

Mehan, 1980). However, conversational and discourse analyses within
applied linguistics have also formed firm parameters and theoretical
expectations for conducting these forms of research and could there-
fore easily claim method status. One way for researchers to avoid some of
the confusion when engaged in reporting various forms of qualitative
research is to simply state what it is they are doing (e.g., discourse
analysis) along with the main philosophical, theoretical, and method-
ological considerations involved in the research approach being uti-
lized.
Equating technique with method has created two other major prob-
lems in our field. First, SLA researchers have often misunderstood
the nature of interpretive qualitative research in viewing techniques
such as interviews, participant (or nonparticipant) observation, diary
studies, longitudinal studies, and the like as qualitative methods. Thus,
some SLA scholars have mistakenly interpreted the use of qualitative
techniques (e.g., interviews, introspection, retrospection) within an ex-
perimental design as a combined quantitative/qualitative study. Cer-
tainly, qualitative techniques can be used in quantitative studies, but
(as illustrated above and in the following section) the use of qualitative
techniques does not constitute the approach. From another perspec-
tive, although it is not uncommon to see the use of some form of
quantification in qualitative studies, few would make the mistake of
calling, for example, Heath’s study (1983) a combined ethnographic/
statistical study.9 Applied linguistic studies that include both quantita-
tive and qualitative methods are usually those using each method inde-
pendently in asking substantially different questions. An example I
cited in a previous TESOL Quarterly Research Issues article (1992)
involved research by Fishman, Gertner, Lowy, and Milan (1985). This
study of bilingualism used quantitative methods to determine the ex-
tent of publications according to type and language used in a commu-
nity. Within the same overall investigation, ethnographies were con-
ducted in community schools to gain an understanding of the
ethnocultural dimensions of biliteracy acquisition.
Another problematic issue associated with the technique as method
equation involves the legitimacy of a qualitative research design. Based
on a technique as method framework, researchers may assume that
the use of one particular technique constitutes a qualitative study. As
pointed out above, each research method involves particular philo-
sophical, theoretical, and methodological parameters that must be ob-
served to ensure studies are valid/credible, reliable/dependable, and
9
Given the holistic nature of interpretive qualitative research, statistical methods can be
included in an interpretive qualitative study. See, for example, Agar (1980) and Erickson
(1986).

generalizable/transferable (Davis, 1992). To gain or maintain legiti-
macy within the applied linguistics field, not only must qualitative
studies meet the specific requirements of the approach used, but they
must also offer recognizable contributions to the field. A study that, for
example, merely provides a descriptive account of language acquisition
strategies neither meets the requirements of an interpretive qualitative
(or any other qualitative) method nor contributes to our understanding
of either the sociocultural or mental processes involved in language
acquisition. Besides the philosophical and theoretical perspectives dis-
cussed above, a number of other fundamental issues related to the
use of theory and methods in interpretive qualitative studies must be
taken into account. The following section provides a brief overview
of these issues.
INTERPRETIVE QUALITATIVE RESEARCH THEORY

AND METHODS
Theory and method are inextricably bound together in conducting

and reporting interpretive qualitative research. Studies are both in-
formed by and inform theory in the process of conceptualizing, con-
ducting, analyzing, and interpreting research. The particular methods
used during the various stages of the research process are both instru-
mental and goal driven. Methods are instrumental in that they are
designed to obtain data from an emit perspective while ensuring credi-
bility and dependability. Methods of data collection, analysis, and espe-
cially interpretation are also utilized with the goal of generating theory.
In the following discussion, I examine the role of theory in interpretive
qualitative research and then provide an overview of the major aspects
of method, namely ethics and gaining entrée, data collection, data
analysis, and research reporting. Although presented in a linear fash-
ion below, the actual research process involves continuous renegotia-
tion of each theoretical and methodological aspect of the process.
The Role of Theory
Contrary to the often-held belief that qualitative researchers have

no preconceptions about the area under investigation, they bring par-
ticular theoretical and experiential frames of reference to the research
task. The first step in conducting a qualitative study is to determine the
theories and views that are likely to affect the study. Thus, researchers
examine both their own frames of interpretation and the social theories
that may inform the investigation.
436 TESOL QUARTERLY

Personal Theories and Perspectives
In terms of the researcher’s own personal perspectives in studying

a sociocultural situation, Erickson (1986) observes that
We always bring to experience frames of interpretation, or schemata. From
this point of view the task of fieldwork is to become more and more
reflectively aware of the frames of interpretation of those we observe, and
of our own culturally learned frames of interpretation we brought with us
to the setting. This is to develop a distinctive view of both sides of the
fence. (p. 140)
In other words, to gain an understanding of the meanings of research
participants, we have to be keenly aware of the ways we interpret
meaning from our own sociocultural frameworks. Past anthropological
studies have been rightly criticized for perpetuating colonial and/or
Western perceptions of non-Western cultures (Stocking, 1991). All
studies are in danger of biased interpretations. Although there are no
sure-fire ways to ensure against researcher bias, among other qualita-
tive methodological procedures (see below), Lincoln and Guba (1985)
suggest the use of
member checks (referring data and interpretations back to data sources for
correction/verification/challenge); debriefings by peers (systematically talking
through research experiences, findings, and decisions with noninvolved
professional peers for a variety of purposes—catharsis, challenge, design
of next steps, or legitimation, for example); . . . . the use of reflexive journals
(introspective journals that display the investigator’s mind processes, philo-
sophical position, and bases of decisions about the inquiry). (p. 109)
In addition to member checks, peer debriefings, and reflexive journals
for guarding against bias, studies can be enhanced by developing part-
nerships between researchers from both within and outside the culture
or social situation under investigation. Researchers who are from the
culture or social situation studied (insiders) can guard against bias
based on ethnocentric views. On the other hand, because insiders often
have a hard time getting outside everyday practices to see what is
unique and patterned about those practices, researchers from another
culture or social experience (outsiders) can often more readily identify
cultural patterns. Thus, by working together, insider and outsider
researchers can build on each other’s strengths in helping to ensure
a credible and dependable study.
Social Theory
Determining the social theory that guides and informs the study is an
ongoing process. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the researcher

begins with an underlying grand theory or model in mind. Fetterman
(1989) suggests that researchers interested in social change tend to use
one of two types of grand theory: ideational or materialistic.
Ideational theories suggest that fundamental change is the result of mental
activity—thoughts and ideas. Materialists believe that material conditions—
ecological resources, money, modes of production—are the prime movers.
(p. 16)
A classic example of a materialist theory is the neo-Marxist assumption

that all change results from shifts in modes of production and control
over these modes. The more recently developed critical theory assumes
that unequal power relationships are operating within society at large
and institutions specifically. Particular ethnographic and philosophical
research methods developed by critical theorists take into account the
power differentials both within society and between the researcher
and researched (see Lather, 1986; Peirce, this issue). Other materialist
approaches include technoenvironmentalism (Harris, 1971) and cul-
tural ecology (Geertz, 1963; Steward, 1955). Ideational theories that
have been identified by anthropologists (e.g., Fetterman, 1989) include
culture and personality theory, sociolinguistics (Cazden, 1979; Gum-
perz, 1972; Heath, 1982), symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969), and
ethnomethodology (Bogdan & Taylor, 1975; Garfinkel, 1967; Mehan,
1987).
Although Fetterman (1989) states that researchers select either a
materialist or ideational approach based on their training, interests,
and the research questions being asked, studies can combine both
approaches in a single study. For example, in my study of language
planning in Luxembourg (Davis, 1994), I utilized materialist theory
in suggesting that socioeconomic conditions determined both govern-
ment policies and individual experiences related to language and liter-
acy acquisition. However, I used ideational theory in interpreting
teachers’ implementation of language policy as the result of culturally
determined thoughts and ideas about language acquisition.
The materialist and ideational theories described here represent
only two of a number of grand theories researchers may draw upon.
Other common, and thus easily understood, grand theories are those
involved in the nature/nurture debate. Essentially, this debate revolves
around the question of whether social behavior is genetically deter-
mined (nature) or socially constructed (nurture). Drawing on nature
and nurture grand theories, educational researchers have produced
three main middle-range theories (see below) concerning explanations
for school failure. Based on the nature grand theory, genetic deficiency
has been used to explain school failure since the turn of the century;
that is, children who fail do so because they lack (genetically deter-
438 TESOL QUARTERLY

mined) intelligence. In the 1960s, educational researchers (Bereiter &
Engelmann, 1966) challenged this nature argument and, drawing on
nurture theory, suggested that children do poorly in school because
of cultural deficiencies. In other words, the home and community
environments fail to provide the kinds of cultural exposure children
need to succeed in school. Educational anthropologists (e.g., Baratz &
Baratz, 1970) in turn challenged this position and, although drawing
on nurture theory, they also took a cultural relativist perspective in
arguing that children’s cultures are not deficient, but different from
the culture of the school. Both nature and nurture grand theories
have been used in conducting research studies to demonstrate one or
the other position.
Grand theories, however, tend to remain implicit in interpretive
qualitative research. Researchers more often draw on middle-range
theories in conducting studies, especially for those reported in journal
length articles. Turner (1985) suggests that “middle-range theories try
to explain a whole class of phenomena—say, for example, delinquency,
revolutions, ethnic antagonism . . . . They are therefore broader in
scope than empirical generalizations and causal models” (p. 27).
Middle-range (or grounded) theories are also often developed through
research, such as the home/school difference theory (Heath, 1983;
Philips, 1983) and the perceived labor market theory (Ogbu, 1989;
Willis, 1977).
Whether researchers use grand theory, middle-range theory, or
both, articulating the theoretical guiding principles at the onset of the
study provides a framework for the investigation. Although the specific
theoretical perspectives the researcher begins with are likely to change
as the study evolves, the conceptual framework not only operates as
a guide to the actual carrying out of the study but also informs the
researcher (and the reader of the framework such as a dissertation
committee) of what has been done in the area under investigation,
what has been left out, and how the current study may contribute to
knowledge. In this way, the conceptual framework suggests the overall
questions that the researcher is attempting to answer through the
study. Research questions must be broad enough to allow for a range
of explanations that take into account the meanings all participants
within a social situation give to that situation (a holistic and emit per-
spective), but narrow enough to be addressed during the time frame
available (for examples, see the studies in this issue).
Interpretation and Theory
Theory not only guides the research venture but is also used to help
interpret data. The use of middle-range theories assists the researcher

in conceptualizing interpretations and may lend support to the inter-
pretations. For example, in the Luxembourg study (Davis, 1994), I
drew on the home/school difference theory as well as Bourdieu’s (1984)
theory of cultural (and linguistic) capital in interpreting the findings—
which indicated differential acquisition of languages and academic
performance among working, middle, and upper classes. The use of
theory in interpreting patterns discovered in data collection and analy-
sis then contributes to establishing grounded theory that ties the vari-
ous patterns together as a whole.
Grounded Theory
A major goal of interpretive qualitative research is to develop theory

through the process of collecting and analyzing data. Glaser and
Strauss (1967) define grounded theory as theory generated from a qualita-
tive study that will
fit the situation being researched, and work when put into use. By “fit” we
mean that the categories must be readily (not forcibly) applicable to and indi-
cated by the data under study; by “work’ we mean that they must be meaning-
fully relevant to and be able to explain the behavior under study. (p. 3)
The notion of grounded theory is further illuminated by Diesing
(1972) and Reason (1981) through descriptions of how pattern models
of explanation emerge. Reason (1981) states,
The information that is gathered in the field situation is used by the holist to
build a model which serves both to describe and explain the system. The
model is built by [quoting Diesing] “connecting themes in a network or pat-
tern” (p. 155); the connections may be of various kinds, but they are “discov-
ered empirically rather than inferred logically” (p. 156); the result of this is
an empirical account of the whole system. This account explains the system
because it describes the kinds of relations the various parts have for each
other, so that the “relations between that part and other parts serve to explain
or interpret the meaning of that part” (p. 158). This type of explanation is
called a pattern model of explanation. (pp. 185–186)
Grounded theory thus essentially serves two purposes: It connects a
study by describing the relationships among the various parts, and it
provides a theoretical model for subsequent studies. In Heath’s (1983)
study of three communities in the Piedmont Carolinas, she developed
theories of the language and literacy uses within each of the communi-
ties. However, she also helped to establish a functionalist theory of
culturally determined language and literacy behavior. In addition, by
comparing the language and literacy expectations of each group with
those of the school, Heath contributed to the home/school cultural
difference theory for explaining academic failure. Both the functional-
ist grounded theory and the home/school difference grounded theory
440 TESOL QUARTERLY

are transferable to other situations and, indeed, have formed the basis
for subsequent studies.
One of the common criticisms of qualitative studies is that they are
not generalizable. On the one hand, a strength of qualitative studies
is that they allow for an understanding of what is specific to a particular
group, that is, what can not possibly be generalized within and across
populations. On the other hand, the grounded theory established by
interpretive qualitative studies (such as functionalist and home/school
difference theories) potentially allows for transfer to a wide range of
cultures and social situations. Essentially, the onus is on the reader of
an interpretive qualitative study to determine whether and how the
grounded theory described in one study applies to another situation.
This determination is made by accumulating empirical evidence about
the contextual similarity between the described situation and the situa-
tion to which the theory is to be transferred. Thus, in terms of the
Heath (1983) study, although the language and literacy uses within
the working class African-American community described are unlikely
to match those of another minority community (e.g., the Latino com-
munity described by Delgado-Gaitan, 1992), students from both com-
munities may be experiencing academic difficulties due to differences
between the expectations of mainstream teachers and those of minority
students with regard to language behavior.
Related to the generalizability/transferability issue is the notion of
universals. In interpretive qualitative studies, universals are established
through the concrete and specific grounded theories generated
through empirical studies. Anthropologists use the term ethnography
to describe the detailed study of a particular society or social situation
and ethnology to represent the comparative study of different societies
or social situations. In effect, ethnologists generate universals by com-
paring ethnographies (or interpretive qualitative studies) that ask es-
sentially the same questions and/or describe similar social situations.
The various forms and uses of theory form the cornerstone of
interpretive qualitative inquiry. However, methodological considera-
tions are also central to qualitative inquiry and operate interdepen-
dently with theory.
METHODOLOGY
Of all the aspects of interpretive qualitative research, methodology

has been the most discussed in the literature. For this reason, I provide
here only a brief overview of methodological issues, focusing on those
aspects that are particularly salient to SLA research or underrepre-

sented in the literature, and refer the reader to main sources for
comprehensive discussion of issues.
Negotiating Site Entry and Research Ethics
Although a study maybe well designed, it can easily be compromised

by inadequate negotiation of entry into the research site. The re-
searcher wants the broadest possible access to the research site, but
unlimited opportunity for interviews, observations, and other forms
of data collection may not be in the best interests of those in the
research setting. Thus, the researcher must negotiate access that both
provides for optimal data collection and protects the individuals in-
volved in the study.
It is virtually impossible to predict the ethical dilemmas a researcher
will encounter in the field-without first conducting a study of the
possible range of risks and burdens research participants are likely
to experience. Erickson (1986), however, suggests two basic ethical
principles researchers should follow:
Those studied, especially those studied as focal research subject, need to
be (a) as informed as possible of the purposes and activities of research
that will occur, and of any burdens (additional work load) or risks that may
be entailed for them by being studied. Focal research subjects also need to
be (b) protected as much as possible from risks. (p. 141)
In protecting focal research subjects, researchers, first and foremost,
should be sensitive to how power relations operate in the setting and
how mishandling of information may lead to embarrassment and/or
liability to sanction. For example, in a school situation, risks arise in
the conducting and reporting of research information across system
levels, including school district staff in relation to the local community,
principals in relation to superintendents, teachers in relation to the
principal, and students in relation to teachers (Erickson, 1986). During
negotiations, researchers should clearly state their obligation to protect
participants. Protecting participants involves guaranteeing that infor-
mation obtained during the study from and/or about individuals will
not be available to others, that is, that anonymity will be ensured. For
example, information about individual students will not be available
to teachers, and information about individual teachers will not be
available to principals. The normal qualitative procedure of reporting
aggregate data in which patterns of behavior, beliefs, and/or values
are presented helps to ensure anonymity.10
Although researchers put the psychological safety of participants at
10
Most researchers also make a contract with participants in the form of a consent form
that details the research activities planned, the risks involved, and the way the data will
be reported. Signed consent forms not only offer some protection to the participants, but
442 TESOL QUARTERLY

the forefront in conducting studies, they must also ensure the best
possible access to the research site. A clear description of the project
and data collection techniques should be presented and then negoti-
ated with research participants. Connected to negotiating access is the
issue of what is commonly referred to in the ethnographic literature
as exchange of services or reciprocity (e.g., Agar, 1980). Participants are
entitled to some kind of return for the time and effort they contribute
to the study. The types of services researchers offer can include at-
school help in the classroom, tutoring, materials, and short reports of
findings and community contributions such as babysitting, driving,
and helping with food preparation, that is, whatever is culturally appro-
priate. In both the home and community, the catharsis provided by
attentive listening on the part of the researcher is often the most
appreciated service rendered. However, qualitative researchers can
also compromise their studies in overzealous efforts to provide an
exchange of services. One student in my qualitative research course
had to abandon her first research site after initially acceding to a
principal’s agenda, which had nothing to do with her original research
questions and offered little potential for contributing to an understand-
ing of the school’s language situation.
Entry to a research site is also not a matter of initial negotiations that,
once concluded, are not revisited. Rather, negotiations are ongoing
throughout the study (and often long after the study is completed in
terms of research reporting). To gain the kind of access that allows
researchers to understanding the meanings of social actors while pro-
tecting them from harm involves building trust and establishing rap-
port (e.g., Agar, 1980). Researchers often have to explain and/or re-
frame their study repeatedly throughout the study and continuously
reassure participants that they will not take advantage of or otherwise
harm them in any way. Entry negotiation is clearly a complex enter-
prise. There is considerable discussion of the ethical and research
dilemmas that arise in a study. See especially Agar (1980, pp. 42–62),
Bogdan and Biklen (1982, pp. 120–125), Erickson (1986, pp. 14l–
142), Lincoln and Guba (1985, pp. 253–259), Schatzman and Strauss
(1973, pp. 18–33), and Wax (1971).
Data Collection and Analysis

The conceptual framework and research questions developed by
the researcher guide the specific data collection techniques and forms
also benefit researchers in indicating agreement on the part of those in the setting (or
their guardians in the case of children) to participate in the study. However, signed consent
or even evaluation by a human subjects committee as required by most universities does
not guarantee the psychological and social safety of participants. The researcher must be
constantly vigilant in efforts to “not do harm” (Agar, 1980).

of analyses. However, other philosophical and methodological factors
must be considered when designing and carrying out a study. First,
given the holistic and emit nature of the interpretive qualitative re-
search enterprise, the researcher must take into account “all relevant
and theoretically salient micro and macro contextual influences that
stand in a systematic relationship to the behavior or events one is
attempting to explain” (Watson-Gegeo, 1992, p. 54). This essentially
means considering the construction or coconstruction of meaning at
least one level up from the actual social situation being investigated.
For example, if research questions involve examination of writing
processes in an ESL class, the investigation should include not only
writing lessons but also the full range of social interactions and behavior
operating within that classroom. Studies also often demand going be-
yond one level up to include the contextual influences of, say, the
school, the community, the school district, and even larger historical
and sociopolitical factors. This contextualization sometimes can be
accomplished without extensive additional fieldwork by using middle-
range theories established in previous research, as well as relevant
documents and interviews with key individuals. For example, one of
my students conducted a study (Kuo, 1995) concerning the implemen-
tation of communicative approaches in English language classes within
Taiwan. Besides conducting extensive observations and interviews in
several key schools, Kuo collected government documents on language
education policies and interviewed individuals directly involved in pol-
icy development and foreign language teacher training. The resulting
study offers a much clearer picture of the structural, institutional, and
sociocultural constraints on implementing communicative approaches
in Taiwan than would have been gained by conducting only classroom
observations and interviews.
Another methodological issue that must be considered in designing
and conducting a study is the cyclical nature of the interpretive qualita-
tive research enterprise. Many research approaches follow a linear
progression in which data are collected, analyzed, and then reported.
However, interpretive studies assume a cyclical process involving col-
lecting data, conducting data analysis through which hypotheses are
formed, testing hypotheses through further, more focused data collec-
tion, and so on until redundancy is achieved (Lincoln & Guba, 1985;
Spradley, 1979, 1980). Through this cyclical process of data collection
and analysis, the study often changes directions in terms of the ques-
tions being asked and the theoretical perspectives brought to bear on
the study. In research on culturally responsive pedagogy that Golden
and I (Davis & Golden, 1995) conducted in a multilingual/multicultural
first-grade classroom, we originally drew on grounded theory from
studies focusing on how teachers adapted home culture behavior to
444 TESOL QUARTERLY

the classroom setting (Au, 1980; Stairs, 1994). However, as the study
evolved we discovered that, although the teacher was responsive to
diversity in her classroom, she also taught. what she called universal
values — a concept that is antithetical to the notion of cultural respon-
siveness. Thus, we began to explore the meaning of universal values
for the first-grade teacher and the parents of her students as well as
the relevant literature on these issues. In a sense, then, the design of
interpretive qualitative studies is constantly emerging. Lincoln and
Guba ( 1985) suggest that interpretive qualitative (naturalistic) research
designs
must be emergent rather than preordained: because meaning is determined

by context to such a great extent; because the existence of multiple realities
constrains the development of a design based on only one (the investigator’s)
construction; because what will be learned at a site is always dependent on
the interaction between investigator and context, and the interaction is also
not fully predictable; and because the nature of mutual shadings cannot
be known until they are witnessed. (p. 208)
Thus, a study begins as a broad conceptualization of the theoretical

issues that are germane to the questions being asked. As the inquiry
proceeds, it becomes increasingly focused; salient elements begin to
emerge, insights grow, external theory appropriate to interpretations
is determined, and the study’s internal theory begins to be grounded
in the data obtained.
A third and critical consideration in conducting interpretive qualita-
tive studies is the establishment of research credibility. In contrast to
the concept of internal validity found in statistical studies, qualitative
researchers must show that their reconstructions in the form of find-
ings and interpretations are credible to those being researched (Davis,
1992). Credibility is enhanced through the use of specific procedures.
Prolonged engagement and persistent observation involve a commitment of
time to the research project in terms of duration and frequency. Most
interpretive qualitative studies take a year or more of continuous obser-
vations and interviews to build trust with respondents, learn the cul-
ture, and test for misinformation introduced by both the researcher
and the researched. Although potential interpretive qualitative re-
searchers may lament the amount of time necessary to establish credi-
bility, there are ways to accomplish this objective without placing unrea-
sonable demands on a single researcher. One way is to arrange research
partnerships with colleagues, teachers and other educators, community
members, and/or students. For example, in a study of preservice
teacher beliefs and attitudes concerning minority education (Davis,
1995), I sponsored an undergraduate student, Jennifer Pyne, for an
honor’s project focusing on these issues. By interviewing other under-

graduate students, Pyne was able to obtain data that would have been
difficult, if not impossible, for me to obtain in my role as professor.11
Another possibility is to exchange services (e.g., graduate assistantship,
coauthorship, term paper data, apprenticeship) with students who
assist in videotaping, interviewing, and other tasks (e.g. see Heath,
1983) while the researcher maintains constant but less frequent contact
(e.g., the researcher visits the school once a week as a student videotapes
daily over the course of a semester or year). Some researchers choose
to work at the same research site over a period of years (or a lifetime)
and visit the site less frequently and/or more intensively (e.g., during
summer off-duty times). Finally, studies can ask relatively specific ques-
tions and/or examine a social situation of limited duration, such as the
study reported by Savage and Whisenand (1993) of a 3-week English
language workshop in Thailand.
Another essential procedure in ensuring research credibility is to
triangulate by utilizing multiple sources, methods, and investigators.
Interpretive qualitative researchers most commonly combine observa-
tions, interviews, and the collection of documents (e. g., policies, curric-
ulum guides, writing samples) in an investigation. Because most of the
numerous journal articles, chapters, and books concerning what is
alternately called qualitative, interpretive, ethnographic, and naturalis-
tic inquiry tend to focus on techniques, I will not review this aspect
of the research process here. For discussions of qualitative research
techniques, see Agar (1980), Fetterman (1989, Chap. 3), Glesne and
Peshkin (1992, Chaps. 3, 4), Lincoln and Guba (1985, pp. 267–288),
Schatzman and Strauss (1973), Spradley (1979) on interviewing, and
Spradley (1980) on participant observation.
Another major aspect of the research process is data analysis. One
of the basic tasks of data analysis is to generate assertions about the
research findings (Erickson, 1986). Data analysis generally involves a
search for patterns of generalization across multiple sources of data,
that is, field notes of observations, interviews, and documents. The
analytic inductive method used in interpretive qualitative research
allows for identification of frequently occurring events based on the
data themselves. However, assertions should account for patterns
found across both frequent and rare events. For assertions to hold any
credibility, systematic evidence in the form of thick description must
be presented in the research report. Thus, detailed categorization of
patterns along with evidence (quotes, documents, descriptions) that is
representative of those patterns is necessary to establish credibility in
the research report. An extensive literature specifically deals with the
11
Although Pyne was able to complete her honor’s project, she refused my offer to copublish—
an offer I feel must ethically be made with all coresearchers.
446 TESOL QUARTERLY

process of examining field notes, audiovisual records, and transcripts
to generate analytic categories, create hypotheses, and discover key
linkages between categories. (For discussion of data analysis, see Agar,
1980; Becker, 1958; Bogdan & Biklen, 1982, Goetz & LeCompte, 1984;
Miles & Huberman, 1984; Schatzman & Strauss, 1973.)
Research Reporting
To my mind, the best way to learn how interpretive qualitative

research findings are reported is to read journal articles (such as those
found in Anthropology & Education Quarterly) and book chapters that
model this particular genre. Contrary to the relatively set format used
in reports of statistical studies, the reporting of interpretive qualitative
research takes a variety of forms based on the conceptual and theoreti-
cal issues considered and the author’s own writing style (see Van Maa-
nen, 1988). However, the report must demonstrate credibility through
both descriptions of procedures and the data themselves (see the Quali-
tative Research Guidelines in TESOL Quarterly).
The main goal in reporting interpretive qualitative research is to
present and verify assertions. As previously suggested, assertions about
patterns of meaning are determined during the cyclical process of
data collection and analysis. Journal-length research reports generally
focus on a limited number of assertions, and authors tend to organize
these assertions in subsections of the report. For descriptions of re-
search findings to be credible, they must provide richness of detail
(particular description), establish the generalizability of findings within
the study (general description), and offer analyses of the meaning of
actions from the perspectives of the actors in the event (interpretive
commentary) (Erickson, 1986).
Particular description can take a number of forms. Narrative vi-
gnettes taken from field notes or videotapes of events are often used
to vividly portray the conduct of events in everyday life. In other
words, the narrative vignettes provide the reader with the sense of
being there in the scene. Quotations from field notes and interviews
as well as extended discourse from interviews and video- and audio-
tapes of events also are often used as representative examples of
general assertions. Particular description essentially serves the purpose
of providing adequate evidence that the author has made a valid
analysis of what the events mean from the perspectives of actors in
the events.
The main function of general description is to demonstrate the
generalizability of patterns within the corpus of data. Frequency can
be indicated in the narrative description through the use of terminol-
ogy such as all, most, a few, tended to, and generally or by providing

simple frequency tables showing patterns of distribution. Interpretive
qualitative researchers also use inferential statistical tests of significance
to data in demonstrating the generalizability of patterns (see Erickson,
1986, pp. 151–152).
Interpretive commentary frames the reporting of both particular
and general description. In presenting descriptive data, the author
usually first provides a brief commentary on what the sample of data
reveals as a representative of the assertion being made. A longer inter-
pretive commentary following the data sample both explains and inter-
prets the specific sample and then frames it in a theoretical discussion
that points to the more general significance of the assertion or pattern.
The interpretations of general assertions then lead to a comprehensive
discussion of the overall (grounded) theory produced by data collection
and analyses.
When the author provides thick description as described above, the
reader can, and indeed is intended to, become a coanalyst of the data
and interpretations presented. Thick descriptions not only allow the
reader to critically evaluate the study and surmise possible applications
of grounded theory to their own research or pedagogical interests,
but they also allow for ethnological comparisons in the search for
general or universal patterns of human behavior and thought.
CONCLUSIONS
Some SLA researchers are still discussing if and/or to what degree

interpretive qualitative research has a place in the field. On the one
hand, the history of scientific inquiry should convince us that, in both
the physical and social sciences, research paradigms do not actually
compete in scientific discourse (Lakatos, 1978); rather, different para-
digms are used for different purposes. The studies reported in this
issue offer ways in which interpretive qualitative studies of the sociocul-
tural aspects of SLA can contribute to an overall understanding of
this process. On the other hand, many well-founded criticisms have
been leveled against some qualitative studies for limited data collection,
superficial analyses, and/or inadequate research reporting. Clearly, for
a research approach to gain legitimacy within any given field, studies
utilizing the approach must not only exhibit substantive understanding
of the philosophy, theories, and methods involved in the approach,
but must also offer recognizable contributions to the field.
This overview of some of the theoretical and methodological consid-
erations involved in conducting interpretive qualitative research sug-
gests the complex and challenging nature of conducting these types
of studies. Reading a few books or taking one course concerned with
448 TESOL QUARTERLY

interpretative qualitative research is usually inadequate preparation
for conducting (or even critically reading) these types of studies. Gee’s
(1990) notion of apprenticeship to a particular Discourse is perhaps
the best way to approach gaining an understanding of the interpretive
qualitative research paradigm. Students in applied linguistics, ESL,
SLA, and associated fields need to be immersed in models and methods
of interpretive qualitative research—as they currently often are in
quantitative research paradigms. In my experience, students and oth-
ers interested in developing interpretive research skills profit enor-
mously from an apprenticeship approach to acquiring those skills.
For example, students benefit from a two-course qualitative research
sequence in which, while reading and discussing theory and methods,
they actually design and carry out a study under the guidance of an
experienced interpretive qualitative researcher. University academics,
teachers, administrators, and others who lack the time and/or resources
to acquire qualitative skills by taking courses can develop these skills
through research partnerships with interpretive qualitative re-
searchers.
The coming of age of interpretive qualitative research in SLA sug-
gested by Lazaraton (this issue) offers tremendous potential for con-
tributing to the rich body of literature on the mental aspects of lan-
guage acquisition by providing an understanding of the social and
cultural dimensions of this process. The studies reported in this issue
offer models of the kinds of contributions the socially situated interpre-
tive approach can make to the SLA field. Willett explores SLA in an
English-only first-grade classroom from the perspective of socialization
into particular kinds of English. She suggests that language acquisition
is not only a mental activity but a socially constructed endeavor that
is dependent on the forms and functions of L2 use. Duff explores the
acquisition of English in immersion high schools located in Hungary.
She reveals the ways in which culturally determined expectations for
discourse are transformed in Hungarian classrooms. Through this
study, Duff contributes to our understanding of how SLA pedagogical
methods both affect and are affected by the sociocultural setting in
which they are implemented. Atkinson and Ramanathan describe the
fundamental differences between theoretical approaches to writing in
a university ESL institute and a university composition program. This
study suggests the need to understand the cultural assumptions both
mainstream instructors and nonnative-speaking students bring to the
writing task. Not only do these studies contribute to our understanding
of second and foreign language learning, but they also serve as models
for conducting and reporting interpretive qualitative research. To
further our understanding of language acquisition, those working in
the SLA field can do no less than provide researchers and students

with opportunities to explore and report on acquisition processes from
an interpretive qualitative perspective.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Graham Crookes and Rosemary Henze for their helpful suggestions on
this paper.
THE AUTHOR
Kathryn A. Davis is a faculty member in the ESL Department, University of

Hawai'i at Manoa, where she specializes in qualitative research methods and lan-
guage policy and planning. Her publications reflect these areas of specialization,
including the macro- and microdimensions of language policy and planning,
such as literacy, bilingual education, multiculturalism, minority issues, and teacher
education.
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TESOL Journal
Special Issue on Learner
Strategies and Styles
Co-editors: Christopher M. Ely and
Lucinda Pease-Alvarez
The Autumn 1996 special issue of TESOL Journal will focus on language
learning strategies and/or learning styles. We are particularly interested in
articles that explore classroom teachers’ work with their students.
Some topics of interest are:
Classroom insights
Case studies, personal reports, experiences, and views
Individual and cultural considerations
Impact of cultural/educational norms and values on strategies/styles
Role of cultural and individual differences
Students’ perspectives
Student self-knowledge
Learning styles as perceived by students
Strategy development (and student autonomy) as perceived by students
Students’ attitudes before, during, or after strategy training
Dealing with students’ reactions to strategy/style work
Strategy development in classroom settings
Using textbook strategy material
Developing strategy material
Integrating strategy training with other learning activities
Innovations and experiments in classroom strategy/style training
Research and assessment
Investigating strategy learning, retention, and subsequent use
Classroom research on learning styles
Contributions are welcome in all departments: articles, tips from the classroom,
reviews, and perspectives. All submissions must conform to regular submission
guidelines.
The deadline for submissions is April 1, 1996.
Send inquiries and material to:
Christopher M. Ely
Department of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306 USA
Qualitative Research in Applied

Linguistics: A Progress Report
ANNE LAZARATON
The Pennsylvania State University
This article describes the status of qualitative research in applied

linguistics and ESOL. It identifies trends by reporting on an informal
survey of published journal articles, highlighting relevant published
qualitative studies and research methods texts, and relating the views
of research methodologists working within and outside the qualitative
tradition. Several of the unresolved, persistent issues raised are prog-
ress toward a definition of qualitative research, the role of quantifica-
tion in qualitative research, and the generalizability of qualitative
research.
T his special-topic issue on Qualitative Research in ESOL can be

seen as evidence of a second coming of age of the research in
applied linguistics.1 The first was noted by Henning (1986) in his survey
of published articles in the TESOL Quarterly and Language Learning; he
concluded that the great majority of articles exemplified quantitative
research and that this was “a positive development—a kind of coming
of age of a discipline” (p. 704). This issue of the TESOL Quarterly
contains two overview articles on qualitative research as well as three
full-length papers and two shorter reports selected from more than
50 abstracts submitted in response to the original call for papers. In
addition, Qualitative Research Guidelines are now set forth in the
Information for Contributors section of this journal “to ensure that
Quarterly articles model rigorous qualitative research”; the Statistical
Guidelines with which they appear have been in place for about 2 years.
1
I use applied linguistics, rather than (T)ESOL, throughout this article as the term that encapsu-
lates the scope of our field because it seems to be a more inclusive label, covering not
just (second) language learning and/or language teaching but also cognition, comparative
rhetoric, language planning and policy, language testing, and the broad area of language
use. It also seems to be a better label for the discipline of which we are a part as opposed
to the profession in which we are engaged. Obviously, this crucial issue cannot be taken
Up here; see Kaplan and Grabe (1992) and Strevens (1992) for more on the historical
development and emerging definitions of applied linguistics, and Pennycook’s (1990) argu-
ment for a more critical applied linguistics.
455
Another sign that qualitative research is attaining more prominence in
applied linguistics is the inclusion of both quantitative and qualitative
topics in the Research Issues column that appears in every other issue
of the TESOL Quarterly.
These facts suggest that qualitative research has made significant
gains in terms of visibility and credibility in recent years, yet the pur-
poses, assumptions, and methods of qualitative research are still de-
bated, misunderstood, and/or ignored by some in our profession. One
broad-based survey of 121 applied linguists (Lazaraton, Riggenbach,
& Ediger, 1987) acknowledged that “qualitative approaches to data
collection and analysis are clearly important for the types of questions
asked in applied linguistics research” (p. 264); however, the survey
only assessed statistical literacy. Surprisingly, only a few respondents
complained that such a view of research was narrowly conceived and
that it reflected neither the expertise nor the interests of the field at
large.
An informal survey of four major journals in the field (Applied Lin-
guistics, Language Learning, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and
the TESOL Quarterly) over the past 10 years reveals a growing interest
in qualitative research issues and studies, but in terms of sheer numbers
the “domination of the psychometric model” (Eisner & Peshkin, 1990)
is still apparent. The proportion of empirical TESOL Quarterly articles
that employ qualitative, and especially ethnographic, techniques has
slowly increased over the past 10 years (e.g., Benson, 1989; Canagara-
jah, 1993; Clair, 1995; Cleghorn & Genesee, 1984; Crago, 1992; Hark-
lau, 1994), but these contributions represent only a fraction of the
total articles published in that time period. Empirical articles in Applied
Linguistics, Language Learning, and Studies in Second Language Acquisition
cover abroad range of research topics and represent various qualitative
research traditions (e.g., text analysis, discourse analysis, and case stud-
ies), although ethnographic methods are still underrepresented in
terms of total numbers; only three such studies were published in
these journals in the past 10 years (Holliday, 1992; Poole, 1992; Ramp-
ton, 1991).2 Of course, quality qualitative research has appeared in
other professional publications (see, e.g., Gilmore & Glatthorn, 1982;
Trueba, Guthrie, & Au, 1981). Encouragingly, a number of qualitative
studies have appeared in the last two special-topic issues of the TESOL
2
These findings are consistent with Nunan’s (1991) critical analysis published in Studies in
Second Language Acquisition of 50 published articles in applied linguistics. His findings showed
that almost 40% of these articles used experimental techniques and that elicitation was the
most common method of data collection. Although he found the classroom studies to be
more interpretive (he notes, however, that all studies require some sort of interpretation),
most of the research was narrow in focus and scope and was not situated within a defined
social context.
456 TESOL QUARTERLY

Quarterly, one on adult literacies (Vol. 27, No. 3, 1993) and the other
on K–12 (Vol. 28, No. 3, 1994).
We are indeed fortunate to have at our disposal a number of useful,
user-friendly reference texts on research methods in applied linguis-
tics, given the relatively short history of our discipline. However, these
texts display a distinct bias toward quantitative research methods (I
take the term quantitative methods to include the application of descrip-
tive and/or inferential statistical procedures) and a consistent lack of
attention to qualitative research, with two notable exceptions. Although
Hamp-Lyons (1989) notes that the methodological choices available to
the applied linguist have increased and that qualitative research is
now common, none of the three research methods books she reviews
(Brown, 1988; Butler, 1985; Woods, Fletcher, & Hughes, 1986) deals
with qualitative research in any meaningful way. Even though Brown
(1988) states that “statistical research is neither the only kind of re-
search. . . nor even necessarily the best type” (p. 5), he deals exclusively
with it in his text. Hatch and Lazaraton (1991) also treat only statistical
research. Seliger and Shohamy (1989) attempt to “describe what can
be considered paradigmatic types and principles of second language
research” (p. 1) but provide only a brief, general discussion of qualita-
tive research design, data collection, and analysis. Larsen-Freeman
(1985), in a chapter on research methodology, contends that the (sub)-
field of second language acquisition (SLA) embraces several different
approaches to conducting research, yet the criteria for evaluating re-
search that she presents display a distinct bias toward approaches that
require the analysis of quantified data.
Two more recent texts, Nunan’s (1992) Research Methods in Language
Learning and Johnson’s (1992) Approaches to Research in Second Language
Learning, do devote considerable space to qualitative research concepts
and methods. Nunan states that “two alternative conceptions of the
nature of research provide a point of tension within the book” (pp.
xi–xii) and dedicates much of the first chapter to a discussion of this
issue. However, two reviewers of this text were unhappy with this
approach. Galguera (1993), in his review of Nunan’s book in Language
Learning, contends that Nunan displays a bias toward his stated prefer-
ence for nonexperimental research despite his attempts to provide a
balanced and objective view. Another reviewer (Fang, 1994) criticizes
Nunan for devoting too much space to comparing qualitative and
quantitative research and suggests that the section on experimental
design should have been expanded. Johnson’s book also strives for
balance and objectivity in the presentation of six research approaches
(correlational, case study, survey, ethnography, experimental, and
multisite/multimethod/large scale); the ordering of these chapters is
helpful in achieving this goal (Lazaraton, 1994). Nunan’s and Johnson’s
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: A PROGRESS REPORT 457

coverage of case studies is particularly important because there is
an established case study tradition in linguistics and child language
acquisition research; discussions of other qualitative methods that have
their roots in anthropological and educational research (e.g., ethnogra-
phy) may overlook this qualitative approach.
Notwithstanding the chapter-length coverage that qualitative re-
search receives in these two books, the fact remains that there are to
date no qualitative research methods texts written for and by applied
linguists. In fact, only recently has qualitative research methodology
been discussed independently of the quantitative methods with which
it contrasts. Watson-Gegeo (1988) and Wolfson (1986) are two excep-
tions; recent Research Issues contributions in the TESOL Quarterly
by Blot (1991), Davis (1992), Johnson and Saville-Troike (1992), and
Ulichny (1991) have also begun to rectify this disparity in coverage
and to provide a forum for voices within the community of qualitative
researchers. Perhaps the conclusion to draw from these observations
is that we are in the same position today, with large gaps in resources
and reference coverage on qualitative research, that we were in 15
years ago with quantitative research, when the field used teaching
texts and reference books from the allied disciplines of education,
linguistics, psychology, and sociology until an applied linguistics model
became available (e.g., Hatch & Farhady, 1982). Bogdan and Biklen
(1992) make a similar point in the introduction to the second edition
of their text: When their first edition appeared in 1982, few texts on
qualitative research in education were available. Today, there are many
choices available to the applied linguistics researcher; some of the more
frequently cited references in texts on research methods in applied
linguistics and in published empirical studies include Fetterman (1989),
Goetz and LeCompte (1984), Lincoln and Guba (1985), Miles and
Huberman (1994), Patton (1990), and Spradley (1979, 1980). Heath
(1983) remains the most widely recognized (and cited) example of an
applied linguistics ethnography. Note also that a growing number of
specialized research methods texts are linked to specific topics such as
discourse analysis (e.g., Cook, 1989; Hatch, 1992; McCarthy, 1991;
see also Schiffrin, 1994, for a very thorough treatment of six prominent
discourse-analytic approaches).
The shortage of material on qualitative research for and by the
applied linguist undoubtedly accounts at least in part for the lack of
consensus on and the confusion about what qualitative research is and
what it can and cannot do. Although it is beyond the scope of this
article to do justice to the numerous issues surrounding qualitative
research methodology in applied linguistics (a book waiting to happen,
we can hope), the remainder of this article highlights a few of the
458 TESOL QUARTERLY

issues about which we urgently need further dialog and examination.
I hope that by bringing up these issues again, in this forum, we will
be obligated to examine our assumptions and our biases about the
procedures and applications of all kinds of research, and a more
informed debate about them will be possible.
TOWARD A DEFINITION OF
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Statisticians try to measure IT.

Experimentalists try to control IT.
Evaluators value IT.
Interviewers ask questions about IT.
Observers watch IT.
Participant observers do IT. (Patton, 1990, p. 7)
In our research, it is easy to be misled into believing there is one

superior method for understanding “IT.” Jacob (1987) notes that the
qualitative-quantitative dichotomy leads one to conclude that only two
methodological alternatives are available to the educational researcher.
This conclusion is clearly false when it comes to data collection and
analysis in statistical research (see, for example, Hatch & Lazaraton,
1991, pp. 544–.545); it is also untrue for qualitative research, as there
is no one qualitative approach but a “variety of alternative approaches”
(Jacob, 1987, p. 1). In fact, Denzin and Lincoln (1994) distinguish
six interpretive paradigms and perspectives that guide the research
process: positivism/postpositivism, constructivism, feminism, ethnic
models, Marxist models, and cultural studies models.
Anthropologists, educators, evaluators, and sociologists (e.g., Berg,
1989; Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Jacob, 1987; Miles & Huberman, 1994;
Patton, 1990) distinguish qualitative research traditions, approaches,
or types that have one or more distinctive disciplinary roots, as shown
in Figure 1. Each of the traditions in the figure employs one or more
qualitative research strategies (e.g., nonparticipant observation, partici-
pant observation, interviews, and archival strategies); there are also
qualitative themes associated with these traditions that embody the
central assumptions of qualitative research (e.g., naturalistic, descrip-
tive, emit, interpretive, inductive, holistic, contextualized, etc.; see Rei-
chardt & Cook, 1979, for a complete discussion of the applicability of
these thematic concepts and their quantitative counterparts). of
course, each of the aforementioned qualitative approaches has its own
philosophy, literature, and guidelines for conducting research and

FIGURE 1
Qualitative Research Traditions and Their Disciplinary Roots
Holistic ethnography Anthropology

Ethnography of communication Anthropology, sociolinguistics
Cognitive anthropology Anthropology, linguistics
Discourse analysis Linguistics
Phenomenology Philosophy
Ecological psychology Psychology
Symbolic interactionism Social psychology
Heuristics Humanistic psychology
Ethnomethodology Sociology
Hermeneutics Theology, philosophy, literary criticism
reporting outcomes; obviously, the researcher who adopts any such

approach needs a firm grounding in the literature and procedures.
The applied linguistics literature, however, tends to blur these quali-
tative approaches and attempts instead first to distinguish between
qualitative and quantitative research traditions themselves3 and then
to discuss their attributes (or themes). This is not to say that qualitative
research is never considered on its own or that a blending of qualitative
and quantitative approaches is not addressed, but the general trend
is one of contrast between traditions. Figure 2 gives an initial frame
of reference for considering the basic distinctions regarding research
traditions present in a number of texts and articles on research method-
ology that were considered in preparation of this article.
Unfortunately, because these applied linguistics sources do not all
define and delineate types of qualitative research, some ambiguity and
confusion remains in terms of understanding what counts as qualitative
research and what does not. As mentioned, ethnographies and case
studies are the two types of qualitative research discussed by Johnson
(1992) and Nunan (1992); the latter also covers interaction analysis.
Although properly conducted anthropological or educational ethno-
graphies are clear examples of qualitative research, the status of other
qualitative methods is less clear. For example, even though case studies
are frequently employed in applied linguistics research, the approach
“in and of itself does not constitute ethnographic [italics added] re-
search” (Heath, 1982, p. 36), as ethnography requires a deeper and
broader philosophical and methodological commitment than does sim-
ple participant observation; a case study may, in fact, be not an analytic
3
As should be clear from the discussion so far, there is little consistency in, and perhaps
unnecessary confusion caused by, the use of the terms paradigm, tradition, method, design,
technique, strategies, and so on in the literature thus far cited.
460 TESOL QUARTERLY

FIGURE 2
Distinctive Research Traditions
Source Distinctive Research Tradition

Oschner, 1979 a Nomothetic versus Hermeneutic
Henning, 1986 Nonquantitative b versus Quantitative
Grotjahn, 1987 Exploratory-interpretive versus Analytical-Nomonological
Brown, 1988 Case study versus Statisticalc
Chaudron, 1988 Ethnographic versus Interfactional versus Discourse Analytic
versus Experimental/Psychometric
Seliger & Shohamy, Qualitative versus Descriptive versus Experimental
1989
Larsen-Freeman & Longitudinal versus cross-sectional
Long, 1991
Johnson, 1992 Constructivist/interpretive versus Scientific/Interventionist
Nunan, 1992 Ethnographic versus Psychometric
Cumming, 1994 Descriptive versus Interpretive versus Ideological
a
Oschner ( 1979, p. 55) presents a set of distinctions similar to the ones in the figure but derived
b
from a much broader historical and disciplinary perspective. Henning attempts to provide
a definition of quantitative research, “as opposed to qualitative or anecdotal research” (1986,
p. 701). CIn a later publication, Brown (1991) carefully shuns the term empirical when discussing
statistical research, stating that “there are other, nonstatistical studies that could be called
empirical (e.g., ethnographies, case studies, etc.), since, by definition, empirical studies are
those based on data (but not necessarily quantitative data)” (p. 570).
approach at all but a data collection technique. And classroom interac-

tion analysis (e.g., Spada, 1994), the interpretive orientation with which
ethnography (Hornberger, 1994) is grouped in Cumming’s recent
(1994) article on TESOL research orientations, is considered by some
to represent a significant deviation from true qualitative research in
the sense that ethnography is (Hymes, 1982; Mehan, 1981; Watson-
Gegeo, 1988). It is also debatable whether the other orientations de-
scribed in Cumming (1994) should be considered qualitative. Is the
critical ethnography authored by Canagarajah (1993) to be viewed as
an interpretive orientation, an ideological one, or both? As for the
aforementioned Qualitative Research Guidelines now in the TESOL
Quarterly, they are clearly designed with ethnographic research in mind
and are difficult to apply to many discourse-analytic studies (e.g., Bar-
dovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1990; Ernst, 1994; Lazaraton, in press; Strodt-
Lopez, 1991; Tyler, 1992), which use data sources (especially carefully
transcribed recorded interactions) that present the researcher with a
different set of data analysis and presentation concerns than does
ethnography. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether a more inclu-
sive or a more exclusive view of qualitative research will be necessary
to conceptualize the traditions to which applied linguistics subscribes
and to understand the research undertaken.

THE ROLE OF QUANTIFICATION IN
What does one make of an approach to the study of the educational world
that depends upon the unique aptitudes or proclivities of the investigator,
that possesses no standardized method, that focuses upon nonrandomly
selected situations, and that yields questionable generalizations by conven-
tional research criteria? Indeed, are we justified in referring to the use of
such a collection of procedures as “research”? (Eisner & Peshkin, 1990,
p. 10)
In addition to the problem of defining what constitutes qualitative

research (and not just applying it as a catchall term for studies that
are not quantitative), a fair amount of controversy exists about the
scientific rigor of qualitative research. This controversy is not unique
to applied linguistics, and the debate about it appears in essentially all
the relevant historical literature from education (see, e.g., Eisner &
Peshkin, 1990, who trace the history of qualitative research in the
American Educational Research Association, and Bogdan & Biklen,
1992, who trace qualitative research back to its roots). The rigor argu-
ment seems to encompass two related issues: that quantification of
qualitative data is not only possible and desirable but necessary in order
to make generalizable claims to and about other contexts.
The strong position on quantification is unequivocally expressed
by Henning (1986), who maintains that “without some recourse to
quantitative methods, some marriage of words and numbers, it is
inconceivable that the investigation of language acquisition will ever
be said to belong to the realm of scientific [italics added] inquiry”
(p. 702). For Henning, quantitative methods allow the researcher to go
beyond the data themselves (the “tyranny of the single case,” Erickson,
1981, p. 27) and to generalize to other instances not studied. Adopting
a similar but somewhat weaker position, Chaudron (1988) points out
that
Process-oriented qualitative researchers explore the intersubjective and

context-dependent nature of classroom events as they occur, noting the
regularities and idiosyncrasies in the events. In order for researchers to
derive the implicit rules governing the participants’ behavior, however,
regularity of particular events or sequences in the discourse must be ob-
served. This regularity then will support reliable claims about rules of
interaction. It also allows for counting and other quantitative analyses; the
ultimate need for generality and for comparisons across classroom contexts
inevitably requires such quantification of events. Regrettably, too few re-
searchers with an ethnographic orientation have provided the validation
necessary for generalization to other contexts. (p. 49)
462 TESOL QUARTERLY

Elsewhere in the same book, Chaudron claims that “almost every ethno-
graphic or discourse analytical study refers to the frequency, magni-
tude, or proportion of occurrences of analytical units observed” (p. 15)
and that “most researchers adopting qualitative or ethnographic tech-
niques have recognized the need to continue their analysis with some
quantification of events” (p. 47). However, this statement is not sup-
ported by much of the published research cited in this article. Although
most of the published discourse-analytic studies analyze essentially
qualitative data,4 these studies were arguably designed to collect such
data and then to analyze them via quantification;5 in other words, the
intent may not have been qualitative analysis at all. In any case, the
data presented in these studies are usually in the form of descriptive
statistics (frequency counts, percentages) that are not analyzed statisti-
cally at all.
The fact that some qualitative researchers themselves employ or
recommend quantification further complicates the situation. Watson-
Gegeo (1988) claims that in a hypothesis-oriented mode, qualitative
research may “involve quantification in the form of frequency counts,
tests of significance, or multivariate analyses of patterns and themes”
(pp. 584–585). In fact, four of the seven empirical studies in Trueba
et al. (1981) quantified at least some of their data. And, to my surprise,
Heath’s (1983) ethnography of language learning and use and Mehan’s
(1979) study of classroom discourse do contain several tables of de-
scriptive statistics, although these quantified data appear to be pre-
sented for the purpose of making sense of the phenomena noted
in those contexts rather than for the purpose of generalizing to or
comparing with other contexts not studied.
In fact, very few (too few, perhaps) researchers design studies that
employ both qualitative and quantitative approaches, despite the fact
that, today, “bimethodologicalism” may be “a true mark of scholarly
sophistication” (Eisner & Peshkin, 1990, p. 7). Although obtaining
data from multiple sources using multiple collection techniques is not
uncommon in applied linguistics, triangulation of analytic approaches
appears to be, perhaps because multimethod studies require the re-
searcher(s) to be trained in each of the analytic methods; and such
4
Confusion over this term may also arise when one considers that some experimentalists
(e.g., Kirk, 1982) refer to nominal data as qualitative.
5
Although it is safe to say these data were quantified, these researchers present no evidence
that such data were, in fact, quantifiable. In other words, actual counting may be a simple,
straightforward matter, but it is often much more difficult to justify the counting and coding
of features that was done. This issue is explored in depth by Schegloff (1993), who maintains
that quantification of data from naturally occurring conversation is premature, given our
incomplete understanding of both the structures we may wish to count and the environments
in which they relevantly occur. See Schofield (1995) for another opinion.

studies tend to be both time consuming and expensive. A number of
such studies probably exist, but I located only the few examples cited
here. In an ethnographic study of culture, environment, and cognition
among children in Puerto Rico, Jacob (1982) generated a set of vari-
ables that were later subjected to path analysis, a correlation-based
statistical procedure that examines both direct and indirect effects of
a set of variables on some outcome variable (Hatch& Lazaraton, 1991).
Johnson’s (1987) evaluation of a migrant education program analyzed
both coded observational data and qualitative interview data. In an-
other study, Lazaraton and Saville (1994) used qualitative discourse
analysis of the oral interview process and multifaceted Rasch analysis
(Linacre, 1993) of interview outcome ratings to validate an interlocutor
support rating scale in the Cambridge Assessment of Spoken English;
both techniques generated the same conclusions about certain oral
examiners but in different ways. Other studies have combined qualita-
tive discourse-analytic methods with frequency counts and descriptive
statistics (see, e.g., example, Rounds, 1987, on international teaching
assistants’ talk and Goldstein & Conrad, 1990, on writing conferences).
Therefore, it seems clear that researchers do not always follow the
prescriptions about what one should, or should not, do when utilizing
a particular research approach and that the rigid dichotomies pre-
sented and discussed in the literature do not necessarily match the
reality of the research undertaken in the field. The observations here
may not represent an adequate response to the points raised by Hen-
ning and Chaudron, researchers who can be considered to represent
the quantitative paradigm and who may not be the ones to whom
qualitative researchers should respond. As the body of work by qualita-
tive researchers in applied linguistics grows, we can hope to find further
guidance on methodological and analytic issues such as quantification.
THE GENERALIZABILITY OF
“So what?” is a question sometimes asked of the detailed descriptions pro-

vided by anthropologists of minutiae. To what extent is material and the
sense of a particular phenomenon developed for one social group generaliz-
able to other social groups? The same question can certainly be asked of
studies of a single school or classroom or situation within a formal educa-
tional setting. (Heath, 1982, p. 41)
Perhaps the most frequent criticism leveled against qualitative re-
search is that the results obtained are not generalizable to other con-
texts (see, e.g., the arguments in Larsen-Freeman& Long, 1991; Long,
1983; Seliger & Shohamy, 1989). According to Davis (1992), qualitative
464 TESOL QUARTERLY

researchers strive for transferability of findings, and “the degree to
which working hypotheses can transfer to other times and contexts is
an empirical matter, depending on the degree of similarity between
the two contexts” (p. 606); thus the need for sufficiently thick descrip-
tions of the study context (see also Schofield, 1990, for some sugges-
tions on increasing the generalizability of qualitative research).
Although it is not possible to do justice to the issue of generalizability
in this article, several points should be made. First, generalizability in
research is more than a matter of counting. Quantification of any set
of data does not ensure generalizability to other contexts, nor does a
large sample size: Population characteristics must be carefully consid-
ered when selecting a sample from which to make statistical inferences.
Although the vast majority of the published studies in applied linguis-
tics may employ quantification of data, a much smaller number can
be considered to have used a large sample size, and even fewer still
randomly select and assign subjects to treatment conditions, the tradi-
tional prescriptive requirement for generalizability to some population
at large. In other words, generalizability is a serious problem in nearly
all the research conducted in our field. Second, even meeting these
stringent criteria does not guarantee meaningful interpretation of
results:
Even statistically significant findings from studies with huge, randomly

selected samples cannot be applied directly to particular individuals in
particular situations; skilled clinicians will always be required to determine
whether a research generalization applies to a particular individual, whether
the generalization needs to be adjusted to accommodate individual idiosyn-
crasy, or whether it needs to be abandoned entirely with certain individuals
in certain situations. (Donmoyer, 1990, p. 181)
Finally, critical theory has made a significant contribution to our

profession in that we have begun to question the meaning of concepts
that we take for granted (e.g., Pennycook, 1989 on method; 1994
on alternative approaches to research). We should probably view the
arguments about quantification and generalizability in the same way.
According to Donmoyer (1990), matters of research methodology are
not just abstract, epistemological issues about the way we view the
world: They are also issues of legitimacy and power. Theorists and
researchers tend to have greater access to data sets that lend themselves
to quantification and generalization; practitioners, especially teachers,
deal with individuals and do not normally have the resources to access
or to analyze large aggregates of data. In other words, we must be
reminded and we must remember that arguments about the character-
istics of rigorous research cannot be divorced from the political reali-
ties, and the ideological biases, of our profession.

WHY SO LITTLE PUBLISHED
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?
What qualitative research does best and most essentially is to describe key
incidents in functionally relevant descriptive terms and place them in some
relations to the wider social context, using the key incident as a concrete
instance of the workings of the abstract principles of social organization.
(Erickson, 1981, p. 22)
Clearly, no research approach is suitable for every situation or question.
Nevertheless, we might ask why qualitative research is not more preva-
lent than it is in applied linguistics, given our interest in the social and/
or sociocultural context of language learning and use. Watson-Gegeo
(1988) suggests that one reason ethnography is not more widely used
in SLA studies is that it views language learning from a language
socialization rather than language acquisition perspective, crediting
context and culture for much of what happens in the learning environ-
ment. Because many of the studies that use elicited, experimental data
rarely consider these factors, it is understandable why the approach
has not been more widely adopted. Training is probably another factor.
An examination of the listings in the Directory of Professional Preparation
Programs in TESOL in the United States (Kornblum, 1992) suggests that
graduate students are normally exposed to a traditional research de-
sign and statistics course within their own departments or programs;
such a course is often required. Departments of ESOL and applied
linguistics less commonly teach general qualitative methods courses,
so students must seek out such courses in other departments (although
specialized research methods courses, such as discourse analysis, may
be offered). The faculty who supervise such students may themselves
be trained as quantitative researchers, and logically they would feel
more comfortable advising students working within that tradition. Al-
though there are books available to use for self-study and reference,
it is not an easy task to train oneself in any research methodology.
In fact, without rigorous training in qualitative methods, “blitzkrieg”
qualitative research, in which the researcher conducts a few interviews
and/or observations, then labels the project a qualitative study, is an
unfortunately common occurrence. Finally, anyone who has completed
a qualitative research project is familiar with the sheer size of the
resulting document. This makes publication in most journals, which
normally limit contributions to about 25 pages, difficult in terms of
providing a thick description of the context and a comprehensive
account of the results. Editorial board members or outside reviewers
of such journals, who may or may not be conversant in qualitative
research, may recommend changes to qualitative manuscripts that ac-
tually violate principles of the particular approach. Although these
466 TESOL QUARTERLY

facts cannot fully account for the status of qualitative research in the
field, they surely play a part in the situation today.
CONCLUSION
The pendulum metaphor, which is frequently invoked in literature

on language teaching methodology, applies to the dialectic on qualita-
tive and quantitative research methodology as well. According to Rei-
chardt and Cook (1979), in part because quantitative research methods
were taught and employed zealously and exclusively in the past, we
now see that they are fallible; they are not always best suited for a
particular purpose. But it would be a mistake to assume that the past
overapplication of quantitative techniques can only be rectified by an
equally drastic swing toward qualitative methods. As Reichardt and
Cook point out, once qualitative methods are given the acid test, they
will prove no better than the ones they were meant to improve on;
thus the pendulum swings back in the other direction and “the current
debate keeps the pendulum swinging between extremes of methods
and extremes of dissatisfaction” (p, 27). Researchers should choose
an approach in light of the purpose of the study:
What is important for researchers is not the choice of a priori paradigms,
or methodologies, but rather to be clear about what the purpose of the study
is and to match that purpose with the attributes most likely to accomplish it.
Put another way, the methodological design should be determined by the
research question. (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991, p. 14)
It remains to be seen whether 10 years hence qualitative research will

be on equal footing with quantitative research in how frequently it is
employed and how it is received by the profession. A special forum
such as this one probably does a better job of serving as a podium for
previously unheard voices than of persuading its readers that such
new voices are worth listening to; surely the latter is the ultimate goal
of this special-topic issue. If graduate students pursuing degrees in
applied linguistics and related fields are primarily or exclusively ex-
posed to quantitative techniques in research methods courses and to
articles employing these methods in professional journals, how will
they ever come to respect the qualitative voice as equally important
as and, in some cases, more appropriate than other methodological
choices?
An important responsibility facing the qualitative research commu-
nity is to ensure that qualitative methods and the studies that employ
them are relevant, and accessible, to the practitioner—as a consumer
or a producer of qualitative research. This task should not be difficult,

given that one strength of qualitative research is the rich descriptions
of context that result, contexts such as classrooms, schools, and commu-
nities that are often familiar in a general sense from personal experi-
ence. It is hoped that those engaged in pedagogy will not see qualitative
research as removed, irrelevant, or too abstract, a complaint that one
often hears about much of the quantitative research published in our
journals. For this reason I eagerly await publications such as Bailey
and Nunan (in press) that promise to bridge the theory/research-prac-
tice gap.
Perhaps consensus on the definitions, principles, and value of quali-
tative research is not necessary, desirable, or even possible. Neverthe-
less, I believe it is incumbent on those of us who consider ourselves
research methodologists representing any particular orientation to
strive for balance, objectivism, and open-mindedness in presenting
and evaluating the myriad of choices available to the applied linguistics
researcher. As Johnson and Saville-Troike (1992) point out, our com-
mitment should always be to quality research, not just to research that
represents one particular paradigm.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Sandra McKay, Nancy Hornberger, and Donna Johnson for their helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this article.
THE AUTHOR
Anne Lazaraton is Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at the Pennsylva-

nia State University. Her research interests include conversation analysis, native
speaker–nonnative speaker and nonnative speaker–nonnative speaker interaction,
qualitative approaches to oral proficiency interview validation, and issues of re-
search methodology.
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472 TESOL QUARTERLY

Becoming First Graders in an L2:

An Ethnographic Study of
L2 Socialization
JERRI WILLETT
University of Massachusetts
This ethnographic report “thickly describes” (Geertz, 1973) the par-

ticipation of ESL children in the daily classroom events of a main-
stream first-grade classroom. Data for this paper come from a year-
long study of one classroom in an international school on a college
campus in the U.S. Using a language socialization and micropolitical
orientation, the report describes how, through socially significant
interfactional routines, the children and other members of the class-
room jointly constructed the ESL children’s identities, social relations,
and ideologies as well as their communicative competence in that
setting. The sociocultural ecology of the community, school, and
classroom shaped the kinds of microinteractions that occurred and
thus the nature of their language learning over the course of the
year.
F ocus on the individual has dominated investigations of L2 learning

over the past four decades (for a synthesis of this work, see Ellis,
1985; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991; Spolsky, 1989). From these
investigations a complex and somewhat confusing picture of L2 learn-
ing has emerged. Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991), in their review
of the literature on explanations of differential success in L2 learning,
warn, “It is certainly true that many of the studies reviewed here yield
inconclusive or contradictory findings. Practical implications must,
therefore, remain tenuous at best” (p. 206).
Sociocultural theorists from a wide variety of disciplines (e.g., devel-
opmental psychology, cognitive anthropology, sociolinguistics, neuro-
linguistics, and education), however, argue that such an exclusive focus
on individuals is misguided (Bloome & Bailey, 1992; D’Andrade &
Strauss, 1992; Gee, 1992; Laughlin, McManus, & dAquili, 1992; Mc-
Dermott & Hood, 1982; Rodby, 1992; Rogoff, 1982, 1990; Wells &
Chang-Wells, 1992; Wertsch & Stone, 1985). They warn researchers
473
against examining individuals and their interpersonal and sociocultu-
ral contexts separately:
Psychological biases have, by and large, led theorists to ignore the concrete
interactions that constitute literacy practices, the activities of groups and
pairs, and acts which are influenced by and controlled by social institutions,
such as governments and schools. Literacy practices involve a dialectical
merging of individual and social aspects of language: one part cannot exist
without another; each part acquires its properties from its relations to the
other parts; properties of each evolve as a result of their interpenetration.
(Rodby, 1992, p. 55)
If this is the case, then, it is not surprising that L2 studies focused

on individuals, with little attention paid to the complex social context
that interpenetrates individual functioning, reap contradictory find-
ings. This is not to say that L2 researchers and theorists have completely
ignored social context (e.g., see Beebe, 1985; Berns, 1990; Breen,
1985; Ellis, 1987; Saville-Troike, 1985; Wong Fillmore, 1989), but they
typically treat social context as a variable that influences individual
functioning rather than in the manner described by Rodby.
The ethnographic study reported here focuses on phenomena exam-
ined in the applied linguistic literature with contradictory results: the
role of interfactional routines and strategies in successful L2 learning
(Bohn, 1986; Faerch & Kasper, 1983; Hakuta, 1974; Krashen &
Scarcella, 1978; O’Malley & Chamot, 1989; Oxford, 1990; Wagner-
Gough & Hatch, 1975; Wenden, 1991; Wenden & Rubin, 1987; Wong
Fillmore, 1976). The study describes how the unique sociocultural
ecology of a particular first-grade classroom shaped the children’s use
of interfactional routines and strategies. More important, the interfa-
ctional routines and strategies described in this article were important
sites for constructing their social relations, identities, and ideologies
in the social world of Room 17. The social relations, identities, and
ideologies constructed affected the children’s access to the languacul-
ture 1 of the classroom.
After a brief theoretical discussion about language socialization and
the micropolitics of interaction and terminology, I describe the meth-
odology and the broad context of the study. The next section intro-
duces the school, the classroom, and the ESL children who were mem-
bers of the class. I then discuss how the ESL children learned to
participate in phonics seatwork. I first focus on the children’s interac-
tion with adults and then on the children’s interactions with one an-
1
Languaculture is a term coined by Agar (1994) to help readers keep in mind the theoretical
notion that language and culture are inextricably entwined and that to treat them separately
distorts both concepts.
474 TESOL QUARTERLY

other as they engaged in this socially significant event. The final section
examines the micropolitics of gender relations, identities, and ideolo-
gies and shows how the politics of Room 17 shaped the children’s
access to the languaculture of the classroom. The article concludes
with remarks about the need for studies that examine the individual
and social context in an organic and integrated way.
THEORETICAL ORIENTATION
The theoretical orientation framing this study is language socializa-

tion (Heath, 1983; Ochs, 1988; Rogoff, 1990; Schieffelin, 1990; Schief-
felin & Ochs, 1986; Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez, & Shannon, 1994; Vygot-
sky, 1978) through the micropolitics of social interaction (Bloome &
Willett, 1991). From these perspectives, language learning is the pro-
cess of becoming a member of a sociocultural group. By engaging in
the sociocultural practices of the group, newcomers gradually appro-
priate the languaculture needed to be considered an insider. Rogoff
(1990, p. 195) explains that while participating in social activity, individ-
uals jointly construct shared understandings of the activity. It is in the
process of finding common ground and incorporating the language,
skills, and perspectives constituting the activity that newcomers stretch
their concepts and language.
Language socialization, however, is not a one-way process by which
learners blindly appropriate static knowledge and skills. It occurs
through the micropolitics of social interaction (see Bloome & Willett,
1991, for a more thorough analysis of this developing construct). Draw-
ing on theoretical insights of Bakhtin (1981), Gee (1990), Goffman
(1967), and Gumperz (1982), I summarize the micropolitics of social
interaction as follows: People not only construct shared understandings
in the process of interaction, they also evaluate and contest those
understandings as they struggle to further their individual agendas.
As people act and react to one another, they also construct social
relations (e.g., hierarchical relations), ideologies (e.g., inalienable rights
of the individual), and identities (e.g., good student). These construc-
tions both constrain subsequent negotiations and sustain extant rela-
tionships of power, solidarity, and social order. Moreover, these inter-
actions are profoundly shaped by the broader political and historical
contexts in which they are embedded (e.g., politics of race, gender,
class, ethnicity) (Carbaugh, in press; Fairclough, 1989). Nevertheless,
in the process of constructing shared understandings through negotia-
tion, the social practices in which the interaction is embedded are
altered and the relations, ideologies, and identities are reshaped
(Rodby, 1992).
AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF L2 SOCIALIZATION 475

Such an orientation has considerable implications for the study of
L2 learning. The same microinteractional processes that have been
identified as important in second language acquisition (SLA) (e.g., see
Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991, for a review) are not only shaped by
internal linguistic processes but also by external sociopolitical contexts.
Ethnographic study of newcomers in their social groups, focusing on
situated microinteraction over time, makes visible important processes
neglected in SLA research.
COMMUNICATIVE EVENTS, ROUTINES,

AND STRATEGIES
A key construct in the theoretical orientation described above is

the communicative event (Bloome & Bailey, 1992; Cook-Gumperz &
Gumperz, 1982; Hymes, 1974; Saville-Troike, 1982). Events are cultur-
ally defined and bounded segments of activity that constitute meaning-
ful contexts for action, interpretation, and evaluation (Bauman, 1986).
Bloome and Bailey (1992), grounded in Bakhtin’s (1981) theories,
point out that people construct events by acting and reacting to one
another and holding one another accountable for acting within the
evolving interpretive framework of the event. They establish partici-
pants’ identities and roles; create norms, rules, and strategies for ac-
complishing events and criteria for evaluating them; and construct a
semiotic history for the event. In this article I focus on ESL children
participating in phonics seatwork, a culturally defined event that consti-
tutes a meaningful context for action, interpretation, and evaluation,
to help us better understand their development.
Embedded in this event were a number of interactional routines, which
I define as a predictable sequence of exchanges with a limited set of
appropriate utterances, responses, and strategies (Boggs, 1985; Peters
& Boggs, 1986; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). The content, processes, and
linguistic forms of routines can be fixed or variable, but routines are
structured predictably even when they are not formulaic. Peters and
Boggs (1986) suggest the following test for identifying routines-can
the investigator or member of the culture predict the kind of response
that should come next? The more exact the prediction, the more
formulaic the routine. They propose that interfactional routines are
good places to investigate language development, providing that their
social significance in the community is understood. The predictability
of a routine enables a learner to participate early, and the sequence
of change from a relatively fixed base constitutes evidence for devel-
opment.
It is important to note that interfactional routines in the sociocultural
476 TESOL QUARTERLY

literature (Boggs, 1985; Bruner, 1981; Corsaro, 1988; Hymes, 1974;
Schieffelin & Eisenberg, 1984; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986; Scollon &
Scollon, 1981; Watson-Gegeo & Boggs, 1977) are viewed differently
from the way routines are viewed in the SLA literature (Bohn, 1986;
Hakuta, 1974; Hatch, Flashner, & Hunt, 1986; Krashen & Scarcella,
1978; Peters, 1983; Vihman, 1982; Wong Fillmore, 1976). The SLA
perspective is concerned with psycholinguistic processes and whether
or not the formulaic utterances and interfactional routines enable learn-
ers to arrive at the rules of language via segmenting formulas and
frames. Interest in routines and formulaic utterances has waned in
recent years, and they have been relegated to a minor role in the
acquisition process (Bohn, 1986; Krashen & Scarcella, 1978; Schmidt,
1983; also see Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991, for an assessment of
this research).
From a sociocultural perspective, interfactional routines and the strat-
egies used to enact them are part of a sociocultural system, and to
understand the meaning of an enacted routine one must examine its
place in the system. Who can say what to whom, for what purpose,
and in what manner is shaped as much by the local social system as it
is by individual psycholinguistic processes, which are the focus of the
SLA literature. Moreover, as the earlier discussion indicates, learners
acquire more than linguistic rules. They also appropriate identities,
social relations, and ideologies. It maybe that these identities, relations,
and ideologies inhibit or facilitate the development of interfactional
routines from which learners acquire input for psycholinguistic pro-
cessing.
The same difference between the two literatures exists in studies of
learner and communicative strategies, techniques that learners use to
participate in events and routines and to acquire language (Chesterfield
& Barrows Chesterfield, 1985; Faerch & Kasper, 1983; O’Malley &
Chamot, 1989; Oxford, 1990; Rubin, 1981; Seliger, 1984; Wenden,
1991; Wenden & Rubin, 1987). Strategy use from a sociocultural per-
spective is part of the micropolitical process described above and can-
not be abstracted from the social context that governs its use.
METHODOLOGY
The case study reported in this paper is part of a larger 4-year
ethnographic study of an international community of graduate stu-
dents and their families (Willett, in press). Against the backdrop of this
larger study, the case study is concerned with four children acquiring
English in a mainstream first-grade classroom at International Elemen-
tary (a pseudonym).

I participated-observed in the classroom as a teacher’s aide for 1 year
while taking field notes of events and critical incidents. I systematically
audiotaped three of the limited English proficient (LEP)2 children, a
Maldivian, a Palestinian, and an Israeli. Three other children in this
class were also labeled LEP by the school, but only four of the six LEP
children remained for the entire year. The reason I was unable to tape
the fourth child, a Mexican-American child, foreshadows an important
theme of this paper—that is, the social system in which interactions
are embedded matters. The girls in the class took turns wearing a
micro tape recorder placed in a harness. Despite my attempts to ensure
that the harness was gender neutral (it was made out of blue denim
and I had sewn an Extra Terrestrial [ET] sticker onto the harness),
the girls had labeled the tape recorder their “ET baby.” As a result,
none of the boys would wear the tape recorder, so most of the conversa-
tional data presented in this paper come from the girls. Nevertheless,
I was able to record the public classroom discourse, which the boys
typically dominated, by placing a tape recorder on a table that was
centrally located. Even the LEP boy joined in this general discourse.
The three girls categorized as LEP were audio recorded each morn-
ing as they participated in two regular classroom events—seatwork
and recitation during language arts. These events were selected be-
cause they occurred when I was working in the classroom. The re-
cordings were clear enough to capture the broader classroom dis-
course, the language of interlocutors, and the subvocalizations of the
ESL child wearing the recorder. The audiotapes were transcribed by
me and checked by a trilingual speaker of Arabic, Hebrew, and English
(although rarely was any language other than English spoken by the
children in these tapes—not even in their subvocalizations).
Another data source was field notes that I took while interacting
with the children during seatwork (and expanded each evening as I
listened to the audiotapes). I also kept notes concerning the social and
academic life of the classroom as a whole, as well as life in the school
and community (where I resided). I also collected artifacts from the
classroom and had access to test results and other school records, and
conducted extensive interviews with the teacher and parents. Although
I did not formally interview the children, I interacted with them daily,
and through casual conversation I was able to elicit their understanding
about what was going on in the classroom. Finally, I administered a
2
LEP was the official label used by the school to ensure that children who scored below 5
(1 = lowest score; 5 = highest score) on the Bilingual Syntax Measure would receive
appropriate language support. I use LEP when referring to the schools label for the children
I studied. At all other times I use the term ESL to refer to the children.
478 TESOL QUARTERLY

sociometric test to corroborate my ethnographic analyses of the social
structure in the class.3
I used generic theorizing processes and general analytic procedures
(Goetz & LeCompte, 1984) to construct an interpretive description of
the processes and outcomes of L2 socialization in the classroom. These
processes and procedures involve scanning the data, creating catego-
ries, noting patterns, looking for counterevidence, and selecting impor-
tant domains for further analysis. Three broad questions guided the
analyses within and across data types:
1. What was the nature (linguistically and socially) of the recurring
events selected for focus?
2. How did the ESL children participate in these events designed for
native speakers?
3. How did their participation change over time as their competence
grew?
I conducted microanalysis of selected transcripts and of workbooks,
basal readers, and other written text, using the theoretical insights and
procedures of Bloome (1992), Erickson (1982), Green and Weade
(1987), Gumperz (1982), and Hymes (1974). Transcripts were selected
on the basis of their theoretical interest, as determined by the general
analytic procedures described above. At least one tape from each
month was transcribed in order to get a picture of the children’s
development over time. The broad questions guiding the microana-
lysis were
● What participant roles do these children play (Erickson, 1982)?
● How is the event structured (Hymes, 1974)?
● How are the conversation and written texts structured (Coulthard,
1992, 1994; Moerman, 1988)?
● What are the contextual cues that the children use to communicate
(Gumperz, 1982)?
● What identities, social relations, and ideologies are indexed by the
intertextualities that the children constructed (Bloome, 1992)?
These microanalysis enabled me to construct a detailed description of
the processes and outcomes of language socialization across the year.
3
Each child was questioned individually in a glass-enclosed room from which the child could
observe the class during the administration of the test. I asked each child, “Who do you
hope will be in your second-grade classroom next year? You can choose as many children
as you wish.” Their choices were rank ordered so that a nonparametric multidimensional
seating analysis could be used to create a visual representation of the social structure of
the class.

I drew on these analyses of various types of data to construct an
integrated interpretation of the ESL children’s participation in Room
17 and the consequences of their participation on their acquisition
of this group’s languaculture. The narrative simultaneously tells two
stories: how I believe these children made sense of their new world
and how their story fits into the applied linguistic discourse about
language learning (Richardson, 1990). My interpretations are based
on more than the illustrative stretches of discourse I present here.
They are based on field notes of extensive observations of children’s
actions and reactions, my conversations and transactions with the chil-
dren, 300 pages of transcripts, and more formal interviews with the
adults who worked with the children. I derived descriptive details from
the data collection and selected the analytic processes described above
for rhetorical, informational, and analytical import. These were inter-
woven into the narrative to give readers, in the limited space of this
article, a concrete sense of life in Room 17 for these children.
THE CONTEXT
International Elementary lies at the edge of University Village, a

small international community of graduate students and their families.
The cultural, economic, and social backgrounds of the residents in
the Village, from which 80% of the students at International Elemen-
tary are drawn, vary greatly. Nevertheless, community members share
a rhythm of life set by the university calendar, and a common thread
runs though the diverse lives of each family—the pressure of student
life and the promise of a better life after obtaining a higher degree.
The Village not only contributes about 80% of the children at Inter-
national Elementary, it also greatly influences the ethos of the school.
It is known as a “special school” in the Village community and in the
wider school district in which it is embedded. At the time of the study,
of 390 students, 70 were classified as LEP and 100 were classified as
fluent English proficient (FEP) bilingual, with 43 of the FEPs having
been reclassified from their previous LEP classification. The turnover
rate each year was 60%, with most students staying no more than 2-
4 years.
ENTERING THE SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC WORLD

OF ROOM 17
The class composition in Room 17 was typical for International
Elementary. In June there were 22 children in the class. Six of the
480 TESOL QUARTERLY

original children had left, and 5 children entered after the school year
began. Out of the 22 remaining children, 9 were bilingual, 8 were
monolingual speakers of English, and 5 were classified as LEP. Six of
the bilingual children spoke Spanish, and the other children spoke
Swedish, Korean, and Japanese. The children who had been classified
as LEP spoke Arabic, Hebrew, Devehi, Chinese, and Spanish. Eighteen
of the 22 pupils lived in the Village.
Mrs. Singer (a pseudonym), the teacher of Room 17, was popular
with the families of the ESL children. She had a warm and pleasant
manner. Her instructional activities were highly routine, with the cur-
riculum starting with the alphabet. It is not that her methods necessarily
worked better for ESL children than methods used by other teachers.
Children learned English no matter which classroom they entered. It
is just that her classroom better fit many parents’ expectations about
what classrooms look like—expectations that had filtered down to their
children. There were chalkboards at the front of the class, seats in
rows, and an alphabet frieze around the ceiling, and children took home
daily papers that had been dutifully marked with red ink. One of the
reasons why teachers’ methods in the classroom were not a critical fea-
ture for children learning English is that the entire community worked
to include and support children learning ESL. See Willett (in press) for
a detailed analysis of the children learning in the community.
ESL children so blended into the social world of Room 17 that
after a few weeks observers had difficulty picking them out. The ESL
children were required to complete the same tasks, follow the same
rules, and use the same materials as fluent speakers. Mrs. Singer agreed
with the Village community that English would “emerge naturally”
through participation in classroom life and saw no reason to modify
instruction for newcomers.
The class was divided into two very distinct subcultures—one con-
sisted of girls and the other, boys. Boys typically formed two large
competitive groups. The composition of the two groups changed fre-
quently depending on the game or issue being fought over. Although
their interactions were often quite heated, conflict never seemed to
cause permanent cleavages or cliques. The playground was the primary
site for developing cohesive relationships among the boys, but they
managed to maintain their ties in the classroom despite being carefully
separated by Mrs. Singer. They communicated with one another by
continuously shouting out and responding to the contributions of their
friends. When a boy finished his work, he would shout out, “I’m
finished,” so that all would know his place in the competition (who
could finish the fastest in this instance). In class discussions the boys
carried on a parallel commentary to the official discussion led by the
teacher. This commentary included jokes, expansions, personal experi-

ences, divergent associations, and comments about their peers, which
were triggered by the official discussion. The purpose of the commen-
tary seemed to be to display the boys’ intellectual and verbal prowess.
The social groupings that girls formed, on the other hand, were
more exclusive but less cohesive than the boys. In the playground they
tended to divide into exclusive pairs, but pairings changed rapidly.
Minor conflicts, even though not very public, would disrupt friendships
and thus the whole configuration. They continually checked with one
another about the status of their friendship (e.g., “Are you still my
friend?”). In the classroom, girls, who were used by Mrs. Singer to
keep the boys separate, did not have an opportunity to work on their
social relationships with one another the way the boys did through
their public conversations. The girls rarely shouted out or attempted
to communicate with one another across the boys that separated them.
Integrating newcomers into the social system of the class (or neigh-
borhood community) was an inevitable fact of life in the Village. Chil-
dren knew that friendships were short lived (friends moved away
continuously) and that newcomers were important to their social lives.
Nevertheless, newcomers to the classroom affected boys and girls dif-
ferently. Boys who were newcomers were easily integrated into the
existing social structure of the class without causing social disruptions
as relations were renegotiated on a daily basis. Girls who were newcom-
ers were more of a problem for the girls. Girls would compete for a
newcomer’s friendship though it might mean losing a best friend.
Because the basic unit was a pair, integrating newcomers into the girls’
social system disrupted the current configuration of pairs. For reasons
that will become clear later, there was one exception. The three girls
who were non–English speaking at the beginning of the year formed
the only long-term and stable friendship group in the class.
The ESL Children in Room 17
The year began with four ESL children: Nahla, Etham, Yael, and
Xavier. From the beginning Nahla, Etham, and Yael were friends—
a friendship formed originally in their daily 30-minute, pull-out ESL
class. By the end of September, Mrs. Singer allowed the three girls to
sit together in class (probably because of the research rather than for
any other reason), which cemented their friendship and ensured that
most of their experiences in school were shared. Xavier, on the other
hand, entered the social world of Room 17 very differently than the
girls did; he was a boy, no other ESL children were male, and six of
the fluent speakers spoke his native language, Spanish. Although the
482 TESOL QUARTERLY

study focuses on the three girls, I have added a profile of Xavier to
provide some contrastive commentary.4
Nahla, a 7-year-old Palestinian, had already finished first grade in
the West Bank (in an Arabic/English-medium school run by German
missionaries), and she adjusted quickly to the academic practices of
Room 17. From the beginning she focused attentively on the teacher
and participated in the lessons silently but actively, by echoing words
that she heard, mouthing the answers to questions, and with great
concentration filling in her workbooks. Her parents reported that she
had been an excellent student. Nahla had been introduced to English
and Arabic literacy simultaneously in the first grade, although oral
English had been minimal.
Her confident approach to academic work contrasted sharply with
her social timidness, however. It took several months before she would
interact with other children. She seemed to panic whenever the proce-
dures changed, even slightly, and she would reject the overtures of
her classmates to comfort her. Although she participated in academic
events early, it would not be until second grade that she would interact
fully with fluent speakers.
Etham, raised in the Maldive Islands, did not seek out interaction
with other girls, but she was warm and responsive when they ap-
proached her. She was well liked by her classmates; in fact, she was
the most frequently chosen girl in the sociometric elicitation, even
though she did not interact much with the fluent English-speaking
children. An air of confidence radiated through her quiet and respect-
ful demeanor. This confidence, together with the care and concentra-
tion she brought to any endeavor, impressed those with whom she
interacted.
Etham’s calm and quiet nature seemed deeply rooted in her culture.5
Rarely did she display the fear and emotion that her father had re-
ported she experienced during those first few months. Unlike many
national groups in the Village, including an Israeli network and an
Arabic network, there was no Maldivian network to ease the children’s
adjustments to a new culture so different from their own.
Despite her rudimentary English, Etham was well prepared for aca-
4
Xavier never wore a tape recorder as the girls did, and therefore I could not do the
same microanalysis of his interactions for reasons described in the methodology section.
Nevertheless, I took field notes when I observed him, and I was able to capture his public
contributions when I taped full class discussions.
5
Maloney (1982) notes that Maldivian children of 3 or 4 are socialized not to cry aloud and
learn to insulate themselves from both physical and psychological pain. Fits of anger are
not tolerated, and emotions are repressed and sublimated. Their conversational style is
calm, and they speak evenly. Etham’s parents corroborated Maloney’s observations and
interpretations.

demic work at International Elementary. She had begun learning the
English alphabet and a few sight words at an English-medium kinder-
garten in the Maldives.
Yael, from Israel, was communicative and social from the beginning.
Rather than focusing on the teacher, as did Etham and Nahla, Yael
studied the behavior of her classmates carefully for clues and mirrored
their actions and expressions. She began using English much earlier
than Nahla and Etham and interacted easily with her fluent classmates,
but she seemed much less focused on the workbook exercises than her
friends.
Comparatively speaking, Yael’s confrontation with a new culture
was cushioned a little more than Etham’s or Nahla’s. According to
Yael’s mother, life in the’ Village was not really very different from
life in Israel. Furthermore, the strong Israeli network provided friends
who spoke Hebrew. And yet, she too, her mother reported, experi-
enced adjustment problems.
Yael was also well prepared for school, although she had had less
English than Nahla or Etham, which is partly why she appeared to be
“less focused” than Etham and Nahla (a comment frequently made by
her teacher and aides). Yael’s mother explained that by the time Yael
started kindergarten, she was well aware of what books and reading
were all about.
Xavier, a Mexican-American, was born in California and had lived
in the barrio until moving to a town near the university. His situation
contrasted sharply with that of most other children in the school in
that his family did not have elite status anywhere. His father was not
a student but worked in the stables at the university, and Xavier did
not live in the Village as did most of the other students. His response
to the discontinuity that existed between home and school was similar
to that of other non-English-speaking children. He cried easily when
he did not know what was going on, he was silent and withdrawn at
the beginning of the year, and he resisted help from either the bilingual
aide or the ESL teacher. However, his teacher and aide did not auto-
matically assume either that he would develop normally or that he had
support at home, as they had assumed about other children—in fact,
they assumed he would need extra help. The more he resisted help,
the more they gave it.
Although Xavier performed as well as many other children in the
class, he sought constant reassurance that he was doing the work cor-
rectly, behavior that initiated more adult monitoring and concern.
Unlike the three ESL girls, who were allowed to sit as one intact
group, he was placed between two English-speaking girls who were
not inclined to help him because he was a boy, which increased his
484 TESOL QUARTERLY

need for help from adults. With the help of other Spanish-speaking
boys, he integrated well into the boys’ rough-and-tumble play, and
they soon considered him competent.
Morning in Room 17
Morning events were highly predictable in Room 17. The children

would enter the classroom, taking a piece of lined paper on the way
to their seat, and begin writing out their alphabet. When Mrs. Singer
finished the roll call, she would begin phonics recitation, in which she
would elicit from the children words that fit the particular sound/letter
correspondence on which she wanted to focus. Finally, she would ask
the children to work independently in their phonics workbook while
she worked with one reading group at a time. The aides would walk
around during seatwork to help children with their work. This predict-
able sequence would become the dependable frame that they would
use to figure out how to act, how to talk, and how to work in Room
17, and how to display their growing social and academic competence.
These events contained much of the cultural information and language
the children would need to gradually become competent members of
the class. From the continual reenactment of the event, the children
would learn to scrutinize text carefully and follow its directions, engage
in the problem-solving logic demonstrated by adults, revise work
checked by the aide, write neatly, display their competence, and work
independently. They would also learn how to socialize with friends in
ways that go unnoticed by adults and motivate one another while
keeping themselves entertained. They would learn how to get an adult’s
attention and how to ask an adult questions. Despite the teacher’s
telling the class to “do their own work,” the girls would learn that it
was really all right for children to help one another. The ESL children
would notice that the useful words and phrases bandied about the
room could be used to gain recognition from teachers and peers. They
would soon realize that the words in the workbooks were the answers
the teacher was looking for when she asked questions during phonics
recitation, 6 and they would be able to display their knowledge long
before they knew much English. Most important, they would learn
that they have a secure place in the classroom community.
6
I made a list of the words that were elicited in the workbooks and compared them with a
list of words that the children volunteered in recitation. In the September there were words
on the children’s list that did not appear in the workbook. By October, the children’s list
and the workbook list were the same.

LEARNING THE LANGUACULTURE OF ROOM 17
Learning From Adults
The ESL children began participating in the phonics seatwork almost

immediately. In the early stages those who knew the ropes took care
of newcomers, but very quickly newcomers were incorporated into the
daily activities. Being L2 learners in this event seemed to give them
neither privilege nor stigma. The way that the four children partici-
pated in the classroom changed over the course of the year as they
became more competent. The following summarizes the general pat-
tern of the children’s interaction with adults on phonics seatwork over
the year.
Initially, the children merely observed what went on around them.
They sat in the first row so that the teacher could physically direct their
movements and focus their faces on where the action was occurring.
Bilingual aides, who spoke the children’s native language, provided
explanations for about 20 minutes each day, so the children knew
generally what they were supposed to do.
By October the children had learned how to look like they were
participating appropriately in this event. At this point in the instruc-
tional program many academic tasks could be completed by using
graphic clues or by asking the aide to provide labels. Classroom lan-
guage was fairly predictable. The same questions were asked over and
over again, and one-word answers were all that were expected. During
class recitation, the other children would echo an answer many times,
so it was easy to pick out words in the sea of noise, and the ESL
children would use the words they heard in their interactions with the
teacher and aides. Xavier learned to echo the answers given by Brent
because Mrs. Singer would praise that answer. He would also learn to
boldly announce when he was finished, just as the other boys did. The
children learned to take out their workbooks at the appropriate time
and raise their hands to get help from an aide.
Adults were the primary discourse partners of the ESL children
during phonics seatwork for the 1st month. At first adults modeled
the appropriate behavior by playing both the teacher’s and student’s
sides of the dialogue while the ESL children participated nonverbally.
The language addressed to the ESL children contained some features
of modified input but not the extreme forms occurring during the
first few weeks. Aides used a slower rate of delivery, paused longer
between phrases, and gave exaggerated prominence to the answers
that needed to be written; however, the sentences were grammatically
well formed. To make the workbook task comprehensible, aides used
mime, pictures, rephrasing, repetition, and circumlocution (see
486 TESOL QUARTERLY

Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991, for a review of research on modified
input and conversational adjustments).
As the ESL children became more competent, they began taking a
greater role in the interaction. Typically, an adult would ask the chil-
dren to read the instructions and then would guide the child to decom-
pose the problem. The academic tasks presented in the workbooks were
the focus of most child/adult transactions during phonics seatwork, and
rarely did topics extend beyond this focus. The transactions were
typically only a few turns long with the child contributing one phrase
or word to the adult’s elicitation.
Analyses of the transcripts showed that the major function of adults
in these transactions was to explicate the text, help children concentrate
on the microtask, and model ways of solving workbook tasks. Transac-
tions were also predictable and saturated with important cultural and
linguistic information that the children could use to increase their
competence and construct their identities as fast learners of English7
and good students, which included staying on task, following direc-
tions, completing academic tasks, demanding minimal attention from
adults, working independently, engaging in problem solving, and read-
ing the text closely to solve problems.
On the other hand, the formal student role that children played in
these transactions hid much of their developing social and academic
competence and the strategies the children used to achieve competence
(as will become evident in the next section). Moreover, child/adult
transactions did not evolve very much over the year. Example 1, which
was taped toward the end of the year, looks very much like child/adult
transactions earlier in the year—in all of these transactions the ESL
child responds by reading and appropriating the language of the
workbook and adult, and the adult’s logic controls the transaction:
1. (June)8
1 Aide: Well read it to me then.
2 Nahla: O.K. “Make Mr. Big’s tracks go from the car to the park.”
3 Aide: O.K. so where’s the car?
7
Mrs. Singer had a saying, “They’ll be speaking like natives when they return from Christmas
vacation.” By this she meant that the children would not need special support to be able
to participate in the normal classroom instruction. Children who did need extra support
after that time would be “slow learners.”
8
All material in quotation marks or set off from the text is a direct quotation. Excerpts from
transcripts are given example numbers to facilitate the discussion of the texts. Nonverbal
actions are noted in brackets. The following conventions are used for transcription excerpts:
= Continuous utterances used when there is no break between adjacent utterances, the
second latched to but not overlapping the first
: Vowel elongation
— Pause of more than two seconds
xxx Uninterpretable

4 Nahla: Here’s the car.
5 Aide: O.K.
6 Nahla: [reads from the workbook] This is the track.
7 Aide: O.K. and where is the park?
8 Nahla: Park? This is the park.
9 Aide: So you want to go from the car to the park.
Nahla points to the question in the workbook that she is having
trouble with, and in response the aide asks her to read the instructions,
just as she always did when a child asked a question. Nahla answers
the aide’s questions by appropriating the textbook language and the
ends of the aide’s phrases (see Klein, 1986, for an analysis of this
strategy) to respond appropriately in Turns 3 and 4 and 7 and 8.
These adjacency pairs (“Where’s the car?” “Here’s the car.” “Where
is the park?” “This is the park.”) were commonly heard in the classroom
and provided the expectancy framing the children needed to partici-
pate appropriately (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974).
Even though the children’s participation in transactions, such as the
one described in Example 1, was highly constrained by the pupil role
(native-speaking children’s transactions with adults looked the same),
these transactions served as a model for the children interacting with
each other. The next section will show how differently their participa-
tion developed, however, through child/child interactions and how this
difference affected the children’s developing identity, social relations,
and communicative competence.
Learning From Friends
The three girls worked as a highly productive team throughout most

of the year. The team enabled them to expand and develop their
participation in ways that not only supported language development
but also increased their social status in the classroom community. The
way the girls worked together illustrates particularly well how compe-
tence is jointly constructed, how learning strategies are distributed
socially, and how social context shapes interfactional routines and strat-
egy use.
Unlike the girls, Xavier worked alone or with adults during phonics
seatwork because he was seated between two girls. In this particular
social setting, boys and girls typically did not talk to one another very
much. For Xavier, his participation in this event did not develop in
the same way that it did with the girls for reasons that will become
evident in the description of adult/child transactions. This fact had
serious consequences for developing his classroom identity and social
relationships. He would depend on other events, especially those on
the playground and during recitation, to help him develop his aca-
488 TESOL QUARTERLY

demic and social competence (for analyses of these other events, see
Bloome & Willett, 1991; Willett, in press). For the girls, however,
phonics seatwork would be the major site for their developing academic
and social competence.
Teamwork was not officially sanctioned. “Do your own work’ was
a commonly heard phrase. Moreover, the practice of alternating the
boys and girls was an attempt to enforce this policy. Yet all children
tended to help one another during phonics seatwork. In fact, if they
had not helped one another, it is unlikely that the children could have
completed the workbook assignments, which required skills that most
students had not yet acquired. There were not enough adults available
to give the help these children needed and, because adults were in
such great demand, interactions between adults and children were
short and superficial, Mrs. Singer only enforced her “do your own
work” policy when the noise level rose.
Adult/child transactions provided the model that the girls used to
interact with one another and develop their collaborative relationship.
As in adult/child transactions, peer interaction focused on workbook
tasks, using similar discourse strategies (e.g., gaining attention and
responding to questions by reading the text aloud, using initiation-
response-evaluation sequences, using predictable adjacency pairs), per-
forming the same functions (e.g., labeling, asking and giving instruc-
tions, decomposing academic tasks, and keeping check on each other’s
progress), and using the same phrases and vocabulary. Engaging in
these activities was important for developing their identities as good
students, an identity that virtually all the children in this class attempted
to attain.
Nevertheless, despite similarities functionally and structurally, there
were many important differences between peers and adults. Peer trans-
actions were more playful, provided more varied discourse roles, and
resulted in greater elaboration of the core interfactional routine. Child/
adult transactions were short, the children did not take on much re-
sponsibility in shaping the transaction, and these routine transactions
did not evolve greatly over the course of the year (compare Example
1, a child/adult transaction, with Example 4, a child/child transaction
on the same topic, to see the striking differences between them).
Example 2 is an early but typical occurrence of a child/child transac-
tion in which the children enact an interfactional routine that was
common during phonics seatwork, checking progress. Both adults and
children used this routine to keep tabs on one another’s progress.
2. (January)
1 Yael: What are you doing? What are you doing?
2 Etham: “The lion let de ball get=”

3 Nahla: =Lookit here. Lookit. I know dis. I put dis. I dunno. Look
it=
4 Etham: = Look at dis. “De lion let de mouse get—from—from=”
5 Nahla: “get from de lion”
...
11 Nahla: Oh—uh—what are you doing? eh—do-do-do=
12 Yael: =Where, where are you? You finish dis?
13 Nahla: No I am not finish dis xix.
14 Etham: Where are you?
15 Yael: You here? Dis—is where I—finish.
16 Nahla: Yeah.
In this example, the girls appropriate language chunks they have
picked up during transactions with adults. Yael uses the two most
common phrases found in adult/child transactions when checking
progress, “Where are you?” and “What are you doing?” (Turn 1).
Etham replies, just as she usually replied with adults—by reading the
text aloud (Turn 2). Reading text was not only a required step in this
interfactional routine, it was also an opportunity to display competence.
In fact, Etham would often read very loudly whenever an adult would
walk anywhere near her table.
All of the phrases in Example 2 were phrases commonly used in
the classroom, in both written and oral forms. In fact, Nahla and
Etham’s contributions (Turns 3 and 4) resemble early texts in their
basal readers (e.g., Look. Look. Look at this. Look at the dog.). I am not is
a predictable chunk that appeared in their basal readers, and it was
used by all three girls as an all-purpose negative (e.g., “I am not play
with you,” and “I am not a camel” in response to “Do you have camels
in your country?”). I finish and you finish are simplified forms of the
common classroom phrases I’m finished and You’ve finished this? Even
you here? was an elliptical form frequently used by the fluent English-
speaking children and adults in casual conversation. Because the chil-
dren continued using this phrase even after acquiring the copula, you
here is probably a formulaic phrase rather than an imperfectly formed
construction.
Although their language consists almost entirely of prefabricated
language chunks, such as those found in numerous SLA studies (Ha-
kuta, 1974; Hanania & Gradman, 1977; Hatch, 1978; Wagner-Gough
& Hatch, 1975; Wong Fillmore, 1976), the children use these chunks
to enact a socially significant event in order to construct identities as
competent students (e.g., they can read, check progress, stay focused
on the workbook, follow the teacher’s logic) and construct collaborative
relations with one another.9
9
My interpretation does not come from knowing the intentions of the children but from
noticing the material consequences of their behaviors and actions on the social. For example,
490 TESOL QUARTERLY

Over the next few months the children embellished the basic struc-
ture of this event and the interfactional routines that constituted it with
language play. A sense of playfulness and linguistic experimentation
permeated the transactions among the children, though they were
almost always on task. Early in their development, for example, one
of the girls would produce a rhythmic monologue (regularized pattern
of accented syllables) of nonsense sounds and words from the work-
book. The other two would echo and develop these sounds with addi-
tional nonsense flourishes.
Simple chants and games evolved into more complicated commen-
taries on situations that they found humorous about classroom interac-
tions, such as those in the following example:
4. (May)
1 Aide: Cape. Do you know what a cape is? It’s something you wear
that comes down like this.
2 Yael: Cake?
3 Aide: No, cape. Cape. And it comes down like this. The girl’s
cape.
4 Yael: [To Nahla] I put like dis. Cake. A woman cake. Dat’s funny.
Do you know where you put de cake? You put like dis
[mimes putting a circular object on her head]—De cake you
wear. Dat’s so funny. Nahla, dat’s so funny. God dat’s so
funny.
5 Aide: [To Etham who had also put cake for cape] It’s something
you wear like a coat=
6 Yael: =Coat?
7 Nahla: No, cake [laughing]
8 Yael: [Addresses the aide] Cake, you said a cake.
9 Aide: Right.
10 Yael: [Bursts out laughing]. I say to her, “You say a cake” and
she say, “Yes.” She say, “Right.” And she don’t listen and
I say, “She wear a cake,” and she say, “Right.” Dat so funny
to me. De woman’s cake is red.
11 Nahla: Dat’s not funny to me.
12 Yael: To me is yes.
13 Nahla: Don’t be silly.
14 Yael: You silly. No, I’m silly. Cake, cape.
actions such as finishing workbooks, Etham’s reading aloud very loudly when an adult
walked by, and Nahla’s contributing workbook words in recitation resulted in praise and
recognition from both adults and children. Yael’s shameful expression, immediate compli-
ance, and silence followed occasional reprimands. All children talked about their accomplish-
ments of classroom tasks (e.g., “I can do this,” “I can read this,” “Lookit I did this,” “I
finish this”). The value and dignity of work and doing your own work was explicitly extolled
by Mrs. Singer, and the children picked up these concepts and used them with one another
as warrants for their behaviors. See Bloome and Bailey (1992) for a discussion of this
philosophic position.

In Example 3 Yael makes fun of her own error, mistaking cake for
cape (Turn 4). Then she sees the humor in the aide’s misunderstanding
and relates the whole episode to Nahla (Turn 10). Nahla helps to
extend the joke with a side comment to Yael on the aide’s clarification
(Turn 7). Finally, Nahla begins another mock sparring routine with
“Dat’s not funny to me” (Turns 11–14).
In addition to playfulness, another quality that helped to develop
and elaborate the phonics seatwork event was the girls’ ability and
willingness to play a variety of roles rather than merely playing the
limiting pupil role that they played in adult/child transactions. Here,
for example, Yael is a narrator, a critic of an adult, a sparring partner,
and an evaluator of her own behavior. The main effect of these differ-
ences appeared to be longer verbal responses, more negotiation for
meaning, a faster-paced dialogue, and more elaboration in general
than found in adult/child transactions. The limited language used by
the children in adult/child transactions was imposed by their role as
pupils rather than their language proficiency.
The collaborative nature of transactions among the girls increased
over the year. They developed the language of a team, “Now we have
to read dis” and “Let’s do number 44,” and adults and other children
began treating them as a team. For example, Mrs. Singer would query,
“How are they doing?” and during sociogram interviews the three girls
were always mentioned together as a trio.
The girls began coordinating their strengths and abilities in ways that
enabled them to exploit their classroom’s physical and social resources
more productively. Yael was outgoing and talkative. She found it less
stressful interacting with fluent English speakers and, consequently,
she became the group’s main contact with the outside world until the
other two became more confident. Yael was the one who usually called
the aide over for help. She normally understood what was being said
to her more quickly than the other two, or at least she was willing
to guess more frequently, and her meaning negotiations with fluent
speakers helped to orient the two quieter girls. Yael was also highly
sensitive and interested in the language she heard around her, and
she preferred to use any bit of language she picked up immediately
rather than waiting first to sort out a system. She would frequently
mimic catchy phrases that were bandied about the room and use them
with Nahla and Etham.
Nahla and Etham, on the other hand, were less outgoing, but both
were more attuned to written language than Yael was. Etham charac-
teristically read text to answer questions addressed to her or gain
attention from an adult. She also seemed to enjoy doing grammar
exercises, which the ESL teacher had given her to do in class when
she had extra time. She was very careful and noticed fine details. Her
492 TESOL QUARTERLY

particular contribution to the group, besides her easygoing personality,
was helping the others to focus on detail. The other two tried to
emulate her neat and well-coordinated writing, for instance.
Nahla, who had already acquired some decoding skills before coming
to the U.S., preferred reading books to doing exercises. Early on she
would read simple stories and try to share the stories with the others
through gestures and pictures. She was the one who usually decoded
the directions and sentences when the girls were doing their workbook
exercises together. Then together the girls would figure out the mean-
ing of the directions that Nahla had read aloud. Unlike Yael, who
read aloud by laboriously sounding out each syllable until March,
Nahla read aloud chunks (grammatical units, usually phrases or
clauses) smoothly from the beginning, even when she did not know
the meaning of the words she read, so that the group had additional
grammatically correct oral input. Although shy, Nahla was a confident
decoder and she could match Yael’s social confidence in their transac-
tions.
Example 4, taped at the end of their 1st year, captures well how
the girls were able to interact with one another, both cooperatively
and competitively, to figure out how to do the exercise while providing
the motivation to stay on task, paying attention to details, commenting
on language, and practicing their English:
4. (June)
1 Yael: Let’s do the four [Question 4] one. Let’s do the four one.
2 Nahla: [Reads] “Make Mr. Big’s tracks go from the park.”
3 Yael: Park, that’s the park—track?
4 Nahla: You don’t know what’s is track?
5 Yael: That’s the park.
6 Nahla: Yeah, but we have to draw the tracks. How we draw the
tracks?
7 Yael: I know.
8 Nahla: What?
9 Yael: Do like this [she hesitates] . . . What is to draw de tracks?
10 Nahla: The track is the—one follow you. I show you [draws animal
tracks].
11 Yael: No, is Mr. Big. What is a track?
12 Nahla: I show you. The track is like dis [again draws animal tracks].
13 Yael: That’s a track?
14 Nahla: Why you shut my book?
15 Yael: Because I want to. Now let’s do real work. Now.
16 Nahla: I do a track. I show you track [she continues to draw animal
tracks]
17 Yael: What is dat?
18 Nahla: Dis is a track.
19 Yael: Dat is a track?

20 Nahla: A track on a street [as opposed to a track in the snow from
her basal reader].
21 Yael: A track is dis? Where is the park? First you have to do a
line to the park. Let’s read it again.
22 Nahla: OK. “Make Mr. Big’s track go from the car to the park.”
23 Yael: Yeah. A line you have to do.
24 Nahla: It does not say line. It says track.
25 Yael: Let’s ask with her [to aide].
The aide has just attempted to tell Yael how to do the exercise that
the girls struggle with in the episode. Earlier (see Example 1) Nahla
had also asked the aide for help. Neither interaction enabled the girls
to do the exercise. Nahla and Yael decide to work in unison and
negotiate which problem to work on (Turn 2). A problem arises over
the word track (Turns 3–6). Yael attempts to answer the question, but
hesitates and asks Nahla to tell her what track means (Turn 9). Nahla,
who has read a story in the basal reader about animal tracks in the
snow, recalls the line from the basal “follow the tracks and you will
know” and defines tracks as “the one you follow” (Turn 10), which
makes no sense to Yaell0 (Turns 11–13). At first Yael is irritated and
closes Nahla’s book (Turns 14–15), but Nahla persists (Turn 16). Then
they decide to reread the instructions, following the classroom norm
(Turn 22). Yael, understanding the gist and remembering that the
aide had said line, interprets track as a line (Turn 23). Nahla, however,
wants to do exactly what the book says, “It does not say line. It says
track” (Turn 24). Finally, Yael appeals to a higher authority (Turn 25).
Example 4, when viewed within the full context of the classroom
norms and practices, illustrates how much the girls have learned over
the months. The girls are using syntax to construct meaning rather
than merely stringing prefabricated chunks together; they can inter-
pret meaning from written symbols; they have acquired such academic
norms as “read the text closely” (Turns 21-24); they have constructed
identities as active and competent students (e.g., they read directions,
stay on task, provide explanations and definitions, solve problems, ask
challenging questions, make arguments, seek help when needed); they
have established relations as teammates (e.g., solve problems together,
talk about themselves as a team, share strategies); and they use Mrs.
Singer’s ideology about the “dignity and value of work” (a phrase used
by Mrs. Singer) as warrants for their own behavior (e.g., Turn 15).
This section has described the way that the ESL children used the
cultural and material resources in the classroom to participate in phon-
10
The detail of knowing about Nahla’s previous encounter with the word track, important
for interpreting their discussion, illustrates the importance of participant observation and
longitudinal studies in language acquisition research.
494 TESOL QUARTERLY

ics seatwork and in the process constructed their social, academic, and
linguistic competence. Interfactional routines, with their predictable
language and discourse structure, served as models to help them inter-
act, establish social bonds with one another, and display their identities
as competent students. Through their interfactional work with one
another and others, the children elaborated these instructional rou-
tines (and the language needed to enact them) when they used them
for a variety of purposes (e.g., to entertain one another, display compe-
tence, solve problems). The next section describes the sociocultural
significance of the language, skills, and values acquired by these chil-
dren through their participation in phonics seatwork.
CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL RELATIONS, IDENTITIES,

AND IDEOLOGY
Participating in phonics seatwork did more than develop the chil-
drens linguistic competence, it also enabled them to construct social
relations, identities, and ideologies that were appropriate to the social
world of Room 17. Moreover, these social relations, identities, and
ideologies affected the conditions of language development. In this
section, I ground my interpretations with descriptions of broader pat-
terns of behavior than in the last section, patterns that become evident
only after sustained involvement in the classroom and community
culture over long periods.
A number of social relations were negotiated and/or reproduced
during phonics seatwork, including generational, class, gender, and
peer structures. For example, the ESL children negotiated positive
social identities with their peers of the same gender by behaving appro-
priately in the social world of the classroom. These various social
dimensions were the interdependent “webs of significance” (Geertz,
1973, p. 5) woven into a local classroom culture. One could start with
any particular strand and it would be connected with all other strands.
I focus on gender relations because they were so pervasive and weave
in the ideologies, especially those associated with class, and identities
that supported these relations.
The nature of the gender relations constructed in Room 17, through
such practices as seating boys next to girls to control the classroom
behavior, was part of the wider society’s gender socialization that had
been occurring since the children’s birth (see Gal, 1991, for a review
of the literature supporting this assertion). The fact that many children
came from cultures and societies in which gender relations are much
more circumscribed than they are in the U.S. helped to shape such

practices and the ideology that made them sensible.11 These relations
and the ideologies behind them greatly shaped the strategies the ESL
children used to participate in the classroom culture.
Xavier did not ask his female seatmates to help him figure out what
was going on in class—boys who attempted to become friends of girls
(other than to taunt them) were made fun of by the other boys. The
language that Xavier acquired first was the highly public and sometimes
illicit language that could be heard as the boys shouted out in response
to the teacher’s elicitation (see Bloome & Willett, 1991, for an analysis
of this behavior). Participating in this public language was one way
that he attempted to construct an identity that was acceptable to the
other boys (e.g., the boys reacted positively to his public contributions
by joining in and laughing). The ESL girls never engaged in these
public displays. In fact, there was no evidence that they paid attention to
it. Recordings of the girls’ subvocalization showed that they frequently
repeated what they heard the teacher say but never repeated the illicit
language of the boys.
The seating arrangements, the result of ideologies about gender
and academics (not to mention research), had serious consequences
for the children’s social identities, which in turn fed the ideologies that
were operating. Xavier did not get help from his female seatmates
because it went against classroom and playground norms. Moreover,
he was not allowed to get out of his seat in order to get help from his
bilingual friends—although, even if he could have sought help from
them, he may not have gotten it as the boys typically competed with
one another rather than helped one another. As a result, Xavier had
to rely on adults more frequently than Etham, Yael, and Nahla to
complete the high-status workbook tasks (successful completion of
these tasks contributed to the good student identities that children in
this community worked to achieve).
However, interactions with adults did not provide all that he needed
to become a competent member of the class. Because adults were
outnumbered and because they believed that every child deserved
attention (a pervasive ideological position), they could not spend much
time with each child. As could be seen by contrasting Examples 1 and
4, ESL children rarely got what they needed from single interactions
with adults. Typically, the girls got help from a number of different
11
Interviews with the parents, as well as the variety of small details I encountered about the
children’s interactions, dress, and language use, corroborate this view. For example, Nahla
had attended gender-segregated schools in Ramallah, and Etham always ate meals in
gender-segregated settings in Male. In the U.S. Nahla wore clothes that completely covered
her body (except her head) and was always accompanied by her brothers outside of the
classroom or home. I never saw Etham or Nahla speak to the boys in the class.
496 TESOL QUARTERLY

sources before they could successfully complete a workbook task. More-
over, because each girl shared the morsels of information they got on
their own with each other, it appeared as if the girls were independent
workers (a high-status identity in the teacher’s eyes). Xavier, on the
other hand, without alternate sources for help would ask for help from
adults more often. Consequently, he began to gain an identity as a
needy child who could not work independently. This belief was fed
by another belief, explicitly stated by several school personnel, that
children from the barrio were semilingual and that their parents were
unable to help their children academically.
Xavier contested the way that adults positioned him, but he did it
in ways that merely confirmed the adults’ views about him. The ESL
teacher, classroom teacher, and aides worried about Xavier and at-
tempted to give him extra help and assistance. They pulled him out
for extra ESL lessons and attempted to give him ESL workbooks to
use in the classroom instead of the phonics workbooks. These exercises
were not really that different in terms of cognitive and linguistic pro-
cessing, but socially there was a world of difference. An ESL workbook
was a symbol of being an outsider, and a phonics workbook was a
symbol of belonging. Xavier resisted their help by refusing to work
in the ESL workbooks and protesting when sent to the ESL classroom.
He would frequently cry when he returned (which I believe he did
because his absence made it difficult to figure out where in the event
he should be). Being able to perform classroom tasks was important
for establishing his identity as an academic elite with the other boys
and the teacher. For example, the boys would often shout out things
like, “This is easy,” which Xavier would also shout out whenever he
managed to complete a task.
Although the boys in the class accepted Xavier’s performance as
competent (as suggested by his high social position in the sociogram,
interviews with the boys, and observations of playground interaction),
adults did not. Even when Xavier scored a Level 4 (Level 1 is the least
proficient and Level 5, the most proficient) on the Bilingual Syntax
Measure, he was not exited from ESL classes. The teachers said that
he “lacked confidence” and wanted to give him support for a longer
period. The girls were exited with the same score, but by then they
had gained the reputation of being independent workers, who no
longer needed support.
A very different story emerges from the girls than what we see
with Xavier. Etham, Yael, and Nahla could work on their relationship
during class, unlike other girls, because of the research (high-status
activity in an academic community). The very visible friendship they
formed enabled the girls to claim high status in the girls’ social hierar-

chy. Because of the multicultural ideology of the community (see
Willett, in press, for a detailed analysis of this ideology), being an L2
learner did not automatically relegate the newcomer to an inferior
social position as it does in many other places. Consequently, the girls’
exclusivity was interpreted by the other girls as high-status behavior
rather than as marginal-status behavior (evident in the sociogram,
interviews with children, and such observed incidents as fighting over
who gets to sit next to Etham in the storytime circle).
Being able to work cooperatively enabled the girls to have a variety
of different sources of support that they would not have had working
alone (evident in the examples given earlier). Consequently, they did
not appear to need the help of adults as frequently as Xavier. They
could each call on an adult separately, get plenty of help, share the
information they got, and still appear as if they were working indepen-
dently.
The girls did not have” a public presence in the classroom (a social
fact that could have serious consequences for the girls in the future
according to the results of current studies published by the American
Association of University Women, 1992). They worked quietly in the
back of the room, rarely calling attention to themselves. This was
appropriate behavior for girls and did not affect their social status in
this particular setting. Being quiet enabled them to stay together, and
staying together was one source of their popularity in the class and
their ability to display confident behavior.
When called upon to display their competence, the girls could do
so. One of the reasons they could display competence was that the
routine nature of the tasks and the collaborative nature of their rela-
tionship created the conditions and opportunities needed to learn the
tasks. Moreover, peers and adults alike interpreted the girls’ actions
as competent, though their actions differed from those of the native
speakers. Yael, who had the reputation of being unfocused at the
beginning of the year, appeared focused by the end of the year. With
the help of her friends, she could focus on the workbook’s microtasks
and still be social: Xavier, on the other hand, needed to have a public
presence to gain status with the other boys. Being public, however,
fueled interpretations that made it difficult to participate in classroom
events in a way that gained status in the eyes of the adults. And the
kinds of remedies the adults came up with (e.g., more ESL lessons)
made it difficult for Xavier to display his competence for the other
boys.
The children in Room 17 were not just learning English language
and literacy. They were attempting to become competent members of
the classroom and community culture. For these children acquiring
498 TESOL QUARTERLY

English language and literacy was essential for membership, and their
drive to learn was unrelenting. But classroom and community cultures
are complex, and becoming a competent member requires navigating
the competing agendas of its subcultures. At the particular point in
time that I observed the classroom, navigation was more problematic
for Xavier, but he worked as hard as the rest of the children at mas-
tering this social world.
CONCLUSION
This ethnographic report has focused on the ways that three ESL
girls worked together to make sense of the English-medium first-grade
classroom in which they were placed and used that social environment
to participate in phonics seatwork. The girls strategically enacted and
elaborated culturally shaped interaction routines to construct their
social, linguistic, and academic competence (as locally defined). In
the process of appropriating the ways of talking and thinking that
constituted doing phonics seatwork, the girls also constructed desirable
identities, social relations, and ideologies. Their ways and outcomes
of working together, however, were governed by the micropolitics of
the classroom. Contrasting the girls’ experiences with those of the only
ESL boy in the classroom, the study shows how the micropolitics of
gender and class worked to position the boy as a problematic learner
and the girls as successful learners in this particular sociocultural
setting.
The findings of this study also illustrate that using the individual
as the predominant unit of analysis in the study of language acquisition
reveals only part of a very complex story. Moreover, the kinds of
interfactional routines and strategies used to construct relations, identi-
ties, and ideologies in this particular classroom were local, not univer-
sal. Those used in another cultural setting may have very different
consequences. The question we must ask is not which interfactional
routines and strategies are correlated with successful language acquisi-
tion. Rather, we must first ask what meaning routines and strategies
have in the local culture and how they enable learners to construct
positive identities and relations and manage competing agendas. Lan-
guage acquisition requires predictable interactions and strategic
behavior in all settings, but the nature and significance of particular
interfactional routines vary across sociocultural groups. Without under-
standing the rich and dynamic contexts in which they are embedded,
studies of routines and studies will continue to yield inconclusive and
contradictory findings.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The preparation of this manuscript was facilitated by a Faculty Grant from the
School of Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I would like
to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and the children,
teachers, and families that participated in this research.
THE AUTHOR
Jerri Willett is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts

at Amherst in the Cultural Diversity and Curriculum Reform Program. Her inter-
ests include the ethnographic study of L2 literacy and multicultural literacy in
classrooms, schools, and communities.
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An Ethnography of Communication in
Immersion Classrooms in Hungary
PATRICIA A. DUFF
University of British Columbia
This study investigates the interface of recent macro- and microlevel

changes in Hungary by examining transformations in educational
discourse in the context of history lessons at secondary schools with
English immersion (dual-language, or DL) programs. The macrolevel
changes are linked to sociopolitical transformations in the late 1980s
and the rejection of Soviet-oriented policies and the discourse of
authoritarianism. Parallel microlevel changes have also surfaced in
the innovative English-medium sections of some experimental DL
schools. These changes have come about with the breakdown of a
traditional, very demanding genre of oral assessment known as the
felelés (recitation) and its replacement by short student lectures and
other, more open-ended discussion activities. This ethnographic
study explores the discursive constitution of English-medium class-
rooms and the socialization of students attending one progressive
Eastern European secondary school into the use of a foreign language
to discuss historical material. The research provides a contextualized
analysis of classroom discourse practices by examining some of the
sociocultural, linguistic, and academic knowledge structures that are
integral to and instilled within one curricular area and school system
in the wake of political and educational reform.
D
1
espite the great popularity of foreign language (FL) immersion]1
education as well as the controversies that often surround it (such
Immersion in this paper refers to FL-medium programs designed for majority-language stu-
dents (e.g., Hungarian students learning content through English in Hungary or an-
glophones learning through the medium of French in Canada), not minority-language stu-
dents (e.g., Spanish-speaking students learning through English in the U.S.). In the
Hungarian model, the FL immersion approach is known as dual-language schooling. In the
U.S., content instruction involving a combination of minority students’ L1 and L2—usually
as a transition to English-medium instruction—is more closely associated with the term
bilingual education, whereas education for minority children without L1 support amount to
submersion (or subtractive as opposed to additive bilingualism). In Canada, bilingual education
enjoys a more positive connotation than it does in the U.S., and it has received strong
federal support. Technically, bilingual education suggests a curriculum with fewer courses
taught in the FL than in immersion (although there are many varieties of the latter; see
Genesee, 1987).
505
as charges of elitism, imperialism, or ineffectiveness at producing na-
tivelike FL speakers), surprisingly few studies employing ethnographic
or other field-based qualitative approaches have examined oral prac-
tices within immersion classrooms or considered how these relate to
broader sociopolitical and cultural contexts. But traditional approaches
to educational research, including experimental designs and quanti-
tative dependent measures of linguistic and academic development,
although often necessary, cannot adequately examine many of the
complexities of language acquisition, socialization, and use inside sec-
ondary school classrooms (see reviews by Chaudron, 1988; Genesee,
1987). Nor do most studies claim to do so. Product-oriented FL immer-
sion research, normally concerned with psychological and linguistic
outcomes, such as measures of proficiency, cognitive development,
and academic performance relative to normative groups, tends not to
elaborate on the sociocultural, political, and historical processes that
function either inside or beyond the walls of classrooms or manifesta-
tions of these in classroom discourse. Even the process-product tradi-
tion in classroom research that supplements pre- and posttesting with
rigorous real-time classroom observation coding schemes for interac-
tion analysis (e.g., Communicative Orientation of Language Teach-
ing—COLT—used by Harley, Allen, Cummins, & Swain, 1990; Spada,
1990; see also Chaudron, 1991) tends to overlook the dynamic, contin-
gent, sequential nature of discourse and its constitutive properties or
how specific discourse patterns relate to learning outcomes (Spada,
1994). The sociocultural meanings of discourse, the contexts in which
it arises, and the contexts that it serves to create (Duranti & Goodwin,
1992) have consequently been largely neglected, as has an examination
of sociolinguistic features of the talk itself (Cazden, 1986; Ellis, 1990;
McLaughlin, 1985; Tarone & Swain, 1995). Genesee ( 1987) some years
ago identified this omission in immersion research, remarking that
“there is a dearth of research on the precise nature of language use
by teachers and students in immersion classes” (p. 192).2
2
This is not to suggest, however, that studies of sociolinguistic aspects of proficiency in
immersion contexts have not been undertaken. Lyster (1994), Swain (1985), and Swain
and Lapkin (1990), for example, have carefully examined French and English immersion
students’ performance on a wide range of oral and written test tasks (e.g., writing a note
to peers vs. a formal letter; simulated job interviews), with the express goal of analyzing
the development of sociolinguistic skills. Their performance, then, is usually compared
with baseline data from peer-age native speakers of the target language or nonnative
speakers who have gone through a different model of schooling (e.g., early vs. late immersion
or nonimmersion with FL courses). The studies analyze students’ use of FL polite forms,
such as honorific pronouns (e. g., French vous,), conditionals, and so on, with results presented
as scores. As it is their aim to pinpoint students’ knowledge of sociolinguisticalIy appropriate
FL usage when the target structures or tasks may not in fact occur in the immersion
classroom (see Swain, 1985), these researchers have in the past been less interested in
examining everyday classroom discourse (but see Tarone & Swain, 1995).
506 TESOL QUARTERLY

QUALITATIVE APPROACHES TO RESEARCH ON
FL EDUCATION
This article therefore takes a qualitative approach to analyzing lan-

guage use in English-medium content classrooms. I first introduce the
underpinnings of this approach and outline the goals of the study,
the context, and the research methodology. I then contrast old (or
standard) and new approaches to classroom instruction in certain Hun-
garian-English (late immersion) secondary schools by juxtaposing two
speech events: the Hungarian recitation associated
with Hungarian-medium history lessons, and student lectures, found
in English-medium ones. However, the primary focus here is the struc-
ture and participation patterns of the events conducted in English. I
conclude by relating these microobservations to the broader sociopoliti-
cal context.
To begin, I briefly explain the terms ethnography, language socializa-
tion, and discourse as they are used here. Ethnography is just one of a
variety of qualitative methods used to study educational issues that
are not easily addressed by experimental or other types of quantitative
research. Representing a range of possible techniques, levels of analy-
sis, and domains of inquiry, ethnography offers a holistic, grounded,
and participant-informed perspective of schooling, either in general
terms or with respect to particular activities, through what Geertz
(1973) calls a thick description of cultural contexts (Atkinson, Delamont,
& Hammersley, 1988; Fetterman, 1989; Hammersley & Atkinson,
1995; Heath, 1983; Hymes, 1964; Jacob, 1987; Johnson, 1992; Le-
Compte & Preissle, 1993; van Lier, 1988; Watson-Gegeo, 1988; Wilcox,
1982). In classroom research examining discourse processes, this ap-
proach is variously referred to as anthropological, discourse-analytic,
constitutive-ethnographic, microethnographic, or sociolinguistic, al-
though these terms mean different things to different researchers (see
Atkinson et al., 1988; Cazden, 1986; Fetterman, 1984; Green & Wallat,
1981; Long, 1980; Mehan, 1979; Romaine, 1984). What they share is
a context-rich interpretive orientation to studying social action.
Some ethnographies go well beyond local contextual factors and
make connections between national sociopolitical/cultural agendas, at-
titudes, and historical changes (i.e., macrolevel phenomena) and dis-
course within schools (more microlevel phenomena) (Marcus, 1986).
For example, Cleghorn and Genesee’s (1984) 1-year study focused
on interactions among anglophone and francophone teachers in a
Montreal school with both early French-immersion and regular En-
glish-stream programs at a time of rather acute provincial political/
linguistic tensions and misgivings. Participant observation revealed
that, ironically—and indeed contrary to the publicized objectives of
AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF IMMERSION CLASSROOMS 507

immersion to foster harmony, understanding, and bilingualism across
Canada’s largest linguistic communities—the teachers from the two
ethnolinguistic groups avoided contact with one another, resented each
other’s presence, and resorted to English, the dominant language of
the country but not of that province, in cross-group discussions. Cana-
garajah’s (1993) study, also 1 year in duration, focused on an EFL
course for Tamil 1st-year arts and humanities majors at a university
in a war-torn region of Sri Lanka. Embracing a critical theoretical/
pedagogical perspective, the study examined the sometimes conflicting
attitudes and behaviors vis-à-vis the learning of English displayed by
the cohort of students, whom Canagarajah, their EFL teacher, charac-
terized as a socially, economically, and linguistically marginalized
group living in the erstwhile British colony.
The second concept, language socialization, refers to the lifelong pro-
cess by means of which individuals—typically novices—are inducted
into specific domains of knowledge, beliefs, affect, roles, identities,
and social representations, which they access and construct through
language practices and social interaction (Ochs, 1991; Poole, 1992;
Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986a, 1986b). The participation of more compe-
tent members of the culture is central to the socialization process,
although there are also bidirectional effects; novices convey a sense
of their needs, wants, and existing competencies to experts, and thus
teachers can also learn from their students, and parents from their
children (Jacoby & Gonzales, 1991; Ochs, 1988, 1990, 1991). One of
the goals of language socialization research in Schieffelin and Ochs’s
(1986a) work with young members of different cultures, for example,
has been “the linking of microanalytic analyses of children’s discourse
to more general ethnographic accounts of cultural beliefs and practices
of the families, social groups, or communities into which children are
socialized” (p. 168). A productive line of educational research (usually
ethnographic) has examined socialization practices in first and second
languages and cultures, in the context of literacy or other kinds of
speech activities at home, in the playground, on the street, at school
or at work (e.g., Crago, Annahatak, & Ningiuruvik, 1993; Edelsky,
1986; Guthrie, 1985; Harklau, 1994; Heath, 1983, 1993; Hornberger,
1994; Moll & Diaz, 1985; Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984; Poole, 1990).
Finally, discourse typically refers to elements of an oral or written
language system used for communicative purposes in particular socio-
cultural contexts. Discourse analysis, then, deals with such things as
linguistic structures, forms, and conventions operating across clauses,
sentences, or utterances—plus, in some contemporary critical/cultural
accounts, their underlying epistemic or ideological systems (e.g., Fair-
clough, 1992; Pennycook, 1994). (See Atkinson & Heritage, 1984;
508 TESOL QUARTERLY

Brown & Yule, 1983; Cook, 1989; Coulthard, 1985; Duranti & Good-
win, 1992; Gumperz, 1982; Halliday & Hasan, 1989; Hatch, 1992;
Levinson, 1983; McCarthy, 1991; McCarthy & Carter, 1994; Mehan,
1979; Stubbs, 1983.)
THE PRESENT STUDY: CONTEXT, PURPOSE,

AND METHODS
In the mid-1980s, educational reforms in Hungary granted schools

more autonomy from the state, and within just a few years up to 30
dual-language (DL) programs with an assortment of Western lan-
guages had been established with support from the Ministry of Educa-
tion (Duff, in press-b). The programs have the allure of offering
proficiency in a language associated with international business/eco-
nomics, science, technology, and other disciplines, which students aim
to study at university. In a 4-year Hungarian-English DL program,
the normal length of academic high schools (Grades 9– 12), students
who have demonstrated adequate EFL ability in oral interviews (from
EFL at primary school and/or private tutorials) begin English-medium
academic course work immediately. In a 5-year program, prior knowl-
edge of English is not necessary, and an intensive preparatory year
of communicative EFL training (called a zero year) precedes the 4-year
academic curriculum. To enjoy official DL status, the schools must
teach at least three of five matriculation subjects—history, mathemat-
ics, geography, physics, and biology—in English. As the programs are
publicly funded, all Hungarian students may apply for admission,
but enrollment is ultimately determined by scores on a competitive
entrance examination (Duff, in press-b).
The establishment of these schools nearly a decade ago symbolized
a greater alignment with Western Europe. Yet until the late 1980s,
the Hungarian government still promoted Soviet-influenced policies
and the teaching of Russian as the chief FL of Hungarians, to their
perpetual consternation. Then major reforms swept over the countries
in Eastern Europe in 1989, marked by the fall of communism that
year and political independence shortly thereafter (e.g., Banac, 1992;
Brown, 1991; Echikson, 1990; Garton Ash, 1989, 1990; Gwertzman
& Kaufman, 1991; Kuran, 1992). In the same period, EFL programs
mushroomed in schools, universities, and other institutions, and the
number of international EFL (and content) teachers recruited through
such organizations as the U.S. Information Service, the British Council,
the Soros Foundation, and the U.S. Peace Corps surged in response
to the growing demand for EFL instruction and the end of linguistic

isolation in Hungary.3 Thousands of Hungarian teachers of Russian
were then retrained for the EFL profession as policies changed and
Russian became an optional subject. Financial assistance poured in
from the World Bank and other funding and development sources to
support—and thereby exert a certain amount of control over—FL
education and related teacher-training efforts (Medgyes, 1993).
RESEARCH METHODS
Given the paucity of ethnographic studies in FL programs elsewhere

and of studies of classroom discourse in immersion programs, it is
not surprising that none had been conducted in Eastern European
English-immersion programs prior to the one described here. To gain
insights into the processes and problems of juxtaposing existing and
new (or at least newly legitimized) ideologies, languages, and assess-
ment procedures in the schools, my fieldwork in 1991–1992 sought
to uncover and interpret implicit (if changing) classroom norms and
practices rooted in the local academic culture and to explore language
socialization in this unique context. Earlier I had been involved in
an evaluation of three Hungarian-English DL programs in different
regions of the country (Duff, 1991) and had examined measures of
EFL development and multiple perspectives on the efficacy of the new
programs. 4 By the 2nd year of the project (1990–1991), two research
questions of a sociolinguistic nature that had emerged from my initial
observations begged further investigation:
1. Was instructional discourse in English-medium history classes dif-
ferent from Hungarian-medium non-DL classes and, if so, what
might account for this?
2. What parallels existed between microlevel discursive changes (or
differences) in these lessons and changes taking place countrywide?
In 1991 I attended history classes in the Hungarian non-DL section
of two schools,5 most of which were videotaped. I chose history because
3
Prior to that time, EFL had been a second FL (after Russian) for a relatively small number
of students; Medgyes (1993) reports that even in 1988–1989, “only 3 percent of primary-
school pupils (6–14 years) and less than 20 percent of secondary-school pupils (15–18 years)
were taught English, the most popular foreign language” (p. 25). Hungarian, a non-Indo-
European language, is understood and spoken by few non-Hungarians in other countries.
4
For that purpose, I collected data by means of tests, observations, interviews with partici-
pants, and questionnaires, with Hungarian support from the Ministry of Education, national
pedagogical institutes, and schools, and on the North American side from the Language
Resource Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the U.S. Information
Agency (Duff, 1991).
5
Two of the three schools in the study had both DL and non-DL streams whereas the third
school had only the former.
510 TESOL QUARTERLY

it is a very popular and important subject in the Hungarian curriculum
that lends itself well to richly textured discursive activity and analysis;
furthermore, history deals with issues related to change. The teachers
and students were informed that I was conducting a descriptive study
of classroom communication in both DL and non-DL history lessons.
In the DL sections, I observed 43 hours of history lessons (1989–1991)
taught by nine instructors, all of whom were Hungarian nationals.6
Six of these teachers’ lessons were videotaped in the spring and fall
of 1991, for a total of 36 hours of recordings. As I was not evaluating
the lessons in these classrooms, the teachers did not usually solicit my
feedback or suggestions in relation to their lessons, their teaching
methods, or their language use, nor did I offer it. However, after
class or when the teachers were free, they graciously entertained my
questions about content, materials, or events that had transpired in
class. A number of teachers also viewed tapes of themselves with
me, using a hand-held minimonitor. Time was always at a premium,
though, as Hungarian teachers had heavy teaching loads at school—
and DL teachers had the added burden of preparing materials and
lessons in English; many also held other jobs after school and had
family responsibilities. After preparing and verifying complete lesson
transcripts in the summer and fall of 1991 (see below), I selected
speech events involving segments of extended student talk for closer
analysis. I also consulted with students and other teachers (Hungarian
and international) at several schools.
The analysis for this paper is based on DL classes in a city called
Nagyváros (a pseudonym). Established in 1987, the Nagyváros school
housed a non-DL section as well as one of the original 5-year DL
programs designed for EFL. It enjoyed some of the best resources—
teachers, materials, and equipment—and provided English-medium
instruction in all five content areas. The DL section benefited from
international support of various types, had a number of expatriate
EFL and content teachers, and (originally) received funding from the
Ministry of Education. The DL headmaster was extremely helpful and
supportive of my presence and work at that school, and we frequently
discussed issues of common interest related to language education,
acquisition, and testing.
A spacious, bright, modern two-story facility, the school was situated
in a suburb of a large city to which students and teachers commuted
long distances daily. History classrooms were on the second floor.
Windows on the left side of the room (where my video camera was
6
In addition to these observations of history lessons, I observed and audio recorded an
approximately equal number of lessons in other subject areas, including physics, biology,
mathematics, EFL, and geography, but these data were not used in the present analysis.

positioned) overlooked a tree-lined street in a residential neighbor-
hood, with another secondary school, colorfully painted houses, and
a park nearby. The windows were usually open, letting in fresh air
and the sounds of birds, passing trucks, cars, and other maintenance
equipment. Students sat in three or four rows of small, movable tables
that stretched, end to end, across the width of the room. Posters and
plants decorated the classrooms, and a big blackboard hung on the
front wall. Beside it was often hung a large map of the region to be
discussed in the lesson.
The most experienced English-medium history teacher at this school
was Kati Kovács (a pseudonym). A Hungarian woman in her late 20s
with a passion for history, Kati had comajored in that subject and
English at a key Hungarian university. Katis students from different
classes considered her (whom they addressed as Teacher) to
be the best history teacher at the school and, in their judgment, one
whose English and teaching methods were improving every year. Kati’s
English pronunciation was somewhat accented, influenced by Hungar-
ian first-syllable word stress, intonation contours, and vowels, and she
had spent only a matter of weeks in any English-speaking country;
that being the case, her EFL was quite remarkable. Kati agreed to
participate in this study, and we often chatted about teaching methods,
history, and other matters. I visited her classes on and off over 3
academic years ( 1989–1992), with most visits concentrated during the
last months of the 2nd year and the 1st months of the 3rd. Scheduling
observations was neither straightforward nor regular, owing to some-
times unpredictable changes in the teacher’s or students’ timetables
and my own responsibilities elsewhere.7 As is customary in Hungary,
many of Kati’s students studied with her for several years through the
4-year history curriculum, and the students knew one another very
well from their studies, travel, and other activities. At the end of 2
academic years (1992, 1993), I attended oral matriculation exams,
including history, with the graduating cohorts and teachers at that
school. 8
I examined 16 hours of videotapes from three of Kati’s 2nd- and
3rd-year classes (i.e., Grades 10 and 11 in North America, excluding
the DL zero year). Each class had up to 18 students—about half the
number found in most non-DL classes—all Hungarians between 16
7
I resided in Hungary in 1990 and 1991 for about half a year each time in addition to
shorter visits from 1989 to 1993. Besides visiting Nagyváros, I spent time at other institutions
in the same city and in other regions of the country.
8
These exams are administered by a panel of teachers in the presence of an officiating
external chairperson, usually from a university. Five students sit in the examination room
and are examined individually in each subject. In the DL programs students indicate the
language in which they wish to be tested for their matriculation subjects.
512 TESOL QUARTERLY

and 18 years of age. Nearly a dozen of Kati’s students volunteered to
be my part-time research assistants, helping with transcription, transla-
tion, verification, and interpretation, especially during their summer
vacation; in this way, we became quite familiar over time.9 I also inter-
viewed several of her other students from time to time in conjunction
with my longitudinal study of second language acquisition (SLA) (in-
volving roughly 70 students across schools and grades). For this same
purpose, once or twice a year all the students wrote EFL essays on
such topics as their school, the advantages and disadvantages of DL
education, societal change, and their views of different. teaching
methods.
ANALYSIS
A “funneling” methodological process (Jacob, 1987) proceeds from

general observations of schools and lessons to a more focused sociolin-
guistic study of speech events (Watson-Gegeo, 1988). The selection of
a specific speech event or activity (or task) as a unit of analysis rather
than an entire lesson comprising numerous events is common among
scholars in linguistic anthropology (e.g., Duranti, 1985; Hall, 1993;
Hymes, 1974), comparative cognition (e.g., Cole, 1985; Wertsch, 1985),
and SLA/pedagogy (e.g., Crookes & Gass, 1993). An activity, in this
sense, is simply a way of framing culturally organized behavior in
order to consider what is being done, how it is being done, and what
it entails and signifies (Duranti & Goodwin, 1992; Leont’ev, 1981;
Ochs, 1988; Smith, 1990; Tharp & Gallimore, 1988; van Lier, 1988).
Focusing on one activity (whether an oral proficiency interview, an
academic advising session, or a student’s oral presentation) permits
the reconstruction of well-bounded discursive events and facilitates
comparisons across contexts (classes, schools, cultures).
My analysis concerns two types of speech events. The baseline event
was the Hungarian-medium recitation (felelés, conducted primarily in
non-DL classes), which, as noted earlier, was missing from most En-
glish-medium classes. In its place were student presentations or lectures
9
This idea originated with Shirley Brice Heath, who also engaged young people in data
collection and analysis in a large study of youth organizations (Heath, 1993). Students were
keen to participate in my study because of the experience they gained from transcribing
(for which I trained them) and translating, the teamwork involved, and because they were
all especially interested in history and preparing the transcripts allowed them to review
course material meticulously. Furthermore, many of them transcribed their own lessons,
which was a tremendous advantage because they knew the voices of students, the content
covered, special terminology, and so on. Students were recommended by their homeroom
teacher and Kati, and a few other capable students asked to join the project when they
heard about it. Each assistant was given a stipend for this work.

(kisel adás) and other activities. The student lectures represented an
emergent genre of public speaking in the Hungarian context, less
commonly used than the felelés and ostensibly less formal as well (see
Duff, in press-a, for other teachers’ approaches). These talks were
addressed either to the whole class or to small groups of 4–6 students.
Students in groups, for example, might share information from jigsaw
reading activities using photocopied content-related materials or per-
form other tasks together using maps, textbooks, and assigned ques-
tions. I examined 9 class-fronted and 12 group-directed presentations10
from lessons in April, June, and November 1991, which were represen-
tative of discourse practices in Kati’s classes. In addition to these oral
presentations, information from interviews, essays, and other observa-
tions at schools helped me interpret classroom speech events from the
participants’ (insider, or emit) perspectives as well as from my own
perspective as an analyst. I then related structural microobservations
back to larger sociocultural phenomena (i.e., the wide end of the
funnel).
THE BASELINE SPEECH EVENT:

THE HUNGARIAN RECITATION
A typical 45-minute history lesson in a regular Hungarian academic

secondary school (gimnázium) follows the sequence of events shown in
Figure 1. During the brief period before or between lessons, students
prepare for their next lesson, reviewing their notes and consulting
with one another. Teachers, meanwhile, may take the opportunity to
drink espresso coffee, smoke, and chat in a public sitting area outside
the staff room and main office. When the teacher arrives for a lesson,
the class stands up and the monitor (hetes) announces the number of
absent students. Students then take their seats, and written assignments
or tests (if any) may be returned to them and discussed. Following
this, one or more recitations (felelés) generally take place. This originally
Prussian (Herbartian) practice is the most common form of assessment
and rehearsed public speaking in Hungarian classes from the primary
level right through to university. The recitation is a spontaneous,
graded, but personalized oral quiz or report (or, at times, Socratic
dialogue) that occurs daily in nearly every lesson, although students
do not know when their turn will come. The ritualized event serves
many functions, such as enforcing school discipline, ensuring daily
10
Elsewhere I compare history lessons taught by eight teachers at the three schools and
characterize and contrast traditional and immersion lessons in greater detail (Duff, 1993;
in press-a).
514 TESOL QUARTERLY

FIGURE 1
History Lesson Structure in Hungarian Classrooms
1. Prelesson activity
2. Teacher enters
3. Students standa
4. Hetes (monitor) reportsa
5. Students sit down
6. Discussion (assignments, etc.) a
7. Felelés (one or more recitations)
8. New lesson (may include DL student lecture)a
9. Homework assigned
10. Teacher thanks and dismisses class
a
Points where DL lessons may diverge from non-DL lessons.
review of lessons, and preparing students for public speaking, as re-

quired on oral national (high school) matriculation and university en-
trance examinations (Alexander, 1918; Dunkel, 1969; see Duff, 1993,
in press-a). For the felelés, a student must provide a formal summary
of particular aspects or themes from the previous lesson(s) while facing
the teacher at the front of the class. Following a period of extended
speech by the student and questioning by the teacher, the teacher
announces a grade for the performance, ranging from a low of
1 to a high of 5 (the usual grading scale; see examples in Duff, in
press-a). 11
When the recitation is over, some 5–20 minutes later, depending
on the number of recitations and their quality, the teacher introduces
the topic of the new lesson, which becomes the focus for the remainder
of the class. Instruction generally ensues in teacher-fronted lecture
format with initiation-reply-evaluation sequences of questions and
feedback (Mehan, 1979). Teachers’ historical accounts can be very
lively and sometimes interactive, conveying a great deal of information
and narrative. During teachers’ lectures, students take careful notes
because reference materials are often lacking, photocopy facilities are
not widely available, history textbooks are now obsolete—albeit still
used—and recitations in the next period as well as future exams are
based on their recollection of this content. Finally, at the end of the
lesson, the teacher assigns homework, consisting primarily of required
11
Eastern European students apparently do not find this public disclosure of grades the
least bit unusual and, because a cohort studies, socializes, and travels as a cohesive group
throughout their years at a particular school, the students reported that anticipating and
participating in the activity is more worrisome than having their grades made public.
Furthermore, most students can estimate quite accurately what their grades or those of
their classmates are likely to be on a given recitation, on other assignments, or at the end
of term for cumulative work.

readings from each year’s textbook (a soft-cover, monochromatic Hun-
garian publication made with low-grade paper and binding; the En-
glish versions are translations of the Hungarian ones and contain
numerous typographical and translation errors). Other class-related
announcements are made, the teacher thanks the class for their atten-
tion, and students leave. At the end of the sixth or last period of the
day (at about 2 p.m.), students put their chairs on top of their desks
or tables to assist the custodians with cleaning. They then have lunch
if they have not already done so, attend extracurricular activities or
extra classes, or return home.
CLASSROOM PRACTICES IN TRANSITION
The discussion here is confined to several aspects of interaction

associated with, or occurring in lieu of, the recitation (felelés). Events
footnoted in Figure I tended not to occur in the English DL content
lessons in my study, or at least not in the same way as in non-DL ones.
The felelés was very closely linked to Hungarian-medium (non-DL)
instruction, which even some of its enthusiastic proponents considered
stressful but nonetheless necessary. Recitations in the DL lessons, if
present at all, also differed in various ways from conventional practice,
with more opportunities for negotiation between teachers and students
about whose turn it was, whether students should stand or remain
seated, and so on (Duff, in press-a). By and large, though, the daily
recitation period had been rejected by most of the history teachers in
the DL programs I observed, including Kati and teachers in other
subject areas, who said they favored a more democratic approach to
instruction. By this they meant a preference for open discussion in class
(not always teacher fronted), with different participant configurations,
roles, and materials, plus more written assessments. Kati claimed that
her own experiences in interactive EFL classes at university had tem-
pered her practices, convincing her that the recitation—which she had
used in her early years of teaching—was too nerve-wracking, rigid,
and time consuming. Another teacher at a different DL program
expressed a similar viewpoint:
We are a bit of a liberal school in this respect and we are changing, I’m
really against all these rigid disciplines . . . . So first in my previous school
first I had to FIGHT when I rearranged the desks in a circle—when I sat
among students. When I decided not to [say] “stand up please” for each
felelet-felelés, but “keep sitting and can’t we discuss it.” . . . About felelés, I
think it’s a very rigid thing to make somebody, to sit somebody in front of
the class, I don’t like it, to [have a student] come out, and answer my
questions very fast, and it’s something like an inquisition. But felelés is,
516 TESOL QUARTERLY

unfortunately, in . . . most of the traditional schools is oral, mostly oral.
(Interview with Kisváros history teacher, 1991)
On the whole, the DL students I interviewed clearly disliked recita-

tions—which they still encountered in their Hungarian language and
literature class as well as in chemistry class—although they sometimes
acknowledged their utility in the grand scheme of Hungarian educa-
tion. For example, a small minority of students, particularly gregarious
high achievers, said that they actually enjoyed the felelés, and some less
motivated students conceded that without it they might not study hard
or might be tempted to cheat on written quizzes. Once exposed to
other classroom discursive activities and approaches to assessment (e.g.,
written tests, essays), however, students associated recitations with au-
thoritarian practices of non-DL primary or secondary schools. These
sentiments were voiced by Nagyváros students, especially when they
felt relatively confident that their academic success was not in jeopardy:
When you have to learn new material, then in the next lesson, in the first
10–15 minutes someone from the class or from the group has to—to talk
about the material. And—no one likes it. It’s terrible. We get a mark for
this and uh everyone is afraid of it. (Interview with 2nd-year student, 1991)
Elsewhere I have conceptualized the felelés as a microcosm of social

and educational changes taking place inside and outside of schools
(e.g., Duff, 1993, in press-a). A historically and culturally rooted phe-
nomenon and vehicle for Hungarian language socialization, it is an
activity that has been affected by systemic changes and has, in turn,
affected evolving educational discourse.
STUDENT LECTURES: ASSIGNMENT,

ORGANIZATION, AND INTERVENTIONS
Instead of traditional recitation, teachers fostered Nagyváros stu-

dents’ understandings and assessed them informally through question-
answer exchanges, pair and small-group work (which I had not ob-
served in the larger non-DL classes), and discussions. The speech event
most comparable to the felelés was a prepared, often scripted English
presentation called a student lecture 5–15 minutes in length. Despite
some similarities with the recitation (i.e., extended oral discourse pro-
duced by a student on an academic topic), the English lectures did not
appear to be as taxing or as frequent an activity for students (see
Figure 2). But as a relatively new activity, the procedures, student
roles, and responsibilities were still being negotiated, and this revealed
some of the ambiguities of the changing discourse practices at schools.

FIGURE 2
Hungarian Felelés Versus English Student Lecture
Felelés Lecture
(5-15 min.; Hungarian language) (5-15 min.; English language)
● Occurs nearly every lesson ● Occurs less frequently; complemented by
other speech activities

● Obligatory; teacher chooses topic/student ● Voluntary; students choose topic
● Reference resources predetermined ● Students can choose reference materials
● Examination; graded ● Informally assessed; not seen as exami-
nation
● No written props allowed; all books ● Written notes allowed; teacher sitting;
closed; teacher/student standing at front student standing at front

● Audience silent unless called upon by ● Audience may actively initiate questions,
teacher comments
● Fluency, academic register, and content ● Coverage of content important; some
mastery essential note-taking by class; starting point for

discussion
Unlike recitations, Nagyváros student lectures were assigned on a

voluntary basis, and students had several days or weeks to prepare.
Example 1 illustrates the distribution of topics during a 3rd-year unit
on the Russian Revolution—a dominant theme in the curriculum
whose facts and interpretations were themselves being reassessed at
the time, just as statues of former Soviet leaders were being hauled
away from prominent public locations and revolutionary street names
were crossed out and replaced with their original Hungarian ones. In
the following excerpts, student presenters are given pseudonyms,
other students are referred to by their initials, and Kati is the teacher.
(See the Appendix for transcription conventions.)
1. Kati: Okay. Now I would like sev- I - I - mean that would be very
nice of - you if several people - could volunteer to give short
talks on different topics - I’ve got a - long list of topics - you
[could take
Gabi: [Could you list them?
Kati: First of all I need somebody to talk about the Be- Brest - Litov -
Peace - Treaty
S: [Jézusom! ((“Jesus!,” referring to the difficult name of the
treaty))
Gabi: [Be:
Kati: Best- Brest - Litovsk Peace Treaty. A: - I need:: (0.4) four of
you to talk about people like - Trotsky, Kamenjev, Zinovjev
and Bukharin, (0.3) a:nd who else: (0.3) one more - for - and -
oh yeah, that is not - I mean - these: should - or might come
on Wednesday ((2 days later)), and I need somebody for Mon-
day ((1 week later)), who could talk about the:: Stalinist: - what
they call - call it purges - [the Stalinist
518 TESOL QUARTERLY

Gabi: [Mi az. ((“What’s that?”))
Kati: Purges means: - persecution of people - so how (x) how Stalin
arrested people - sent [them to labor camps and so on.
Gabi: [And when - when do you need the (xxx)
Kati: Sorry?
Gabi: The peace treaty. When do you need it.
Kati: The peace treaty will come - Wednesday.
Gabi: And will you give the material, or? =
Kati: = I- I can give - each of you material. Perhaps not - NOW,
but today. Okay. Gabi? You would like the peace treaty. Okay.
Bes- Brest Litovskij . . . .
Okay! A?
István: I’d like a person.
Kati: A person. Ah: Trotsky? ((signal of approval from István)) Okay
Trotsky. Vera?
Vera: For Monday - something
Unlike in the felelés, students were not assigned topics but chose
them according to a number of factors: the nature of the topic (e.g.,
person, place, event), the due date, the scope of the topic, and others’
preferences. Access to interesting source materials on loan from Kati
or the school library, which were often unavailable to them otherwise,
also motivated students to volunteer for lectures. Whereas in the felelés
students were not normally at liberty to consult just any reference
materials but were usually restricted to their textbook and class notes,
for lectures students could bring in any pertinent materials. Thus,
control over information sources was somewhat relaxed from what
had been customary (especially pre-1989). Perhaps because of this,
and because the lecturers were not expected to memorize their texts,
students tended to write out their lecture notes in advance (sometimes
borrowing heavily from their source materials) and referred to them
when presenting (see Duff, in press-a, for examples). The teacher and
students in the audience also helped contextualized and frame the talk,
establishing its relationship to preceding or following topics and its
overall relevance. Utterances flagged with arrows in the following ex-
ample illustrate this process:
2. Kati: A::nd on: - decree on peace - Gabi (1.2) can give a lecture.
Gabi: Right now?
Kati: Right now.
(9.8) ((Gabi comes up to front))
And perhaps: - for that - you ((to class)) might as well open the
Atlas.
(1.6)
[Okay?
S: [(xxx)

Gabi: It’s on - 49. Page 49. ((in student atlas))
(3.9)
Kati: 49?
S: ((What are you going to talk about Gabi?))
Gabi: I(’ll) write it on the board.
S: ((giggling)) Jaj, ez az ami kimondhatatlan! ((Oh, this is the one that’s
impossible to pronounce!))
Kati: 41! ((correction about page number)) . . .
Kati: OK. So - you might as well start - by:: locating Brest-Litovsk - on
the map.
Gabi: [It’s on the border of Germany a:nd Russia (0.3) Today Poland
a::nd Russia.
S: [What are you going to talk about.
SSS: ((giggling, because of name perhaps)) Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Gabi: ((points to name she has written on board))
Kati: So actual - how: the:: decree on peace was actually: - put in(to)
practice.
Turn by turn, then, lecturers and their audience determined how

much information to include and from what source and how to link
talk and maps; the past and present; details and overriding themes;
events (e. g., treaties) and their implementation, consequences, and
critical evaluation. The next example, beginning where the previous
one left off and lasting more than 6 minutes, illustrates how a lecture
might be organized (see Figure 3).
3. Opening
(5.4) So: - ah (.8) the: Germans expressed - their demands ah - in the
peace treaty, (0.4) I’m going to talk about first what happened before the
treaty.
Body of text
(2.6) Yes. So German demands - ah - would have - included - ah -26
percent - this is - you don’t have to write that down - would have included
26 percent of Russia’s - population, a::nd 27 - percent of farm land,
and seventy fo - four uh percent of iron and coal - mines and areas,
and these demands - ah were opposed by Trotsky, the Commissar of
Foreign - a - Affairs, and also the Left Communists - led by Buk -
Bukharin I can- ((starts writing BUKHARIN on board, 10.8 sec.)) a::nd -
ah - Bukharin wanted a revolutionary war against Germany, (0.4) but
his revolutionary idea was opposed by - Lenin, (1.2) because Lenin
realized that further fights - in: such a condition as: - in such a - situation
that Russia is in, would lead to further - defeats . . . . ((several minutes))
Closing remarks
A:nd the results of this treaty were that it - created a revolutionary -
attitude in Russia, a::nd - this - they - wanted to - to - ah establish a new
army from the ruins of the old one, ah - to concentrate - all forces
against Germany, but - this idea was opposed by:: Lenin - mainly, and
his supporter - ((coughs)) supporters because -he said that - Russia
520 TESOL QUARTERLY

FIGURE 3
Structural Properties of Student Lectures
1. Prefecture
a. Call for volunteers, topics, activity specifications prior to lesson
b. Discussion leading up to student topic during lesson of actual presentation
c. Statement of lecture topic and identification of presenter
d. Negotiation about placement or order of lecture(s) in lesson
e. Specification of audience design or role
f. Specification of lecture procedures, including note-taking, position of student, use
of equipment or other materials
2. Lecture
a. Openings
b. Body
c. Interventions (by student or teacher) related to manner of presentation, language,
and content
d. Closings
3. Postlecture
a. End of lecture is signaled (e.g., by student)
b. Teacher thanks student
c. Teacher and/or students comment on lecture
d. Teacher asks questions or elicits further comments related to lecture
e. Lesson continues
needed a breathing - space - lélegzetvételnyi id ((“breathing space”)) - a: nd

Lenin also - moved the:: capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow
because - Petrograd was too close to: the border, and it was -endangered.
((Gabi puts paper down and moves slightly away from desk.))
In this lecture, Gabi referred to her notes from time to time but
appeared to be paraphrasing rather than reciting a memorized text
or reading a written one. She instructed her classmates as to what facts
were relatively minor, wrote on the board when it seemed appropriate,
and provided Hungarian translations of phrases (breathing space) that
might be unfamiliar. Seen in this light, the lecture seemed to serve as
a locus for the apprenticeship of EFL history teachers as well as history
scholars. Kati, meanwhile, sat on a desk among students near the back,
interjecting comments from time to time. In contrast, in traditional
recitations the student and teacher both stand at the front.
For a felelés, the teacher poses a question to be answered at some
length, and the reciting student should speak in a quick, confident,
unfaltering manner until the teacher, in effect, interrupts her. Indeed,
determining what kinds of questions at the beginning of lessons are
general review prompts and which are intended to initiate a formal,
elaborated response (felelés) is not always straightforward for students
who have been called on, but it is very important because their uptake
will be judged accordingly. Lectures, by comparison, are relatively
unproblematic in this regard for the speaker, who holds the floor and

has more control over the event and less at stake. Thus, following
the topic negotiation in Example 2, Gabi provided opening framing
remarks for her lecture presentation (in Example 3) and then ended
it with a lengthy utterance about the results of the treaty in question
and attendant nonverbal cues suggesting its termination. For students
trying to comprehend the presentation and its scope, clear signals of
the beginning and end were important. Thus, certain conventions
recurred across presentations: opening frames in both class and group
settings typically began with the word so, followed by a declaration of
intent, such as “ I’m going to talk about x. ” Indeed, as shown above,
if students were not explicit about the theme of their talk, they were
likely to be stopped; similarly, in the absence of clear signs of closure,
they might be asked, “Is that all?” Closure was frequently indicated
by the use of lexical items with inherent lexical aspect (e.g., died, poi-
soned, closed, end, executed), with formulaic expressions such as that’s
all, with humor, and with long pauses. During lectures, questions,
comments, and occasionally laughter were commonplace, reducing the
need for further queries at the end. This, again, is a difference from
traditional recitation, for which a teacher would generally announce
a grade and/or descriptive assessment before moving on to the next
topic.
Also, whereas in the typical felelés it was the teacher’s role to interro-
gate the reciter, in Kati’s class the speaker was sometimes bombarded
with interventions from eager classmates as well as from the teacher.
The dispensation with the recitation in these DL classes was, at least in
part, possible because the academically prescreened, university-bound
students were on the whole very bright and keen to learn and the
content was intrinsically motivating for them. At times, however, stu-
dents’ impatience and concern for detail prevented the speaker from
proceeding. Therefore, in Example 3 above, Gabi advised students at
the outset not to bother recording certain statistics. In Example 4 below,
Agi attempted to deliver her lecture, but repair sequences impeded her
until Kati entered the discussion:
Agi: Blegiose. So it wa:s - (Belgiose) - the captain of Kassa who attacked

Bocskay
J: Why?
Agi: A -
J: When?
Agi: [When? In 1604.
Kati: [You don’t - have, you know you don’t have to write it down.
every detail -just listen.
At other times, however, Kati underscored key aspects of the student’s

material to be noted for future reference:
522 TESOL QUARTERLY

5. Agi: A::nd the pre- peace tr- treaty they signed, gave: freedom - in -
religion, a:nd connected four countries to Transylvania, - [so
Transylvania
Kati: [Agi:: - sorry Agi, I’m sorry to interrupt you. ((To class)) Did
you: - have -it written down in your exercise books? The:: terms
of the peace treaty of Bécs.
SSS: Yeah
Kati: Yes? Everybody? Those who don’t have it, could you please (write)
them down now, because they are very important, because this
peace treaty will be renewed later on
When audience input seemed unnecessarily detailed, trivial, or con-
fusing, Kati tried to clarify matters and get the student lecture back
on track. The number and kinds of questions posed by classmates—
not just by the teacher—and requests for the student to slow down,
to repeat information, and so on contrasted sharply with the traditional
felelés. Recall that in the latter students were required to speak fluently,
to avoid repetition, and to ignore the rest of the class. Furthermore,
students spoke during recitations only when required to do so. Exam-
ple 6 contains student interventions about the manner of delivery in
a student lecture:
6. Anikó: Khm khm. So (1.2) Bocskay was born in: 1557, a::nd - his family
belonged to the wealthier part of the - lesser nobility, (1.5)
a::nd he was a - page in the court of the Habsburgs, a::nd then
he ((looks up and sees puzzled looks)) - page
Kati: [Gróf ((count))
Anikó: [then he returned to Transylvania
S: Kicsit lassabban ((a bit slower))
(4.4)
Anikó: Fro:m 1592, he was a captain in Várad . . . ((several intervening
queries about misheard dates)) . . . a::nd: - Transylvania
couldn’t resist the Turks alone - so:: - hm - Transylvania - turned
into a battlefield, - a:nd everyone wa:s ah - disappointed, - a:nd
in 1602, mm Bocskay protested against the terror - of the - ah
Habsburgs, =
J: =15 what?
Anikó: 15 - no - 1602. (1.8) A::nd
V: [He did what?
S: [What happened?
Anikó: He:: - protested against the (2.0) ((S whispers; Anikó looks up,
smiling))
okay - I’ll slow down
Speaking about the historical figure Bocskay, Anikó referred to her
notes but maintained enough eye contact with the class (and not just
the teacher as in a felelés) to realize she was not communicating effec-
tively. She repeated the polysemous word page, for example, whose
AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF IMMERS1ON CLASSROOMS 523

meaning in this context was apparently unclear for some students.
(Kati then supplied the Hungarian equivalent, gróf.) It was not simply
their lack of familiarity with expressions or dates that perplexed the
students but also the rapidity of the speech. Hence, a student (S) called
out “Kicsit lassabban” (a bit slower). Later, in the last line of the same
segment, students’ whispers and facial expressions again signaled to
Anikó that she was covering the material too quickly; she acknowledged
this with the utterance “Okay-I’ll slow down.” Thus, in effect, Anikó’s
classmates were providing feedback related to behaviors associated
with good teaching. Likewise, Kati redirected students’ attention when
it strayed from essential content. Thus, students were socialized
through linguistic interactions into appropriate role behaviors for his-
tory teachers and students (but not necessarily for reciters). A compre-
hensive repository of historical knowledge was still required for exami-
nations, and all teachers and students, DL or not, were held accountable
for the standard, ministry-mandated curriculum. Therefore, lecturers
(much like their teacher) provided facts, stories, descriptions, and eval-
uations while their peers normally took notes. What was striking, how-
ever, was the extent to which lectures were actively coconstructed by
participants (i.e., lecturer, audience, Kati)—the DL students’ degree
of involvement in the processes of transmitting, comprehending, and
evaluating the substance of the historical texts.
Furthermore, the students produced many of these spontaneous
comments and questions in English as opposed to Hungarian. A sig-
nificant finding was that a good deal of the observed social and aca-
demic communication in these classes was conducted in English, de-
spite the obvious linguistic and social obstacles and awkwardness of
conducting L2-medium exchanges in upper-level content classes when
the teacher and her teenaged students are nonnative speakers of that
language (see Tarone & Swain, 1995). In relation to this observation,
immersion research elsewhere has shown that students’ oral and writ-
ten FL production, although quite fluent, is often marred by inaccura-
cies of various types—syntactic, morphological, lexical, and sociolin-
guistic (e.g., Lyster, 1987; McLaughlin, 1985; Pellerin & Hammerly,
1986; Plann, 1977; Selinker, Swain, & Dumas, 1975; Swain, 1985).
This finding is attributed to too little productive FL use across a suffi-
ciently wide range of sociolinguistic variables, too much content-based
interaction without corrective (focus-on-form) feedback in the class-
room, and to insufficient motivation on the part of the students to use
or develop their L2 production skills beyond a certain level. How,
then, was English language use being treated in the English-medium
history classrooms at Nagyváros?
In 2nd- and 3rd-year classes at Nagyváros, problems with English
524 TESOL QUARTERLY

were sometimes addressed by students (directly) or by Kati (often less
directly, through restatement with correction):
7. Maria: . . . they wanted to have a National Convent. ((second time term

was misused))
(1.9)
S: ((student in background utters “convention”))
Kati: Convention.
Maria: Convention?
(1.3) And - they wanted to suspect - the king . . .
((several) turns later . . . ))
Maria: Uhm what’s the difference between - NAMES I mean - there
is a National uh Assembly the uh Legislative Assembly and -
National Convention is just the NAME different o:r - is the
function. different too.
Students appeared to incorporate the suggested linguistic changes

in their responses even over several turns, as in the previous example.
In lessons with a focus on content over form, EFL grammatical or
lexical inaccuracies were often overlooked unless they constituted (a)
obstacles to communication (e.g., in lexical semantics: convent instead
of convention, shown above); (b) basic grammar slips (e.g., fighted instead
of fought); (c) technically incorrect historical terms (e.g., overseeing in-
stead of supervising communities); or (d) other salient, repeated errors.
In some cases, the student lecturer also solicited input regarding the
correct EFL term (or, conversely, asked for the corresponding Hungar-
ian technical term):
8. Anikó: and so the Habsburgs, who were - ah - initially - ah - ah

hogy van az, hogy kibérelve? ((’’How [do you say] that, how is
kibérelve?”))
S: Rent ((SSS laugh))
Kati & SS: Hire
Anikó: Hired by the: - ah=
S: = But it’s not hired
Anikó: Okay - so -
J: Paid by.
Anikó: Paid by the Habsburgs, so the Hajdus was - initially - who
were initially - paid by the Habsburgs, ah - then supported -
Bocskay, because of his promises . . .
In Example 8, Anikó, seeking an English expression corresponding

to kibérelve, elicited three translations from others: rent, hire(d), and
paid. Kati’s suggestion, hired, was contested by one student, and another
suggested paid, which Anikó accepted and used. This excerpt high-
lights an interesting paradox created by these DL programs and one

often mentioned by teachers and students. The widely held view in a
Hungarian academic high school is that teachers should (and do) have
expert knowledge of their subject area. Here, however, teachers must
demonstrate competence in EFL as well as content. And, although DL
teachers may be extremely proficient in English, students often have—
or believe they have—a superior grasp of the language across a wider
range of situations, registers, and subject areas and often have better
pronunciation as well. In some of Kati’s classes, this situation may have
accounted for her general lack of concern for the form of students’
utterances, concentrating on the substance instead. It also sent a mes-
sage to students to follow suit.
In the Nagyváros lectures, therefore, students—and especially the
inquisitive boys in the front row—were just as likely as the teacher to
correct the speaker’s English or to make comments about the content.
They also did this when Kati herself was lecturing, as the following
example shows; student input, including laughter, is flagged:
9. Kati: . . . Köprülü Mohamed [Turkish military leader]. So he very soon
stabilized the political life of Turkey, and then he decided - to
punish Rákóczi for his disobedience,
S: Mert. ((Why?))
Kati: because he did not ask permission to go to Poland and when
Köprülü Mohamed sent messa - messages to him asking to return
he just he thought he was one of those Turkish leaders who are -
who have no real power so he did not obey the orders . . . . He
devastated the capital of Transylvania, the - and the army which
was uh on his way back to Transylvania was captured, by the
Turks and was taken to the Crimean Island
S: How?
Y: How?
Kati: Only - only Rákóczi György the second could escape.
S: But we
((a few turns later)) . . .
S: How did they manage to do that the whole - the whole army?
But how. but how.
Kati: They were outnumbered [probably
S: [(By boat from) Transylvania. Good.
Kati: No they didn’t need boots ((pronunciation for “boats”))
S: Boats ((laughs))
SSS: ((loud laughter, especially from boys))
Kati: Boats ((laughs?))
S: (It’s not an) island
Kati: It’s (a) peninsula rather. Sorry it’s not (x).
S: Hát akkor nem csoda. ((Then it’s not surprising))
In this example, then, in addition to posing numerous questions and

predicting Kati’s next utterance, the students drew attention to her
526 TESOL QUARTERLY

mispronunciation of the word boat and the fact that she had mistakenly
situated the (Crimean) event on an island instead of a peninsula. One
might wonder why Hungarian teachers would tolerate student input
to the point of open mockery, especially when they have traditionally
enjoyed students’ overt deference and have controlled classroom dis-
course (often by means of the felelés). The EFL challenge in immersion
content areas has in fact posed numerous problems for certain teach-
ers, particularly those who lack classroom experience or fail to demon-
strate a sophisticated knowledge of the content area (this also applies
to some extent to expatriates) in addition to being deficient in English.
For this reason, the turnover among new Hungarian DL content teach-
ers has been quite high. Many of them seek further practice in British
or U.S. schools, for example, before returning to face the sometimes
hypercritical DL students in Hungary and the demands of preparing
lessons and materials in another language with few resources available
(Duff, in press-b). Others may opt to teach in non-DL programs or to
use their language skills elsewhere. Kati’s case is somewhat different,
however. Although she had been teased more in her earlier teaching
years, she persevered and gained confidence, proficiency, and a reputa-
tion for her efficacy. She was thus regarded highly by her students.
Their feedback about her English was neither as common nor delivered
with the same ill intent as it sometimes was in classes with less popular
teachers.
In addition to students’ role in ensuring that appropriate, compre-
hensible English was being used, they negotiated understandings re-
lated to the historical and geographical content of Kati’s and their
classmates’ oral accounts:
11. Anikó: (Bocskay) went back to his estates in Bihar, a:nd he: tried to
make - contacts - a - tried to get in - in co-contact with the::
Transylvanians, who lived under -Turkish oppression. (2.1)
A::nd (0.7) after lo:ng consideration, he gave up - his former
opinion, a ::nd he didn’t support the Habsburgs anymore,
a::nd he wa:s ready to help the Turks, to liberate Aus -
[ah Transylvania.
V: [What did he give up?
Anikó: He: - gave up his former opinion about -so that he - supported
the Turks - a - the Habsburgs. A:nd
J: What? What?
Anikó: So:: - first he supported the Habsburgs, but then he was dis -
disappointed, ((SSS laugh)) a::nd he decided to - to help the
Turks. (0.3) A::nd then - a - because he thought that Turks
can liberate - Transylvania, but the Habsburgs can’t. (0.6) SO=
S1: = What - what should the - Turks liberate in ge - Transylvania?
S2: It was occupied by the
[Turks

Anikó: [From - from the: Habsburgs
D: But - wasn’t - that occupied by the Turks?
Anikó: Yes, it wa:s, but
Kati: Ah:: ((SSS laugh))
D: Was it. Was it?
Kati: Ah - you - might remember that - Anikó said that - Transylva-
nia was actually a battlefield - in between Turks and Habsburgs.
S: In (1552)?
Kati: A:: - I’d say until:: 15 - 9 - 8.
From a neo-Vygotskian perspective, this degree and type of scaffolded
involvement (or apprenticeship; Rogoff, 1990) in a cognitive/narrative
task is an important precursor to learning or development (e.g., Cole,
1985; Lantolf & Appel, 1994; Swain, 1995; Wells & Chang-Wells,
1992; Wertsch, 1985). Here confusion surrounded Anikó’s point that
Transylvania had been a battleground for two competing outside
forces in a discussion of Bocskay’s historical role in Transylvania (an
ethnically Hungarian region of present-day Romania, where Bocskay
was a prince from 1605 to 1606). When Anikó failed to clarify whom
the Turks were liberating Transylvania from, and D (a boy in the front
row reputed to be the smartest student in his class) urged Anikó to
explain, Kati took the floor, repeating something Anikó herself had
said earlier. In this way, the teacher utilized the lecturer’s own contribu-
tion, foregrounding key elements students had not yet synthesized.
When students were thus stretched to the limits of their own under-
standings and reasoning, the teacher provided a more seasoned histori-
an’s perspective.
Example 12, from a 3rd-year group presentation in another of
Kati’s classes, illustrates the means for jointly establishing “truth” and
personal accountability for this truth in a student’s narrative about
Rasputin. It furthermore reveals how history students must, given the
huge amount of content that exists in that discipline, select, prioritize,
organize, and critically evaluate information in consultation with the
teacher and one another:
12. Dóra: . . . and uh Alexandra was uh praying a lot for curing his son
and then they called uh many doctors to cure him, and then
Rasputin came and uh he was thought to be a man of God
(1.0), and uh (.4) ((other Ss take notes)) he cured him in - in
two nights or so - or during one night ((smiles))
V: ((softly)) Was it true?
(2.0)
Dóra: I dunno.
Kati: Sorry V? ((Kati approaches group in response to V’s question))
V: Was it true that he could cure this illness?
Kati: No he didn - did not actually cure it altogether but (on) several
occasions (it) [stopped
528 TESOL QUARTERLY

V: [I think that this illness cannot be=
Kati: = No he - he did not really cure it I think he just helped the -
boy
When V asked Dóra whether Rasputin really did cure Alexandra’s

and Nicholas’s son of hemophilia, Dóra, who had smiled when re-
porting the book’s account of the alleged cure, deferred to the teacher
for an answer—the truth. Similarly, a few moments later, another
student asked Dóra and then Kati whether Rasputin’s original name,
Yefimovich, was important—that is, worth remembering. Unlike some
task-based discussions in EFL language classes, group discussions or
student lectures about history were not designed to simply provide
oral practice in English for its own sake. That is not the intent of
content-based or immersion instruction. Material had to be mastered
and historical accounts had to be valid, at least from the teacher’s
perspective. However, in these DL classes students had many opportu-
nities to negotiate meanings of various kinds in English using different
group participation formations (i.e., more than in typical non-DL les-
sons), which yield the kind of input, interaction, and output that cur-
rent research claims are necessary for optimal L2 and content acquisi-
tion (Ellis, 1994; Gass & Selinker, 1994; Harklau, 1994; Larsen-
Freeman & Long, 1991; Swain, in press; Wells & Chang-Wells, 1992).
SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

Schools, generally thought to be conservative institutions, have not
been immune from many of the restructurings and ambiguities that
have resulted from decentralization (Horváth, 1990; Pataki, 1991). In
the past 5 years, for example, with the government loosening its grip
on educational matters, schools and local councils have been given
more autonomy, authority, and responsibility over curricular and fi-
nancial matters. DL secondary schools in Hungary represent an espe-
cially vital system in which many of these changes have occurred at
an accelerated and magnified rate, perhaps because they had a head
start before 1989 and perhaps also because the interface of Western
(or non-Hungarian) and Hungarian systems and the languages they
promote takes place day by day in classrooms, corridors, and teachers’
offices. In those spaces, teachers, visitors, and students, often with
different ideological, linguistic, and sociocultural backgrounds and
resources, come together in the name of a progressive new model of
education. In the innovative English-medium sections of the experi-
mental DL schools, for example, the utility of a rigorous genre of oral
assessment known as the felelés (recitation)—the Prussian cornerstone

of instructional discourse in many schools in Eastern Europe—was
being called into question by many teachers, students, and educational
reformers in the early 1990s. Consequently, it was being replaced by
other methods of oral interaction and assessment for which students
were just discovering the rules (Mehan, 1979). DL teachers such as
Kati chose to relinquish some of their control, formality, and discipli-
narianism in order to foster critical discussion in ways that might pre-
viously have been politically unwise and unwelcome, and to thereby
change the discourse of learning in their classrooms. The new partici-
pation patterns in the Nagyváros upper-level history classrooms, illus-
trated by student lectures, foregrounded the distribution of responsi-
bility for learning, speaking, reasoning, and even language/content
teaching. Kati also tried to reconfigure the social organization of lessons
through task-based discussions and group work. The relatively small
number of students in a class and their strong motivation, confidence,
and intellect bred lively exchanges in these lessons.
DL education boasts one possible means for raising levels of FL
proficiency among prospective content specialists in Hungary. How-
ever, several areas of concern require ongoing monitoring and possibly
pedagogical intervention. First, because the Hungarian curriculum,
ministry-approved textbooks, and the examination system have not
changed along with the international teaching staff and their various
ideologies, the schools sometimes ran the risk of not equipping students
with the competencies currently required and rewarded within that
system. Yet this Hungarian way is not well understood or appreciated
by many expatriate teachers at these schools, many of whom scorn
what they construe to be mindless authoritarian practices of rote mem-
orization and recitation, unable to foster higher-level critical-thinking
skills or academic essay writing.
Also, there is, even among some Hungarian nationals, the temptation
to reject all practices associated with the past without careful contem-
plation of the consequences of such a decision (Duff, in press-a). As
reported here, although DL participants in the three schools generally
viewed recitation activity with disdain, a relic of an unpleasant former
er that they felt no longer had a legitimate place in their schooling,
the article is not meant to be a critique of the centuries-old felelés, a
call for its wholesale abandonment in the name of newfound liberties,
or an indictment of its pedagogical or pragmatic value (Duff, in press-
a). To be sure, the felelés continues to have many strong advocates and
many gifted practitioners. However, the discourse practices associated
with it and its substitutes demand careful examination.
Finally, the communicative competence of some DL teachers and
students requires attention: There is a concern that the FL used by
Hungarian teachers (and some native speakers of English as well) in
530 TESOL QUARTERLY

the content classroom might obstruct rather than mediate student
learning in some cases. Ideally, opportunities for feedback and remedi-
ation would exist both for struggling teachers and students, but with
school finances already under grave pressure, inservice professional
development of this sort (beyond a student-teaching practicum) has
not been institutionalized, and some students must resort to private
tutors to coach them in content areas.
The Nagyváros school, like all Hungarian public institutions, has
faced its share of soul-searching over the past decade, stemming from
reductions in government funding, inadequate information about ex-
aminations, lack of comparative quantitative measures of students’
academic progress, and staff turnover. It is by now quite clear, how-
ever, that students at that school have been very successful in securing
positions at tertiary educational institutions.
Ethnographic studies of school discourse, on their own or in conjunc-
tion with other methodologies, though underrepresented in our field,
are very valuable in multicultural educational contexts where sociopo-
litical changes are occurring and (perceived) power asymmetries may
exist or result from differentially delivered FL/content education (see
Harklau, 1994). Naturally, the results of individual, descriptive case
studies such as the one presented here cannot be generalized to other
contexts (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993), but they do provide a basis for
comparison, a multifaceted account of what it means to know, use,
and learn languages in a rapidly changing world. This study also
suggests a direction for future research in FL immersion classrooms
in a variety of geopolitical and cross-linguistic contexts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Elinor Ochs and Russell Campbell for their assistance with this study,
which was supported by a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship. I am also grateful to
Erika Hasebe-Ludt, Bill Johnston, and reviewers for this journal for comments
on an earlier draft and to the participants in Hungary who made the research
possible.
THE AUTHOR
Patricia A. Duff is Assistant Professor of Language Education at the University

of British Columbia, where she teaches courses in TESL methodology, research
methodology, and SLA. Her research interests are in the areas of immersion
and FL education, task analysis, language socialization/acquisition, and qualitative
research methods.

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APPENDIX
Transcription Conventions
1. Participants: T = teacher; S = student; SS = two students; SSS = many students. Initials
(e.g., M, SZ, J) rather than S are used for students identifiable by name.
2. Left bracket ([): the beginning of overlapping speech, shown for both speakers; the
second speaker’s bracket occurs at the beginning of the line of the next turn rather
than in alignment with previous speaker’s bracket.
3. Equal sign (=): speech that comes immediately after another person’s, shown for both
speakers (i.e., latched utterances)
4. (#): marks the length of a pause; (.2) is 2/10 of a second; (2.0) is 2 seconds.
5. (Words): the words in parentheses ( ) were not clearly heard; (x) = unclear word; (xx)
= two unclear words; (xxx) = three or more unclear words.
6. Underlined words: spoken with emphasis.
7. CAPITAL LETTERS: loud speech.
8. Double parentheses: ((Comments, like laughs, coughs, T writes on board; relevant details
pertaining to interaction; or gloss for Hungarian when there is code switching)).
9. Colon (:): sound or syllable is unusually lengthened, for example, rea::lly lo:ng.
10. Period (.): terminal falling intonation.
11. Comma (,): rising, continuing intonation.
12. Question mark (?): high rising intonation, not necessarily at the end of a sentence.
13. Unattached dash ( - ): a short, untimed pause (e.g., less than 0.2 seconds).
14. One-sided attached dash (- ) : a cut-off often accompanied by a glottal stop (e.g., a self-
correction); a dash attached on both sides reflects spelling conventions or a glottal stop.

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Cultures of Writing: An Ethnographic

Comparison of L1 and L2 University
Writing/Language Programs
DWIGHT ATKINSON
Auburn University
VAI RAMANATHAN
University of Alabama
Nonnative-speaking (NNS) undergraduates at U.S. universities fre-

quently proceed from ESL or English for academic purposes writing
classes directly into freshman composition. Although this sequence
of events may be an effective means of getting students into the
academic writing mainstream, there have been some suggestions to
the contrary. Taking an ethnographic approach, this study describes
the contrasting cultural norms of academic writing and academic
writing instruction at a large U.S. university. It then compares these
differing viewpoints in order to identify difficulties that NNSs might
experience in proceeding from the former program to the latter.
A s budgetary pressure increases on U.S. universities to mainstream

L2 English writers as quickly as possible (Santos, 1992), a bur-
geoning literature suggests that L1 composition practices may be prob-
lematic for such writers. Thus, Scollon (1991) argues that the emphasis
in certain L1 composition pedagogues on the development of a mature
and self-expressive voice confounds Asian students because the indi-
vidualism implicit in this concept does violence to these students’ views
of self. Similarly, Inghilleri (1989) finds the notion of discovering form
in the process of writing (as advocated, e.g., by Murray, 1978) to be
part of a hidden pedagogy that disadvantages L2 English writers vis-
à-vis their native-writer peers. Work by Land and Whitley (1989),
Santos (1992), and Silva (1993a, 1993b) likewise indicates that the
academic success of L2 writers of English maybe negatively affected by
the uncritical application of L1 writing pedagogies to that population.
The present study seeks to identify some of the crucial differences
between the practices of both thinking about and teaching writing in
L1 versus L2 writing/language programs in U.S. universities. These
539
differences are viewed largely from a cultural perspective, that is, as
part and parcel of the divergent social practices, or Discourses (Gee,
1990), of the L1 composition- versus ESL-teaching communities. Al-
though these two differing world views may be masked by allegiance
to superficially similar paradigms of writing and writing instruction,
they are in fact the products of two distinct cultures—with their own
oft-contrasting norms of what academic writing is, what constitutes
good academic writing, and how the latter can best be communicated
in the classroom.
MOTIVATION AND METHODS
The starting point for this research project was a perceived problem.
At the large U.S. university where this research was carried out, under-
graduate nonnative speaker (NNS) writers were often required to
proceed from writing classes in the university’s ESL institute (hereafter
English Language Program, or ELP) directly into a 2-semester compo-
sition sequence offered by the University Composition Program (UCP).
As a teacher of ELP writing classes, the first author was alarmed to
hear his UCP peers generally lamenting the poor writing abilities of
NNS students who had made this transition. What was more, some of
the very characteristics that the first author and his ELP colleagues
stressed in their teaching of academic writing (e. g., the use of an
overall deductive pattern of text organization) were singled out by
UCP teachers as targets for criticism. Further discussion with both
UCP and ELP instructors suggested that serious disjunctions existed
in the ways the two programs conceptualized and taught writing. With
the full cooperation of teachers and administrators in both programs,
we undertook a comparative study to investigate these differences.
Ethnographic research methods (e.g., Spradley, 1979, 1980; Zahar-
lick & Green, 1991) were adopted in this study as the most appropriate
means of examining educational institutions from a cultural perspec-
tive. Although, to our knowledge, no other ethnographically oriented
research on university writing/language programs has yet been under-
taken, an active tradition of applying such methods to the study of
small-scale Western professional organizations (e.g., Agar, 1977;
Geertz, 1983; Knorr-Cetina, 1983; Latour & Woolgar, 1986) provides
ample precedent for our work.
The research questions guiding our investigation were broad ones.
First and foremost, we wanted to know what attitudes and behaviors
regarding academic writing and its teaching pervaded the organiza-
tions designed to teach it. That is, we were interested in the cultural
540 TESOL QUARTERLY

“thought-styles” (Fleck, 1979) or “conventions for construing reality”
(Bizzell, 1982) existing in each program, in resulting program-level
norms, and in the socialization practices (Watson-Gegeo, 1988) that
led to the maintenance of these norms and conventions. Second and
less centrally, we wanted to know how these more general concepts
were manifested in teacher behavior, both in the classroom and be-
yond. The relative emphasis placed on understanding program-level
world views rather than specific teacher practices followed from our
reading of the educational ethnographic literature. This body of work
overwhelmingly emphasizes the classroom and the interactions that
take place within it, to the exclusion of higher-level loci of educational
policy and control.
The research took place over a 10-month period corresponding
approximately to the 1993–1994 school year. Each of the two research-
ers had extensive experience in one of the two programs studied—
the first author as a full-time ELP teacher for 3 years and a faculty
supervisor and teacher for 1, and the second author as a full-time
UCP teacher for 3 years and an instructional coordinator/teacher for
an additional 2. We devised a roughly symmetrical research plan that
called for the researcher not connected with a particular program to
conduct a series of observations and ethnographic interviews within
that program, relying on the other researcher as a guide and native
consultant/informant. As we gathered the data, we worked closely
together to interpret them, and the outcome of this procedure served
to guide further data. collection and interpretation.
Six types of data were collected in the course of this study. First,
we observed and participated in four teacher-orientation sessions (two
per program). These were 1–3 hour sessions that were part of prese-
mester orientation programs for new instructors in both the UCP and
ELP. Second, we conducted seven ethnographic interviews (four for
the ELP, three for the UCP) with administrators in both programs;
these interviews lasted 1–2 1/2 hours each. Third, we conducted ethno-
graphic interviews with six experienced writing teachers—three per
program. These interviews lasted from 1 to approximately 2 1/2 hours
each and focused partly on teacher-written comments on selected stu-
dent essay drafts. Fourth, we observed one writing class for interna-
tional students in each of the two programs, totaling 27 hours of
observation in the UCP class and 20 hours in the ELP class. Each class
was taught by one of the six experienced teachers we interviewed.
Fifth, we collected various types of written documents from each pro-
gram. These included teacher and student orientation handbooks,
writing assignments, curricular materials, sample lesson plans, student
essay drafts with teacher-written comments, program memos, course
LI AND L2 UNIVERSITY WRITING PROGRAMS 541

and program descriptions, and self-studies and external evaluations.
Finally, we recorded miscellaneous notes based on random ethno-
graphic observations made by each researcher in her/his own program.
THE CULTURE OF THE UCP

The UCP is a well-established and well-run composition program
that is nationally recognized by its peers. As a political and economic
entity it is freestanding within the Humanities division of the universi-
ty’s School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, having broken away from
the English department in 1978. The program is staffed by a director,
three academic directors, support staff, and approximately 90 instruc-
tors (93 for the 1993–1994 school year) at the assistant lecturer rank
who are graduate students in English, linguistics, professional writing,
religion, philosophy, and several other departments.1 A small number
of these instructors (12 in 1993—1994) also act as instructional coordina-
tors who are directly responsible for supervising groups of three or
four 1st-year instructors. Each UCP instructor is responsible for teach-
ing one course (of no more than 22 students) per semester, as well as
for putting in approximately 5 hours a week tutoring in the writing
center. The overall enrollment of the UCP itself is more than 2,200
students per semester, with NNSs accounting for less than 20% of this
number.
Partly because they are admitted to the university on the basis of
scholastic promise, and partly for program-specific reasons such as the
large number of sections needing to be taught each semester, the
majority of UCP instructors do not have prior teaching experience.
The UCP therefore mounts an intensive orientation/training program
for new instructors at the beginning of each school year, as well as
providing ongoing teacher development over the course of the year.
These orientation and development sessions represent critical sites of
socialization into the philosophy, curricular requirements, pedagogical
techniques, and grading practices of the program.
The UCP offers five different courses for undergraduates—a 1-
semester “basic writing” class, a two-course composition sequence for
native English-speaking students (hereafter, 301–302), and a two-
1
Each academic director in the UCP manages a particular element of the program—curricu-
lum, evaluation, or the writing center. In terms of experience, expertise, and job status,
yhe UCP director positions are roughly equivalent to those occupying the supervisor position
m the ELP (see section entitled The Culture of the ELP). However, academic directors
in the UCP share instructor supervision responsibilities with the program’s instructional
coordinators.
542 TESOL QUARTERLY

course sequence, paralleling the native speaker (NS) courses, for NNS
international students (311–312).2 Undergraduates are required to
complete the appropriate two-course sequence as a general require-
ment for graduation from the university.
Although native and nonnative English speakers are placed into
separate classes in the UCP, the same course objectives, pedagogical
approaches, curricula, and grading rubrics are used across these two
groups. (One exception to this generalization exists in our data: UCP
instructors reported being more lenient with NNSs’ grammatical errors
than with NSs’ when grading.) Although instructors of NNS sections
are required to have had previous experience teaching NS sections in
the program, once assigned a NNS section they tend to receive the
same assignment in future semesters. Instructors with prior ESL expe-
rience in particular are favored for assignments to NNS sections.
Course objectives for UCP classes are explicitly codified and con-
stantly referred to by instructor and administrator alike. They are
introduced in speech and writing, reviewed, and further explicated
both during the new-instructor orientation and, for the benefit of
students, at the beginning of all courses. In addition, administrators
and coordinators make a concerted effort to ensure that these princi-
ples actually drive pedagogy and assessment in weekly meetings among
themselves and with instructors. These objectives therefore act as cen-
tral principles around which much of the activity of the UCP culture
is organized. Course objectives for the two-course sequences are pro-
vided in Figure 1.
These objectives are realized in the classroom in various ways. In
relation to Composition 301/311’s first objective (“to develop a sound
writing process. . . ”) observations and interviews revealed that instruc-
tors introduce various components of “the writing process’’—such as
invention and revision strategies—in the first half of the semester,
and virtually all student writing goes through at least two drafts, with
either instructors or peer evaluators offering comments on each draft.
The other course objectives, however, lend themselves less readily to
simple realization as, unlike process writing, they do not come with a
set of pedagogical practices built in.
The other course objectives, however, are by no means neglected
for this reason; thus, the second objective listed for 301/311, “critical
2
0ur classroom observations in the UCP, as well as some of the other data collected, focused
on first-semester (i.e., 311) classes. This focus is justified by the fact that these classes
represented the primary site of student socialization into the practices of the UCP—practices
that the student was assumed to have internalized and that could therefore be built on in
the second-semester (312) class. This assumption is made explicit, for example, in Figure
1, Item II.
L1 AND L2 UNIVERSITY WRITING PROGRAMS 543

FIGURE 1
Instructional Objectives for 301-302 and 311-312 Course Sequences
I. Composition 301 and 311 have three major objectives, each of which involves a num-
ber of other important skills and abilities:
1. To develop a sound writing process appropriate to academic writing. This means
learning how
a. to develop and evaluate concepts to use in writing;
b. to organize and produce an initial draft efficiently; and
c. improve your first draft through revision and editing.
2. To develop good critical thinking skills. This involves learning how
a. to analyze issues from a variety of perspectives;
b. to develop logical critiques and well-supported arguments; and
c. to use writing to aid your thinking and to increase your understanding of complex
concepts.
3. To gain familiarity with the conventions of academic discourse. This includes learning
how
a. to address the conceptual expectations of academic audiences;
b. to meet basic formal and stylistic conventions of academic writing; and
c. to employ appropriate criteria to evaluate your own writing and that of your peers.
II. Composition 302 and 312 continue to foster those skills that were central to Composi-
tion 301 and 311: the development of a sound writing process, good critical thinking
abilities, and an understanding of the conventions of academic discourse. In Composi-
tion 302 and 312, however, these skills form the foundation of a set of more special-
ized objectives:
1. To acquire competence in conducting intertextual argumentation and analysis. This in-
cludes learning how
a. to use ideas derived from outside readings appropriately within your own writing,
so that these concepts support without supplanting your own ideas;
b. to orient your text to the theoretical perspectives of the discipline or field within
which you are writing;
c. to anticipate and respond to potential counterarguments; and
d. to quote and document sources accurately and carefully.
2. To cultivate strong academic reading skills. This means learning how
a. to read complex texts closely, to derive a full and detailed understanding of the in-
formation therein;
b. to read actively, to serve your own purposes and needs as a reader and writer; and
c. to read critically, weighing evidence, posing questions, and evaluating texts against
a relevant social and conceptual background.
3. To enhance your ability to produce more extended forms of academic writing. This
includes learning how
a. to engage in a deeper and more complex analysis of issues and ideas;
b. to organize and maintain control over longer pieces of writing; and
c. to employ a more mature style, one that in tone and diction provides implicit rein-
forcement of your explicit claims.
Note. From Student Guide to the University Composition Program 1993–94.
thinking,” appears to receive considerable attention at all levels of the

program. Observation of class sessions, for example, revealed that
teachers consistently prodded students to “deepen” their thinking on
a topic (whether expressed in speaking or in writing)—to “go beyond”
surface-level observations and “consider both sides of the issue.”
544 TESOL QUARTERLY

Teacher feedback on student essays also foregrounded these points,
as seen in the following comments recorded on a written-response
form. 3
1. COGENCY: You should probably consider the fact that Benetton’s ads
are not very effective in the U.S. Further, you need to be more convincing
as to how Benetton appeals to the “upper class.”
SUPPORT: Provide further insight into how the company’s ads are effec-
tive! Don’t just describe what the ads do.
GENERAL COMMENTS AND GRADE: Good start. You need to be
sure you’re aware of the other side. Anticipate questions and argue for
why you are right. It seems that you end up simply describing the com-
pany’s goals. [Grade:] C. [WC1]4
In interviews, UCP administrators and veteran instructors likewise

underscored the importance of developing critical thinking skills, In
describing the program’s general role in the university, for example,
one administrator elaborated on the importance of critical thinking
as expressed in Point 1.2.a in Figure 1:
2. Well, I think this is one of the reasons that we focus on argumentative
and analytical writing, but I think that is it’s a logic of good reasons—
[you] openly declare your position in a rational form and you support
it. You consider your opinion in the context of other opinions. It isn’t
adversarial, however—it is one that tries to have some consideration of
your own feelings, the fact that your position may be wrong, that the
other position has reasons that need to be given some weight, so on. I
think these kinds of argumentative presuppositions are part of just the
general belief in intellectual honesty, and [you] admit you’ve made an
error, you don’t try to conceal it, you point it out and [ ] you don’t accept
ideas just because they sound good at the start. [IA2]5
An additional means by which the UCP encourages complexity of

thought—and an element of the UCP curriculum that is considered
3
This form consisted of a set of standard terms—written in capital letters and underlined
as in Example l—used to respond to and evaluate essays across the UCP. The other standard
terms featured on this form were Control, Addressing the Issue, Style, and Grammar and
Mechanics, although the teacher had no comments on these points.
4
All data cited in this study are coded according to the following system, corresponding to
the data types described in the Motivations and Methods section: first letter—C = classroom
observation; I = ethnographic interview; O = orientation session; W = written document;
N = ethnographic notes; second letter—observation/interview/session/document/note iden-
tification letter; numbers—transcript or publication page numbers.
5
In quotations of spoken interview data in this paper, the following transcription conventions
are used: = intervening text has been removed; [ ] = unintelligible (as recorded) speech;
italics = emphasis marking via raised voice pitch, quality, and/or volume. To make the
interview data read more easily, double dashes, commas, and periods have been added and
speech dysfluencies removed; for the same reason, grammatical elements that appear to
have undergone ellipsis have occasionally been restored. These elements are placed in filled
brackets.

central to the teaching of writing—is in the preparation of writing
prompts, or assignments as they are referred to within the program.
These are typically full-page descriptions composed of not only a
specific writing task (closely resembling a standard writing prompt)
but also a general statement of the purpose of the assignment, an
introduction to the topic, a list of readings, and a schedule for the
assignment’s completion. One full day of the new-instructor orienta-
tion is devoted to the specifics of assignment writing, and an important
part of the coordinators’ ongoing duties is to check the assignments that
new instructors prepare during their 1st year. Appendix A contains a
typical “good” assignment—that is, one in which topic and task are
formulated so that their complexity and open-endedness are empha-
sized, and in which demands are made (in the final paragraph) for a
complex and original written response.6
The third and final objective of the 301/311 course, “to gain familiar-
ity with the conventions of academic discourse,” is in some ways per-
haps the most difficult to realize. UCP teachers and administrators
generally recognize that academic discourse is not a unitary phenome-
non and that the choice of any particular pedagogical model may be
open to criticism for that reason. The model that the program has
chosen to adopt is the analytical argumentative essay, as succinctly defined
by one UCP administrator (see also Example 2 above):
3. In terms of the current model that we use, clearly we are in both of our
courses or in all of our courses attempting to get the student to write
strong analytical argumentative writing with a good strong thesis that
propels the reader through the rest of the paper, good strong use of
evidence—all those types of things that you would think of. [IB3]
Other terms that are habitually used to describe the UCP’s model of
academic writing are issues-oriented, thesis-driven, and intertextual. These
terms appear to function as code words or technical vocabulary for
program instructors and administrators. Notably, however, the analyti-
cal argumentative essay is frequently defined by these same groups
oppositionally (i.e., in terms of what it is not). This phenomenon re-
flects a larger ongoing debate in the field of rhetoric/composition as
to the “best” approach to teaching writing (see Johns, 1990; Santos,
1992). Thus program administrators very frequently draw a contrast
between their own version of academic discourse and the writing re-
sulting from vitalist theories and practices of composition. The latter
approach, as described by one UCP administrator,
6
This assignment was both part of a standard set of curricular materials that all new instruc-
tors use during the first 5 weeks of the semester and the first regular writing assignment
given to students by the veteran UCP instructor whose class we observed.
546 TESOL QUARTERLY

4. is just the notion that you do lots of free writing, and you do lots of
confessional and self-expressive writing, and that’s the way to get people
to write better . . . . But I don’t think that kind of writing—for one thing
it’s very egotistical in a sense—and I think that’s one of the associations
they make in the English department, kind of a romantic legacy there—
that what counts is my idea and my truth, and it’s not a very humanitarian
dialogical ethos [ ]. That’s inconsistent with what I would see as what
universities [should do]—if you consider that rationality is intersubjective
rather than subjective. [IA8]
UCP administrators tend to class early proponents of process writing

such as Peter Elbow, James Britton, and Ken Macrorie in this vitalist
camp, which they usually describe as fostering the writing of “personal
narrative.” At the same time, program administrators acknowledge the
contributions of the vitalist group to their own approach to academic
writing, especially in the emphasis on writing as a process and the
notion of the workshop approach to teaching writing (i.e., wherein in-
structors act as facilitators and consultants rather than authoritative
transmitters of knowledge); both of these influences are considered
to be of major pedagogical importance to the UCP.
An additional kind of contrast used to define the UCP’s approach
to academic writing oppositionally concerns rhetorical form. In this
regard the five-paragraph essay is considered anathema to the full and
natural development of ideas and, as a result, is highly proscribed by
UCP personnel. One program administrator defines the five-para-
graph essay form as follows:
5. You have an intro, conclusion, body paragraphs, the thesis that divides
up some sort of topic in three sections, each of which is handled by the
appropriate first, second, and final paragraph. It’s a very mechanical
form . . . it limits [but] I think it’s possibly useful in a certain set of [ ]
students with instructors that are teaching 30, 35 students in our junior
high school. But it seems to me almost crippling [to] the ability to think—
I mean the world does not neatly parse itself into three sections on every
topic. [IA9]
A term that is almost exclusively applied in the UCP to this five-

paragraph essay format is formulaic. As evidenced in the UCPS general
assessment rubric (see Figure 2 below for excerpts), overly formulaic
organization is an important signifier of D work. Similarly, in a set
exercise (more fully described below) that is used to socialize both new
instructors and students into the program’s standards of assessment,
a model essay is strongly criticized and receives a grade of C largely
on account of its basic formulaicity. Discussing this essay as part of
the larger exercise, conducted during new-instructor orientation, one
L1 AND L2 UNIVERSITY WRITIING PROGRAMS 547

coordinator advised her charges, “The minute you see a five-paragraph
essay, it’s in the C range” (OA2).7
In opposition to the five-paragraph format, the approach to rhetori-
cal form advocated by the UCP is based on the idea that
6. If, as Wayne Booth has argued, “form is satisfied expectation,” then the
structure of a work is to be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in
raising and satisfying expectations within the reader. This provides a
useful way to nudge students beyond formulaic patterns of arrangement
and to tempt them into experimenting with forms that will elicit more
interesting expectations that in turn maybe satisfied in a more compelling
fashion. [WG1 .6]
This quotation from the 1993 Orientation Notebook —the basic guide
to UCP practices and procedures that new instructors receive during
their initial training—extends the rhetorical notion that form should
serve the writer’s purpose instead of the other way around. In particu-
lar, it highlights the reader-writer transaction, in which “traditional
product-based structural features such as thesis statements, topic sen-
tences, and transitions may be presented as . . . cueing devices”
[WG1.6]. Thus, students should be encouraged to employ such devices
in order to signal the audience that, inter alia, a central claim is being
made or a new perspective considered.
At the same time, UCP personnel seem to prefer a certain implic-
itness or subtlety to the writings their students produce, on the basis
that the most convincing form of persuasion/argumentation is not
always the most direct one. For example, in addition to advocating
the explicit cueing devices mentioned above, the Orientation Notebook
endorses connotative stylistic elements such as imagery, metaphor, and
personification as devices that can effectively provide implicit cues.
The fact that subtlety of approach, implicitness, and even a certain
emphasis on style are encouraged in the program is made clear in
the socialization procedure mentioned previously, wherein both new
instructors and students (at different times) are asked to grade a set of
model essays with reference to the UCP’s assessment rubric. Although
participants are encouraged to discuss their reasons for giving the
grades they decide on, the UCP staff has in fact already assigned a
grade to each essay, and the activity leader concludes discussion on
each paper by announcing and giving the rationale behind this grade.
The essay evaluated most highly by the program in this exercise—the
only A paper—is one that depends on moderately inductive organiza-
7
It is not always clear, however, that an absolute requirement for the five-paragraph essay
form is that it consist of five paragraphs. The model essay referred to here, for example,
actually had six paragraphs, although it was clearly organized into three separate paragraph
points.
548 TESOL QUARTERLY

tion and that is written in a comparatively sophisticated style, starting
off with an extended metaphor. When we observed this essay being
discussed in a class as part of the larger exercise, the instructor called
special attention to the initial use of metaphor and then commented
that, although the beginning was “interesting,” it could perhaps be
seen as not as “clear or straightforward” as that of a model essay
considered earlier. She then added, however, “The better essays are
often the ones I have to read again—the ones that make me stop and
think. The ones that make me say ‘Wow!’ ” (CA 14). Later, in wrapping
up the exercise, this instructor once again called attention to the effec-
tiveness of the A essay’s “implicit approach,” 8 and comments she made
in other class sessions similarly reinforced the value of implicitness
and subtlety.
To conclude this brief portrait of the UCP culture, excerpts from
the programwide grading rubric are given in Figure 2 by way of
summarization. The two sets of descriptors presented there instantiate
many of the characteristics of the UCP described above (for example,
its emphasis on critical thinking/complexity and style, and its proscrip-
tion of “formulaic organization”), and the reader is invited to examine
these descriptors as cultural artifacts in their own right. It need only
be added that the rubric is taken quite seriously throughout the UCP
as a means by which grading can be done as validly and reliably as
possible. 9
THE CULTURE OF THE ELP
Housed in the university’s School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the

ELP, like the UCP, is a widely recognized program that is free of
departmental affiliation. Founded in 1959, the ELP is responsible for
testing the English-language skills of incoming NNS students and for
providing instruction to those students whose performance does not
meet certain minimum standards.10 This program is run by a director,
an assistant” director responsible for nonacademic affairs, five faculty
8
In the case cited earlier of a separate iteration of this same exercise, the coordinator in
charge made comments on this essay that closely echoed the ones described here. That is,
she praised the essay for being, among other things, “very subtle.”
9
Notable in passing in the A rubric are (a) the abundance of metaphors of control and
power and (b) the stylized word-play (“thoughtful and thought-provoking,” “full (and fully
convincing) support”). Full rubrics are available from the authors.
10
New international students at the university are administered an in-house English profi-
ciency test that includes a 10-minute oral interview, a 30-minute essay, and three TOEFL-
like grammar/vocabulary components. Students are placed according to their performance
on this exam and, if they have tested into the program, are reevaluated during the 1st
week of classes.

FIGURE 2
Full Assessment Rubrics for D and A Writing
D (NO PASS) WRITING will offer a limited argument/analysis in response to the as-
signment, marked by several of the following weaknesses . . .
An implausible, unclear, incomplete, or inconsistent argument or analysis. The paper
lacks the cogency and purpose necessary for competent college-level writing; the paper
fails to exhibit careful thinking.
Inadequate, unconvincing, irrelevant, or derivative support. The paper accumulates (of-
ten paragraph by paragraph) derivative and/or anecdotal examples without integrating
them into a focused argument/analysis. The author relies on inappropriate—or weak—ex-
amples or reasoning to support the overall discussion. If sources are used, the author
may piece together writing from secondary sources without using it in the service of his
or her own argument or point of view. Alternatively, the author may not include enough
material or detail to support the purpose of the paper.
Flaws in organization, paragraph development, or logical transition. The paper lacks
structural fluency: organizational flaws cause a lack of overall coherence, undermining
the paper’s purpose. The reader is too often puzzled by the course the paper takes, or
the paper relies too exclusively on formulaic organization, thereby becoming stilted and
predictable.
Does not address the issues(s) set forth in the assignment seriously or thoughtfully.
The paper treats the issue(s) simplistically; the argument/analysis generally overlooks the
complexity of the issue(s) raised. The author doesn’t care enough about the subject or
the reader’s expectations and may fail to respond to all aspects of the writing task.
An inappropriate style or tone. The style and tone detract from the purpose and are in-
appropriate in terms of the academic discourse community.
Flaws in syntax, grammar, usage, or spelling. Mechanical errors detract from the pa-
per’s purpose or interfere with the reader’s comprehension. Significant problems in word-
ing or syntax make the writing unclear or confusing.
A WRITING will . . .
Present a cogent and insightful argument/analysis. The author responds to the assigned
topic in a consistently forceful manner that is not only thoughtful but thought-provoking.
Provide compelling support for the overall argument/analysis. The argument or analy-
sis receives full (and fully convincing) support; the author includes enough judiciously
chosen materials or details to emphatically support what he or she is trying to do. When
the author employs sources, he or she is critical and confident concerning their use, and
employs them to further his or her own authority and point of view.
Develop its argument or analysis with organisational clarity and logical force. The au-
thor controls the writer-reader transaction both explicitly and implicitly.
Demonstrate sophisticated exploration of the issue(s) set forth in the assignment. The
author is able to negotiate the complexities of the issue(s) raised in a provocative, con-
trolled manner. The author fully responds to the writing task, demonstrating a mature
knowledge about the subject and a judicious sense of its impact on the reader.
Employ a style that reinforces the paper’s effectiveness and advances its purpose
within the context of the academic discourse community.
Display maturity in sentence, variety, grammar, spelling, and usage. Surface errors are
virtually nonexistent; the reader is left free to enjoy the author’s style and tone and the
intellectual force of the writing.
550 TESOL QUARTERLY

supervisors, support staff, and (in 1993–1994) 22 instructors. As with
the UCP, ELP instructors are graduate students hired at the assistant
lecturer rank—most are enrolled in master’s or PhD programs in the
university’s School of Education or linguistics department. Virtually
all instructors have had some ESL teaching experience before joining
the ELP, where the normal teaching load is two courses per semester.
Like UCP administrators, but unlike that program’s instructional
coordinators, ELP supervisors are not normally graduate students.
Rather, they are university faculty who have been chosen for their
ESL experience and knowledge in curriculum development; teacher
training; and writing, reading, or spoken language instruction. Each
supervisor is in charge of one or more course levels (see below) and
is responsible for designing the curriculum used, as well as for supervis-
ing all instructors who teach, at those levels. Supervisors are also typi-
cally responsible for teaching one or more class sections at the levels
they supervise. Like the UCP, the ELP conducts an intensive 2-week
training period before the beginning of the school year, during which
supervisors socialize new instructors into various aspects of ELP cul-
ture. Thus the overall instructional philosophy of the program; ap-
proaches to teaching reading, writing, and speaking; and classroom
management all receive extensive coverage during this period.
In terms of its overall function in the university, the ELP sees itself,
according to its director, as offering communicatively based language
instruction in order
7. to raise students whose level of English—international students of course,
second language speakers of English—whose English is not adequate
for full-time university work to the level where they can do such work.
[IGI]
Fulfilling this goal, according to one supervisor, includes not only

fostering the “develop[ment of] fundamental skills, but a range of
study skills that will be useful to them [i.e., the students] in their various
classes” (IF1). The study skills mentioned here include note-taking,
summarizing, using the library efficiently, and active reading strategies
such as predicting and guessing. Regarding the “fundamental skills,”
two types of courses are offered in the ELP: those that treat the four
traditional skill areas together and those that focus on single skills,
such as academic writing. True to its communicatively based self-image,
however, in its courses the ELP provides extensive practice in actually
using these language skills in naturalistic contexts, which in the case
of four-skills courses leads to an “integrated skills” approach. That is,
as is assumed to be the case in the academic classroom, “[the skills are]
all mixed in together and there is a sort of natural progression from
reading to speaking to writing about a particular topic” (IF2). Going

hand in hand with this approach is the use of content-based syllabi;
that is, the language skills are put to use on a series of topics and
associated materials that “can be dealt within an academic way” (IG2).
Other pedagogical practices reflecting the influence of communicative
language teaching in the ELP include (a) an emphasis on group work
and learner-centered instruction, (b) the use of authentic (i.e., un-
adapted) texts, and (c) the deemphasis of grammatical instruction and
correction.
Unlike the UCP, the ELP offers a number of courses at four different
proficiency levels. Further, both undergraduate and graduate students
are taught in the program, although (in terms of numbers at least—see
Figure 3) the two groups are generally segregated. Figure 3 presents a
schematic of the ELP program, briefly describing the sequence of
course work by undergraduate/graduate status and major area, includ-
ing details of proficiency level, skills focus, and total number of stu-
dents for each course. Examination of the diagram will reinforce an
important difference between the UCP and the ELP that bears restat-
ing here—that writing, as just one of several skills regarded necessary
for the academic success of NNS students, receives a good deal less
emphasis overall in the latter program.
Given the two different types of skills focus and the wide range of
course levels, academic writing is also treated differently—and to some
extent is variably defined-in different parts of the ELP. Although
definitional matters are discussed in more depth below, we note here
that classes at the higher levels tend to emphasize the academic essay
as the main written genre whereas lower-level courses tend to divide
the time devoted to writing among essays and other academic literacy
tasks such as note-taking, summarizing, and paraphrasing. In regard
to the different ways in which writing is treated at the various course
levels, it is generally the case that the higher the course level, the
greater the proportion of curriculum and assessment devoted to
writing.
At the institutional level, the ELP professes primary allegiance to
the “process approach” to teaching academic writing. That is, the ELP
has, in the words of one supervisor:
8. adopted the process approach to writing, which means that in contrast

to the traditional mode of writing instruction where a student is presented
with a text that serves as a model to be imitated, we instead set a task,
and then give them an opportunity to try and respond to that particular
prompt, and then help them through several stages of redrafting to
polish and revise that draft. [IF23]
Reasons given by supervisors and instructors for preferring this

pedagogy over others are (a) that writers generally discover what they
552 TESOL QUARTERLY

FIGURE 3
Structure of the English Language Program
Note. Students enter at Levels 1–4 depending on proficiency test scores. Numbers in the
lower right-hand corners of boxes indicate the numbers of students in each course during
the fall 1993 semester (total, including two groups not described here, is 706). Dotted lines
indicate voluntary enrollment options in elective courses.a ELP 130–131 is a required two-
course sequence. Courses may be taken in either order. bNot depicted here are ELP 138
and 139, remedial support courses taken concurrently with 140-level courses by students
judged below level in writing (138) or speaking (139).

mean and how to express it only in the process of writing and (b) that
it helps students “to break out of this . . . ‘If I can’t write a perfect
sentence, there’s no way I’m going to write a perfect paper’ ” (IH8).
That process writing really is the main vehicle for writing instruction
in the ELP is indicated by the fact that both days of the new-instructor
orientation period devoted to teaching writing deal centrally with the
writing process. Thus, the 1st day’s workshop, entitled Introducing
the Writing Process, gives an overview of the process approach and
models strategies for “prewriting” and “drafting,” and the 2nd day’s
session, Responding to Academic Writing, is concerned largely with
the activity described in its title. More specifically, in both the latter
workshop and elsewhere in the ELP particular emphasis is put on
responding as a primary means of leading students to develop and
shape their written product in academically acceptable ways.
In its use of the writing process, then, as a major principle organizing
the teaching of writing, the ELP does not appear to differ qualitatively
from the UCP. When it comes, however, to actually defining the aca-
demic writing that ELP personnel describe themselves as teaching,
they are a good deal less explicit—and in some senses less unified—
than their UCP counterparts. Taking the latter point first, much of
the variability in a common definition has to do with two simple facts:
(a) as mentioned above, writing instruction at the lower levels is given
over partly to note-taking, summarizing, and related academic literacy
tasks; and (b) English for specific purposes courses, including ones
that focus explicitly on technical/scientific writing, make up part of the
ELP curriculum. These exceptions aside, however, ELP staff appear to
share a model of academic writing for pedagogical purposes, albeit a
less than fully articulated one.11 In the words of one supervisor, this
is “the classic academic essay style,” a notion he elaborated on as follows:
9. [Students should] be able to compose an original composition expressing

their point of view which is well organized and, well, I was going to say
“argued” though it is not always argumentative, so they have to be able
to shape their ideas in a form that is considered proper in academic
settings. [IF7]
The “proper” form referred to here—as other remarks by this indi-

vidual strongly suggest—is almost certainly a straight deductive rhetor-
ical structure. A second supervisor described this form in more detail
11
The contrast here with the UCP is striking: whereas the UCP’s approach to writing is
heavily—even exhaustively—documented in almost every area, ELP writing practices are
largely implicit. Interestingly, one ELP supervisor referred to the latter practices in his
interview as part of “an oral tradition.”
554 TESOL QUARTERLY

when he talked about the probusiness writing class he was supervising
and teaching:
10. I insist that students state a thesis, what in business writing class we
call proposition—we even have particular names for these things—
that [they] state it early on in the essay, that it becomes a controlling
statement—it controls the rest of the essay—that a small set of argu-
ments follows that broad, general statement, and that those arguments
should directly support that proposition. And that then within the par-
ticular paragraphs—I won’t say a single paragraph because I don’t
believe that—but within the paragraphs that are alloted to those more
specific arguments, I guess I would say subarguments and certainly
support for the arguments is featured. So there is a top-down form
here. [IH4]
Apart from the terms argument and possibly proposition —suggesting

a subgenre of academic writing that does not obtain programwide—
these remarks offer a fairly accurate characterization of the deductive
essay format generally advocated within the ELP. The approach is
encouraged through various classroom activities, one of which is peer
response to essay drafts. Peer responding generally takes place with
the aid of a feedback form (see Figure 4) that guides response in a
deductive direction.
The most important means of guiding students toward the deductive
essay format, however, appears to be the use of teacher comments on
student drafts. Thus the statement in Example 10 above was made in
the context of a discussion of the supervisor’s commenting practices,
and this statement accorded closely with his actual comments on stu-
dent papers. Other ELP personnel likewise professed a commitment
to commenting on essays in similarly directive ways. The potential
contradiction between these practices and the tenet of process writing
that students discover their own meaning and form in the writing
process is minimized in the minds of ELP teachers by the shared sense
that they are basically reacting to student writing in their comments,
rather than directing students a priori how or what to write. The
supervisor quoted in Example 10 made this point explicitly later in
the same interview. Referring to his own training in the ELP at a time
when he had been a graduate student instructor, he said:
11. I was taught not to present students with form a priori. I was taught
to have students write something and then at that point, once there’s
some kind of a product, to work through fairly nondirect means—
nondirect in the sense that we don’t say, “ Here’s the form, now fit what
you’ve written into the form,” [but] more like through written feedback
or conferencing [to] try to get the students to mold it into a shape that

FIGURE 4
ELP Peer Response Form for Essay Writing
Directions: Evaluate your own or another student’s essay, using the guidelines below.
Read and answer each question in turn.
Circle one
1. Does the essay have a title? Yes No
a. Does the title express the author’s point of view? Yes No
2. Is there an introductory paragraph? Yes No

a. If “yes,” does the introduction contain background information about
the controversy? Yes No
1. If “yes,” does the background information make you want to read
more about the subject? Yes No
b. If there is an introduction, does it contain a clear statement of the
author’s point of view (i.e., a “thesis statement”)? Yes No
1. If there is such a statement, does it also indicate the arguments
that will be presented in the body of the essay? Yes No
3. How many supporting arguments are presented, and what are they?
(list and number them below)
a. Are the arguments dealt with in separate paragraphs? Yes No
1. Does all the information in a particular paragraph deal with the
argument presented in that paragraph? Yes No
2. Is there enough supporting detail in each argument (facts, examples)? Yes No
b. Do the arguments proceed smoothly and logically from one to the next? Yes No
1. Are transitional phrases used for this purpose? Yes No
4. Does the essay have a conclusion? Yes No

a. Does the conclusion summarize the points made in the body? Yes No
NOTE: If you can answer “yes” to all of the yes/no questions above, you have probably
written a very good paper.
was acceptable. And that shape was certainly for me the deductively
organized essay. [IH6]
All ELP personnel interviewed were in agreement on why the deduc-
tive essay format was purveyed in the program. Some teachers even
defended it while evincing clear knowledge of its drawbacks:
12. If something is done deductively and seems to be only following a
pattern—a kind of fill-in-the-slot pattern—it can be tedious and boring
and awful to read. However, it serves a purpose and my feeling from
in terms of the kinds of things that students—I guess in the Business
School—I was thinking more of even with the classes I take, often that
is the kind of thing that the professors are comfortable with and want,
something that clearly spells out this is what so and so says, here is
where I agree, here is where I disagree, this is what I think. [IJ13]
The general understanding among ELP teachers and supervisors is
that NNS students need some form in which to express themselves
556 TESOL QUARTERLY

academically, even if not a particularly sophisticated or attractive one.
They assume that ELP students, concurrently enrolled for the most
part in non-ESL classes, would need to have such a form available
for immediate use in writing academic essays and essay exams. The
deductively organized essay is therefore seen as an efficient solution
to this problem.
Aside from the deductive format, several other types of rhetorical
structures are also occasionally encouraged in ELP essay writing. These
forms are typically variations on the compare and contrast, problem-
solution, and collection of descriptions (Carrell, 1984) themes, as speci-
fied in a writing prompt. However, students are often advised to over-
lay a deductive format on these structures if one is not present in a
draft—either through teacher feedback or the application of peer/
self-response guides like that in Figure 4.
As a means of partly summarizing some of the characteristics of
ELP writing described above, a set of typical writing prompts is given
in Appendix B. These prompts were given out by teachers at the high-
intermediate level after students had spent several classes reading
about U.S. family life and discussing it in relation to family life in their
own cultures. By way also of introducing the explicit comparison of
the UCP and ELP cultures of writing that follows, we ask the reader
to compare these writing prompts to the UCP assignment in Appen-
dix A.
COMPARISON AND DISCUSSION
Two university cultures of writing have now been described in some

detail. In this section we compare these cultures directly, examining
contrasting norms and practices that may affect student success both
within and across programs.
A first potentially problematic difference concerns the kinds of cul-
tural knowledge each program assumes on the part of its students. As
a program wholly devoted to NNSs, the ELP appears to make two
pragmatic assumptions: (a) that its students have native competence
in at least one (typically East Asian) culture and (b) that students do
not have native competence in “American culture.” 12 In response to
the second of these assumptions, the ELP appears to offer a curriculum
12
By bracketing the notion of American culture, we wish to acknowledge the many critiques
of the monolithic American culture myth that exist in current scholarship. At the same
time, we consider the notion of an American culture—in this case more specifically definable
as “a generalized, somewhat ideal version of U.S. middle-class norms and values”—a
necessary convenience in the present analysis. That is, we adopt the idea as a provisional
concept or working definition only.

that is not predicated on native/near-native American cultural compe-
tence. In contrast—but not surprisingly given that NNSs make up
less than 20% of its clientele—the UCP seems to assume a significant
amount of cultural knowledge specific to the “American’’—or at least
a “Western’’—way of life.
Critical thinking, for example, is one important area where cultural
presuppositions appear to be operating. In particular, the UCP’s ver-
sion of critical thinking seems to assume a cultural ecology in which
school-based writing is frequently viewed and practiced not so much
as a mode of communication or information inscription, but rather
as a tool for intellectual exploration, an avenue for debate and dialectic,
and even an instantiation of democratic principles (see, for instance,
Example 2 above). What is more, the inculcation and assessment of
critical thinking in the UCP appear to presuppose articulated (if im-
plicit) understandings of culture-specific and culturally enshrined con-
cepts, such as “insightfulness,” “forcefulness,” “thoughtfulness,” and
“cogency,” as they figure, for instance, in the first item of the A rubric
in Figure 2 or the final paragraph of Appendix A.
One might argue that these basic cultural assumptions and values
are what is being taught in the UCP under the rubric of critical think-
ing, rather than what is being presupposed. There is little, if any,
evidence in our data of teaching at the level of basic cultural assump-
tions (as advocated, for example, by Delpit, 1988). The plausibility of
this claim is further mitigated by a significant body of research (see, e.g.,
Gee, 1990; Heath, 1983, 1986; Wells, 1985) indicating that socialization
into middle-class “essayist literacy” (Scollon & Scollon, 1981) begins at
home in early childhood, is powerfully reinforced through the elemen-
tary/high school years, and is unconsciously assumed of literate middle-
class adults in higher education and beyond. Thus, teachers at various
levels who have traditionally been thought of as teaching skills such as
critical thinking de novo may in fact be providing mainstream students
opportunities for rehearsal, refinement, and performance based on
competence the latter have been acquiring all their lives.13
These same general points also apply to culturally defined and cul-
turally valued notions like “originality/creativity” and “logic/rationality”
(see Kaplan, 1988) inasmuch as they figure-explicitly or implicitly—
as necessary background knowledge for success in the UCP. If, instead
of being available to all freshman writers equally, such “commonsense”
13
This critique of educational notions such as critical thinking (and in fact any social practice
that involves the literate development of “metadiscoursal” abilities—see Gee, 1990; Wells,
1985) is typically aimed at explaining the differential success of various racial/social class
groups in the U.S. educational system, especially in the contexts of primary and secondary
education. In terms of the present discussion, however, where cultural assumptions are
so clearly differential between NSs and NNSs, the gap is even clearer.
558 TESOL QUARTERLY

notions are part of a larger “mainstream” American set of social prac-
tices, a pedagogy based substantially on them can only serve to disad-
vantage NNSs.14
Finally in regard to the different cultural-knowledge backgrounds,
each program seems to assume, we do not intend to claim that the
ELP, in contrast to the UCP, itself follows pedagogical practices that
are in any sense acultural. The cultural assumptions behind process
writing, for example, have been well explicated by Delpit (1988) and
Inghilleri (1989). Rather, we have suggested that the ELP does not
assume implicit cultural knowledge of the sort outlined above as a
necessary (if tacit) precondition for instruction.
A second (but closely related) area of difference between the ELP
and the UCP involves what could almost be called the metagoals of
the two programs. That is, although both programs are immediately
concerned with preparing students to write (and in the case of the
ELP, also to read and speak) academically, they approach that goal in
different ways. The ELP appears to emphasize the relatively straight-
forward teaching of strategies—in writing these include a simplified
writing process (e.g., see Example 8 above) and especially the deduc-
tively organized essay form. The probable motivation for this “strategic
approach” was described above in our discussion of the deductive
form: At least at the higher levels, ELP instructors feel obligated to
provide immediately usable aids to their students because they know
that these students have to function simultaneously in the academic
classroom.
The UCP, on the other hand, although it does not appear to overlook
its students’ immediate academic-course needs, concerns itself substan-
tially with writing development. That is, in encouraging students to
reach beyond their current abilities—to constantly strive for greater
“depth” in their thought and writing, for example—UCP personnel
seem to advocate a moderately developmental approach to learning to
write academically. This aspect of UCP culture is enshrined in the
two-course sequences that represent the bulk of the program’s classes.
As shown in Figure 1, whereas the first course focuses on the writing
process, critical thinking, and academic discourse conventions, the
second course adds on to these objectives intertextual concerns (i.e.,
citing and working with other texts), academic reading, and attention
to longer and even deeper analysis of issues.
A third area of difference between the two programs is directly
14
Culturally valenced terms like logic occasionally appear also in ELP materials (e.g., Figure
4, Item 3.b). We have no evidence, however, that such concepts form an important part
of the program. For UCP personnel, on the other hand, logic and rationality appear to
play important roles—as seen, for instance, in Example 2 above-in the way they conceptu-
alize and possibly teach writing.

related to the first two. This difference concerns the programs’ con-
trasting expectations for the form and content of written work. The
ELP seems to advocate a norm of writing that might be termed workper-
sonlike prose. Characteristics of this mode of writing appear to include
(a) that it is aimed primarily at the clear, straightforward communica-
tion of facts and ideas; (b) that it is relatively easy to learn and thus
usable on a more or less immediate basis; and (c) that it depends
significantly on a rigid deductive structure.
The first of these points, suggested more or less directly in our data
(see, for instance, Examples 9 and 11 and Figure 4), would also seem
to follow from the ELPs commitment to communicative language
teaching. That this language teaching approach has its own “cultural”
background will be discussed below, but certainly one of its main tenets
is that basic communication is the foremost purpose of both language
and language teaching (Brumfit, 1984; Richards & Rodgers, 1986).
The second characteristic of the workpersonlike approach to writing—
ease of learnability/usability—depends largely on a sense that students
have immediate writing needs in their academic classes and should
therefore be given some tools to deal with these needs. To take the
tool metaphor one step farther, students therefore become worhpersons,
or technicians, of writing. The third characteristic of workpersonlike
prose—the deductive essay format—is in fact just the kind of handy
tool a technician of writing might seem to need. Eminently teachable
(whether directly or indirectly), it solves the problem of getting into
the students’ hands an easily deployable approach to academic writing.
Note, however, that there is also an obvious danger associated with
turning student writers into writing technicians. The danger, of course,
is that once having acquired a handy tool of written expression, stu-
dents will adopt it to the exclusion of all others, applying it without
regard to its suitability in specific cases. This problem is not unlike the
one that the UCP’s proscription of the five-paragraph essay appears
designed to solve (see Example 5 and below).
If the ELP promotes workpersonlike prose, the UCP in contrast
might be said to purvey sophisticated thought and expression. That
is, with its emphasis at the content level on complexity of thought and
critical “insight,” and its emphasis at the formal level on structure as
dependent on rhetorical purpose and on both explicit and implicit
forms of expression, the UCP appears to advocate writing that will be
judged not only as an accurately communicating message but also as
a rhetorically effective piece.
The UCP’s rejection of the five-paragraph essay and the ELP’s advo-
cacy of what appears to be a virtually identical form, the deductive
essay format, clearly illustrate the contrast under discussion here. In
the UCP culture, this form acts almost as a symbol of bad student
560 TESOL QUARTERLY

writing—formulaic, stilted, mechanical, predictable, and thus crippling
to the very thought that the program seeks to encourage. At least in
theoretical terms, there does not seem to be even the possibility of
depth or insight if content is expressed in this form. For the ELP on
the other hand, the deductive essay format is an extremely serviceable
template for those who, academically speaking, “have no way of ex-
pressing themselves” (IH1). Depending on the two programs’ very
different goals—superficially similar in that both claim to teach aca-
demic writing—this form is either salvation or suicide.
A fourth and final difference between these two divergent cultures
of writing concerns the academic-culture foundations on which they
themselves rest. For the UCP this foundation is the disciplinary matrix
of rhetoric/composition, for the ELP it is applied linguistics.
That rhetoric/composition is the UCP’s mother discipline is clearly
evident in our data, though there is no space here for a complete
discussion of the point. UCP administrators allude constantly to their
placement in the field, sometimes even referring to their institution
as a “rhetoric program.” In addition, the Orientation Notebook —the most
complete statement of UCP program practices and policies—draws
heavily on the field, and pedagogical principles and techniques are
borrowed eclectically from it, whether classical notions like the Aristote-
lian appeals (see Appendix A) or modern ones like the Burkean pentad,
a prewriting/invention device. 15
The ELP connection with applied linguistics is also clear—although
not nearly as foregrounded—in the data we have collected. Like rheto-
ric/composition an interdisciplinary endeavor, applied linguistics can
be seen as the source, by and large, of communicative approaches
to language teaching. As a program that identifies closely with the
communicative approach—which indeed has contributed substantially
to developments at the academic end of it—the ELP therefore has a
major link with applied linguistics. Nor is it surprising that literally
all the administrators (including supervisors) have applied linguistic
backgrounds, and every program director since the ELP’s inception
has been an applied linguist.
The divergent academic foundations of the two programs have
larger consequences for the way writing is thought of and taught
within them—and this divergence may explain variation in some of
the areas already discussed in this article. For example, applied linguists
have tended to think of themselves as scientists and their work as
primarily descriptive and quantitative (Santos, 1992). Although this
perception may conflict substantially with the realities of L2 teaching
15
0ne UCP administrator also mentioned a disciplinary connection with applied linguistics,
although he gave much more attention to the influence of rhetoric.

and research, it nonetheless has had paradigm status in the field. It
also appears to have many implications for ELP practice—the insistence
in the ELP that classroom texts (in whatever mode) be “authentic”—
and the social science-like nature of the topics treated in content-
based courses are just two obvious examples. More importantly, the
straightforward deductive approach to writing in the ELP may well
reflect perceptions of how scientists (or at least social scientists) express
themselves in the written mode.
The rhetoric-based UCP, on the other hand, proceeds from a disci-
pline that, although its current make-up is heterogeneous, has a back-
ground in the humanities. Until the start of the present century, rheto-
ric was a staple of the liberal arts (Berlin, 1987; Kinneavy, 1971), and
even though work in the field has now gone far beyond its original
base, it is still rare to find highly quantitative research, for example,
in rhetoric/composition journals such as College Composition and Commu-
nication or Rhetoric Review. Similarly, rhetoricians do not shy away
(even theoretically) from prescriptivism—rather, as the vast majority
of composition textbooks show, it is an organic element in the field.
Finally, where applied linguists tend to see the goal of writing instruc-
tion as the ability to communicate clearly, rhetoricians have a grander
goal. According to Berlin (1987), “in teaching writing we [i.e., rhetori-
cians] are providing students with guidance in seeing and structuring
their experience, with a set of tacit rules about distinguishing truth
from falsity, reality from illusion” (p. 7).
All of these characteristic influences-humanism, prescriptivism,
and (closely related to both) a belief that writing instruction is at base
epistemological and ethical—lend a distinctive flavor to writing pro-
grams that take sustenance from rhetoric. The UCP appears to be one
of these.
If the contrast we have drawn above is at all accurate—if the UCP
and ELP do in fact promote very different conceptions of academic
writing—it would seem vitally important for each program to know
in detail what the other’s goals and expectations are. Although one
would not expect whole cultures to change on the basis of such knowl-
edge, the raising of consciousness on both sides is bound to result
in better articulation. Such articulation would inevitably smooth the
transition from the ELP to the UCP, which, although not systematically
investigated in our study, is anecdotally well attested as a sometimes
difficult one. 16 Concerning the problem that the UCP’s cultural-knowl-
16
Such anecdotal evidence comes from two sources: UCP teachers and students themselves.
In informal interactions, our own students (some of whom were taking courses in the two
programs simultaneously or had taken them back-to-back) sometimes voiced the sentiment
that differences in the writing expected by the two programs was “confusing.” Alexander,
562 TESOL QUARTERLY

edge assumptions may represent for NNSs, explicit instruction in rele-
vant cultural “rules” and assumptions—as advocated by Delpit (1988)—
might constitute a partial solution.
CONCLUSION AND APPLICATIONS
Our findings reveal that the theoretical backgrounds and classroom

practices of the UCP and ELP diverge in nontrivial ways. In discussing
these differences, we have indicated how they may negatively affect
students both within and across programs. We end by briefly restating
the potential negative effects of these differences and speculating on
circumstances that may blunt their overall harmfulness to some degree.
First, we have suggested that the UCP presupposes cultural knowl-
edge that cannot be reasonably attributed to, and holds expectations
that cannot reasonably be met by, many nonnative speakers of English.
The reason for these gaps is simple—as a program based primarily in
a field that has concerned itself overwhelmingly with English as a
first language and whose clientele is in fact at least four-fifths native
speakers, the program is modeled on the norm of a cultural/linguistic
native (or near-native) student. The kinds of knowledge such students
are tacitly expected to have include considerable familiarity with native
patterns for structuring discourse, knowledge of native norms of com-
municative behavior, and some understanding of writing (or communi-
cation in general) as a heuristic, self-defining activity. We assume that
students lacking these concepts would find the UCP an often difficult
place to be.
Second, and independent of our first point, we believe that NNS
students crossing over from the ELP to the UCP will experience a
significant disjuncture between the way each program conceptualizes
writing. That is, some of the very approaches to writing that are re-
warded in the former appear to be stigmatized in the latter. However,
we speculate that this situation could also benefit both instructor and
student. For instructors, deductively organized student essays provide
at least a known quantity to work with—a take-off point from which
to begin teaching writing the UCP way. Students writing deductively
structured essays on entering the UCP maybe preferable to students—
for example, non-Western NNSs previously exposed to an extreme
a Ukrainian student of the first author, elaborated on this point by stating that in the UCP
one “had to have style” whereas his ELP written argumentation class was more concerned
with “argument” (NC1). We have also frequently heard UCP teachers complaining about
their NNS students’ dependence on the five-paragraph essay.

process-writing approach (Scollon, 1991)—who come in using no rec-
ognizable discourse structure to speak of. On the part of students,
there is the obvious advantage of learning two differing modes of
academic writing. As a solution to immediate writing needs and a tool
for clear (if pedestrian) written communication, the ELP’s strategic
approach clearly has its uses. As a longer-term effort to foster thought-
ful, skillful writing—and writing that does not depend on a prefabri-
cated rhetorical structure—the UCP’s developmental approach also
has a valuable contribution to make. Taken together, as indeed the
two programs are by a substantial number of NNSs, they may in fact
cover a spectrum of writing needs that neither program can deal with
individually.
Finally, we speculate that a substantial amount of the difference
between these two programs—and perhaps a fair amount of the L1
cultural knowledge the UCP appears to presuppose of NNS students—
may be mediated by some instructors in their classrooms. That is,
competent instructors in both programs may perhaps adapt curricu-
lum and pedagogy to suit their classes to some degree, at least partly
making up for the gaps just mentioned. In particular, the UCP practice
of identifying instructors for NNS sections with an interest or back-
ground in teaching NNSs may partially mitigate unreasonable expecta-
tions. However, this possibility of adjustment relieves neither the UCP
of responsibility for providing a curriculum that adequately matches
NNS’s abilities and needs, nor either program of the obligation to
work closely together to make crossover between them as smooth and
as easy as possible.
In conclusion, we call for purposeful articulation among any and
all intrauniversity writing programs that NNS writers must transit for
academic success. We also call on such programs to examine their
theoretical assumptions and curricular practices vis-à-vis NNS stu-
dents. To navigate the diverse cultural territories of university writ-
ing—and to come out safely on the other side as writers—our students
can do with no less.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We sincerely thank the administrators and teachers who participated in this study.
In particular, the directors of both programs deserve special thanks for their
unwavering support and cooperation. Jody Abbott, Michele Burnham, Selena
Cantor, Ulla Connor, Kathryn Davis, Christine Feak, Chip Hebert, Robert B.
Kaplan, Cassia Nunnally, Tom Nunnally, G. G. Patthey-Chavez, Robin Sabino,
Jan Stryz, John Swales, and Vivian Zamel gave valuable comments on earlier
versions of this article.
564 TESOL QUARTERLY

THE AUTHORS
Dwight Atkinson teaches ESL, TESOL, and linguistics at Auburn University, where
he is Assistant Professor in the Department of English. He is interested in all
aspects of the interpenetration of writing and culture.
Vai Ramanathan is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and teaches

in the MA-TESOL program at the University of Alabama. Her research interests
include academic literacy (specifically L2 and L1 writing) and discourse analysis.
She is also interested in L1 and L2 teacher education.
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APPENDIX A
Sample UCP Assignment
Assignment: The Uses of Enticement:
What Becomes an Advertisement Most?
Purpose
Advertising represents one of the most creative and imaginative forms of communication
in our culture, and one purpose of this assignment is simply to enjoy the opportunity to
analyze some interesting ads. But this assignment is also intended to give you practice in
the writing process (in invention, planning, and revision) and to introduce two important
rhetorical concepts: the Aristotelian appeals and the distinction between persuasion and
identification.
Readings
This assignment calls for you to “read” advertisements, and you will be asked to purchase
two magazines and bring them to class on Wednesday, January 19th. You may also use TV
advertisements, following the precis format described on the other side of this sheet.
Topic
The first advertisement published in America was simply a short prose description of a
piece of land someone wanted to sell, but since that time advertising has evolved quite
considerably. Today, in fact, it’s rare to find an ad that merely describes the goods being
sold; instead, modern advertising has developed a range of appeals that seem to have only
a tangential relationship to the actual product. Some ads, for example, appeal to important
cultural stereotypes (the rugged individuality of the Marlboro man), others play off or
against stereotypes (the chic rebelliousness of Virginia Slims ads), and still others work by
appealing not to the consumer’s real needs or personality but to his or her fantasy self, the
popular and attractive person the consumer will become once he or she purchases the
product being advertised.
This assignment, then, is directed not simply at advertisements but at an interesting type
of advertising appeal, one that is clever or enticing, relatively original, and one that you find
deserving of careful analysis. To illustrate your analysis, you may use one or more ads, and
these may come from current (September 1993 or later) magazines or from current television.
The ads may represent a single advertising campaign (one of a particular brand), or they
may be ads for different brands of the same product type, or for entirely different products.
Writing Task
Select an ad or ads that illustrate a kind of advertising appeal that you would like to write
about. Carefully analyze the type of appeal illustrated in the ad(s) and then respond to the
following writing task in a 4–5 page essay:
Why do you find this type of advertising appeal particularly interesting, noteworthy, or effective?
The cogency of your writing will depend upon your ability to identify and articulate an
insightful claim as to how advertising functions. For this reason, do your best to go beyond
obvious or commonplace kinds of appeals and seek instead to add something new and
pertinent to our understanding of advertising. Similarly, do not focus on Virginia Slims or
Marlboro ads unless you are confident you can contribute something innovative to what is
a very long history of analysis.
Rough Draft Due: Friday, January 28

Submission Draft Due: Monday, January 31

APPENDIX B
Sample ELP Writing Prompt
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Directions: Answer one of the following questions, using 2–3 pages of double-spaced writing.
1. Describe and give specific examples of how the values of equality and individual freedom
are seen in many American families? [sic] Also, give your opinion of the importance of
these values within the family unit.
2. By taking a position either for or against give your opinion whether married women
should work or not. Be sure to back up your opinions with specific examples either from
the American culture or your own culture.
3. “Eldercare” has become a complex issue in the 1980s–1990s. Describe some of the prob-
lems that must be overcome by an ordinary family in order for the elderly parents (or
family members) to be fully cared for. You may use examples/types of problems taken
from the American culture and/or your own culture.
568 TESOL QUARTERLY

THE FORUM
The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the
TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to articles or reviews
published in the Quarterly. Unfortunately, we are not able to publish responses
to previous Forum exchanges.
The Theory of Methodology in

Qualitative Research
BONNY NORTON PEIRCE
All methods are ways of asking questions that presume an underlying set
of assumptions, a structure of relevance, and a form of rationality. (Simon
& Dippo, 1986, p. 195)
■ At the 28th Annual TESOL Convention in Baltimore in 1994, I gave

a presentation on my PhD research entitled Language Learning, Social
Identity, and Immigrant Women (Peirce, 1993). During question time a
member of the audience made the point that I had been an active
participant in the study and had affected its outcomes. Her question
was whether or not this situation posed a methodological problem for
me. The short answer at the time was that different research questions
call for different methodologies. Although there is a place for quantita-
tive research in the field of language learning and teaching, the ques-
tions I was asking in my research did not lend themselves to statistical
analysis. I indicated that the field needed to develop a more compre-
hensive theory of methodology. To some extent, this article is the long
answer to the question posed in Baltimore.
In this article I examine the complex relationship between theory
and methodology in qualitative research. I take the position that theory
(implicitly or explicitly) informs the questions researchers ask; the
assumptions we make; and the procedures, methods, and approaches
we use to carry out research projects. In turn, the questions asked will
inevitably influence what kind of data are collected, how they are
collected, and what conclusions are drawn on the basis of data analyses.
Specifically, I describe recent trends in educational research that I
have found most helpful in my own research in language learning
and teaching. Although the educational researchers who conduct this
research do not always ask the same questions or share the same
interests, their common assumptions about what I call critical research
are compelling. I first describe six of these tenets and then indicate
how they have influenced the framing, progress, and analysis of my
569
research on the language learning of immigrant women in Canada
(Peirce, 1993, 1995).
SIX TENETS OF CRITICAL RESEARCH

The questions I ask in my research, the assumptions I make, the
data I consider relevant, and the conclusions I draw are informed by
the work of educational researchers in three related but as yet diffuse
areas. The first group of educational researchers, some of whom are
described by Weiler (1988) as primarily interested in “cultural produc-
tion,” include Bourdieu (1977), Connell, Ashendon, Kessler, and
Dowsett (1982), Heller (1987, 1992), Simon (1992), Walsh (1987, 1989),
and Willis (1977). The second group frames its educational work within
a feminist project and includes Briskin and Coulter (1992), Luke and
Gore (1992), Rockhill (1987), Schenke (1991), Smith (1987a, 1987b),
and Weiler (1988, 1991). The third group locates its educational re-
search within the emerging tradition of critical ethnography and in-
cludes Anderson (1989), Britzman (1990), Brodkey (1987), and Simon
and Dippo (1986).
Having made distinctions among these three groups of researchers,
I hasten to add that the overlapping interests within and among them
are more significant than their differences. Indeed, Willis, for example,
is referred to as a cultural production theorist by Weiler (1988) and
a critical ethnographer by Anderson (1989); Weiler is described as a
critical ethnographer by Anderson (1989) but defines herself primarily
as a feminist researcher; Simon is considered a cultural production
theorist by Weiler (1988) but defines his own work as critical ethnogra-
phy (Simon & Dippo, 1986); Smith (1987b) collapses the boundaries
by defining her work as a feminist approach to ethnography. The
work of these educational theorists has a number of important tenets
in common—tenets I draw on in my own research.
Tenet 1: Critical research rejects the view that any research can claim
to be objective or unbiased. Weiler (1988) argues that feminist research
begins with the assumption that the researcher plays a constitutive role
in determining the progress of a research project. She contends that
the researcher has to understand her own subjective experience and
knowledge as well as that of the women she studies. Likewise, Simon
and Dippo (1986) point out that the production of knowledge cannot
be understood apart from the personal histories of the researchers
and the larger institutional context in which researchers work. They
suggest that critical ethnographic work should define data and analytic
procedures in a way consistent with its pedagogical and political project.
Tenet 2: Critical researchers aim to investigate the complex relation-
ship between social structure, on the one hand, and human agency, on
570 TESOL QUARTERLY

the other, without resorting to deterministic or reductionist analyses.
Anderson (1989), for example, argues that critical ethnography has
grown out of dissatisfaction with, on the one hand, “social accounts
of ‘structures’ like class, patriarchy, and racism in which real human
actors never appear” and “cultural accounts of human actors in which
broad structural constraints like class, patriarchy and racism never
appear” (p. 249). Likewise, although Connell et al. (1982) reject the
“increasing dogmatism” (p. 29) of reproduction theory, they also reject
“desiccated” (p. 24) research in which researchers seldom meet or
speak to the people they are studying. According to Weiler (1988),
the specific mandate of feminist scholarship is to investigate the rela-
tionship between the individual and the social:
Thus focusing on the everyday world reveals the ways in which larger
forces, both ideological and material, place limits and conditions on our
actions. At the same time, making the everyday world of women the center
of social research demonstrates that a concentration solely on the public
arena is equally inadequate. Feminist scholarship, by revealing the everyday
lives of women, opens up the other half of social reality which has been
ignored in studies of public life. (p. 62)
Tenet 3: Critical research assumes that inequities of gender, race,

class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation produce and are produced by
unequal power relations in society. Drawing on the work of Gramsci,
Simon and Dippo (1986) maintain that “power relations are those
that structure how forms are produced and reproduced to limit and
constrain, as well as contest and redefine what one is able to be” (p. 197).
Similarly, Walsh (1989) argues, “In a world that is clearly unequal,
participation and dialogue never just happen. Power relations are
clearly at work, differentially positioning students in relation to one
another, to the subject matter, and to the teacher” (p. 139). Weiler
(1988) contends that, although women share a gendered history,
women should not be treated as a single group with no differences:
“Blindness to race and class leads to as much distortion of social reality
as does blindness to the importance of gender” (p. 64).
Tenet 4: Critical researchers are interested in the way individuals
make sense of their own experience. Connell et al. (1982) indicate that
in their research they wanted to “get close to the situations people
found themselves in, to talk to them at length about their experiences”
(p. 29). Smith (1987b) argues that what she calls an institutional ethnogra-
phy is a method of analysis that returns the researcher to “the actualities
of what people do on a day-to-day basis under definite conditions and
in definite situations”; it is a method that “fully recognizes individuals
as competent practitioners of their everyday worlds” (p. 7). Similarly,
THE FORUM 571

according to Weedon (1987), “Theory must be able to address women’s
experience by showing where it comes from and how it relates to
material social practices and the power relations which structure them”
(p. 8).
Tenet 5: Critical researchers are interested in locating their research
within a historical context. As Simon and Dippo (1986) argue, “History
is not to be relegated to the collection of ‘background data,’ but rather
becomes an integral part of the explanation of the regularities ex-
plored in any specifics” (p. 198). Walsh (1989) holds that the purpose
of her study on the struggles of Puerto Rican students in the U.S. was
to highlight “how the past and present intersect in people’s voices,
infuse pedagogy, and sculpt the conditions and processes involved in
coming to know” (p. 133). Luke and Gore (1992) argue that the identi-
ties that feminist academics have forged for themselves have been
influenced by feminists “past and present,” by the “voluminous feminist
literature of the last two decades that has made the most powerful
contribution to re-thinking the subject, to questioning theory in all
disciplines, and to the debates on difference” (p. 4).
Tenet 6: Critical researchers believe that the goal of educational
research is social and educational change. Brodkey (1987), for exam-
ple, argues that “the goal of critical ethnography is always the same: to
help create the possibility of transforming such institutions as schools”
(p. 67). Briskin and Coulter (1992) maintain that “in its concern for
social change and liberation, feminist pedagogy is situated firmly within
the discourse on progressive education and critical pedagogy” (p. 251).
Similarly, according to Willis (1977), “to refuse the challenge of the
day-to-day—because of the retrospective dead hand of structural con-
straint—is to deny the continuance of life and society themselves”
(p. 186). Simon's work, and that of his colleagues, is centrally con-
cerned with what schools can do to address inequities in educational
and social institutions (Simon, Dippo, & Schenke, 1991). All of these
researchers agree that there are many possibilities for reducing inequi-
ties in society in general and education in particular.
CRITICAL RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE LEARNING:

A CASE STUDY
In this section I argue that the six tenets of critical research outlined
above can help to inform qualitative research in language learning
and teaching. I illustrate my arguments with a brief analysis of a
research project I have recently completed (Peirce, 1993) in which
I conducted a longitudinal study of the natural language learning
experiences of five immigrant women in Canada. The purpose of
my research was to investigate under what conditions these language
572 TESOL QUARTERLY

learners spoke English and how such opportunities to speak were
socially structured across time and space. The research was based on
the premise that practice in the target language is a necessary condition
of L2 learning (Spolsky, 1989).
In my research I was constantly aware that my own history and
experience intersected in diverse and complex ways with the progress
of the research (Tenet 1). As a graduate student in a progressive
educational institution, I had access to a wide range of human and
material resources that have influenced the way I approached data
collection and data analysis. The supervision I received, the literature
I was introduced to, the fellow students I consulted with, and the
workshops I attended all informed my work. Before beginning gradu-
ate studies, I was not familiar, for example, with the work of Bourdieu
(1977), Cummins (1986), Heller (1987), Kress (1985), Simon (1992),
and Weedon (1987), all of which has had a significant influence not
only on my PhD research but also on other research projects in which
I have participated (e.g., Peirce, 1989; Peirce & Stein, 1995). At another
time and place, my research would have been differently conceived
and differently understood.
In addition, the fact that I am a white, middle-class anglophone may
have made my study appear attractive to immigrants who struggled
for access to the dominant group in Canadian society. I was not a
neutral, objective researcher in the eyes of the participants. For some
of them, I was identified as the only English-speaking friend they had;
I wrote references for the participants; I helped them find jobs. I
constantly juggled my diverse positions as friend, teacher, and re-
searcher. Furthermore, my own position as a woman and a mother
gave me some insight into the experiences of the women in my study.
I could identify with the daily challenges of studying, mothering, work-
ing, and housekeeping under ubiquitous time constraints. Finally, my
location as a teacher and researcher in the field of language education
and my experiences of living in multilingual societies have constantly
directed me to address the questions, “What would colleagues find
interesting in my research? What kind of research would be interesting
for my colleagues?”
In the research I was interested in the relationship between the
individual language learners and the larger social structures that influ-
enced their day-to-day lives and their opportunities to speak English
(Tenet 2). I investigated why, for example, one participant who had
spoken to her coworkers on a regular basis withdrew from social inter-
action after a series of layoffs in her factory. I questioned why one
learner dropped out of a basic skills English class whereas another
one, in the same class, remained until graduation. Such questions could
not be addressed by observing the language learner in isolation from
THE FORUM 573

society. I had to address them by drawing on the participants’ own
experiences as well as larger forces in Canadian society such as the
economic recession and national language-training policies.
I investigated the extent to which the gendered identity of the
women in my study as well as their position as immigrants in Canadian
society served to constrain their opportunities to learn and practice
English in the home and workplace. In other words, I addressed the
extent to which inequitable relations of power based on gender, eth-
nicity, and class might affect language learning (Tenet 3). To what
extent, for example, was one participant (a single woman) affected by
her family’s admonition that she cease her preoccupation with learning
English and focus her energies on finding a “rich, young man”? How
was one participant’s language learning affected by the resentment
expressed by her husband, whose progress had been slower than hers?
How was another participant’s social interaction affected by her per-
ception than Canadians “look down [on] the immigrants”? Only by
asking such questions was I able to focus on the similarities and differ-
ences among immigrant women learning English in Canada. The age
of a woman, her ethnicity, her marital status, the presence of children,
and her educational background all had an important influence on
the extent to which she created, responded to, or resisted opportunities
to practice English.
I wanted to understand how the participants made sense of their
daily experiences with the English language. Why, for example, did
one learner avoid talking to people she did not know whereas another
telephoned strangers regularly to practice speaking? Why did one
participant seldom speak to her customers in a fast food restaurant
but was prepared to challenge a male customer who accused her of
“putting on an accent” to get better tips? I found it significant that the
mother who had come to Canada specifically for her children was
concerned less about her own education than about opportunities for
her children.
Like the critical researchers discussed above, I sought to uncover
and create the “spaces and potentials” (Willis, 1977, p. 186) for change
in the teaching of English to immigrant women in Canada. I noted
carefully one participant’s comment that she would rather take a com-
puter course than a basic English skills course because she wanted the
opportunity to “think.” I took seriously one participant’s comment that
she never “learnt anything” when other students in her ESL class gave
presentations about their home countries. I found it significant that a
number of participants commented that what they had learnt about
Canadian customs and values in their ESL class was not supported by
their personal experiences outside the classroom.
In sum, the work of the critical researchers described above was
574 TESOL QUARTERLY

influential in my own research because it helped me to ask questions
that I might otherwise not have posed in my research project. As a
result, the participants had increased opportunities to share language
learning experiences they might otherwise have dismissed as irrelevant.
Together we confronted the complex relationship between the lan-
guage learner and the social world. Over time I gained greater insight
into the strengths and limitations of current second language acquisi-
tion theory and its practical classroom application. I learnt that the
greatest challenge for educational researchers is not how to solve prob-
lems but how to frame questions.
REFERENCES
Anderson, G. (1989). Critical ethnography in education: Origins, current status,
and new directions. Review of Educational Research, 59, 249–270.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science Informa-
tion, 16, 645–668.
Briskin, L. & Coulter, R. C. (1992). Feminist pedagogy: Challenging the normative.
Canadian Journal of Education, 17, 247–263.
Britzman, D. (1990, October). Could this be your story? Guilty readings and other
ethnographic dramas. Paper presented at the Bergamo Conference, Dayton, OH.
Brodkey, L. (1987). Writing critical ethnographic narratives. Anthropology & Educa-
tion Quarterly, 18, 67–76.
Connell, R. W., Ashendoh, D. J., Kessler, S., & Dowsett, G. W. (1982). Making the
difference: Schools, families, and social division. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin.
Cummins, J. (1986). Empowering minority students: A framework for interven-
tion. Harvard Educational Review, 56, 18–36.
Heller, M. (1987). The role of language in the formation of ethnic identity. In
J. Phinney & M. Rotheram (Eds.), Children’s ethnic socialization (pp. 180-200).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Heller, M. (1992). The politics of codeswitching and language choice. Journal of
Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 13, 123–142.
Kress, G. (1985). Linguistic processes in sociocultural practice. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Luke, C., & Gore, J. (Eds.). (1992). Feminisms and critical pedagogy. New York:
Routledge.
Peirce, B. N. (1989). Toward a pedagogy of possibility in the teaching of English
internationally: People’s English in South Africa. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 40l–
420.
Peirce, B. N. (1993). Language learning, social identity, and immigrant women. Unpub-
lished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies
in Education.
Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL
Peirce, B. N., & Stein, P. (1995). Why the “Monkeys Passage” bombed: Tests,
genres, and teaching. Harvard Educational Review, 65, 50–65.
Rockhill, K. ( 1987). Literacy as threat/desire: Longing to be SOMEBODY. In
J. Gaskill & A. McLaren (Eds.), Women and education: A Canadian perspective (pp.
315–331). Calgary, Alberta: Detselig Enterprises.
Schenke, A. (1991). The “will to reciprocity” and the work of memory: Fictioning
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speaking out of silence in ESL and feminist pedagogy. Resources for Feminist
Research/Documentation sur la recherche feministe, 20, 47–55.
Simon, R. (1992). Teaching against the grain: Texts for a pedagogy of possibility. New
York: Bergin & Garvey.
Simon, R. I., & Dippo, D. (1986). On critical ethnographic work. Anthropology &
Education Quarterly, 17, 198–201.
Simon, R. I., Dippo, D., & Schenke, A. (1991). Learning work: A critical pedagogy
of work education. Toronto: OISE Press,
Smith, D. E. (1987a). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston:
Northeastern University Press.
Smith, D. E. (1987b). Institutional ethnography: A feminist method. Resources for
Feminist Research/Documentation sur la recherche feministe, 15, 6–13.
Spolsky, B. (1989). Conditions for second language learning. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Walsh, C. A. (1987). Language, meaning, and voice: Puerto Rican students’ strug-
gle for a speaking consciousness. Language Arts, 64, 196-206.
Walsh, C. A. (1989) Pedagogy and the struggle for voice: Issues of language, power, and
schooling for Puerto Ricans. Toronto: OISE Press.
Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. London: Blackwell.
Weiler, K. (1988). Women teaching for change: Gender, class, and power. New York:
Bergin & Garvey.
Weiler, K. (1991). Freire and a feminist pedagogy of difference. Harvard Educa-
tional Review, 61, 449-474.
Willis, P. E. (1977). Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs.
Farnborough, England: Saxon House.
Teaching Issues
The TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of English
language teaching. For this issue, we asked two teacher educators the following
question: How has qualitative research informed your work in teacher
education?
Edited by BONNY NORTON PEIRCE

Qualitative Research and Teacher Education

From the Ethnography of Communication to Critical
Ethnography in ESL Teacher Education
KELLEEN TOOHEY
Simon Fraser University
■ I have chosen to interpret this question as an invitation to consider

some of the ethnographic research I have brought to the attention of
576 TESOL QUARTERLY

newcomers to teaching ESL. The ethnographic research on my course
outlines over the past 15 years has included work in what I will artifi-
cially and inaccurately dichotomize as sociolinguistically oriented stud-
ies and studies informed by a concern for power, politics, and elements
of poststructuralism. This research overlaps and blends in its theoreti-
cal perspectives, but there are some apparent differences between
them. The sociolinguistically oriented pieces relate frequently to the
education of children, and data are gathered mostly by observing
participants in communities and classrooms, whereas the critical eth-
nography studies appear to be concerned most commonly with the
education of adults, and data are mostly gathered through interviews
(but there are, of course, exceptions). I first discuss the sociolinguis-
tically oriented pieces.
Educational research was affected by Hymes’s (1972, 1974) exhorta-
tions to anthropologists and linguists in the late 1960s to build a body of
knowledge about the variety of ways people organized their speaking.
Ethnographies of schooling communication proliferated, illustrating
how children from what were then termed minority communities were
linguistically socialized in ways incongruous with North American
school ways and that this incongruity constituted a disadvantage in
school. (Some of the first studies like these are Au & Jordan, 1981;
Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz, 1981; Heath, 1983; Michaels, 1981; Phil-
ips, 1972; there were many others.) These early studies examined
the schooling of students from a variety of class, ethnic, and racial
backgrounds, showing how even the sociolinguistic means within an-
glophone communities were various enough to privilege some children
differentially. In addition, many of these researchers hoped that
schools could deal with those differences, generally by understanding
better the sociolinguistic means of the communities from which stu-
dents came and specifically, for example, by altering typical participant
structures (Philips, 1972).
Sociolinguistically oriented ethnographic studies with learners of
ESL later became widely available, and I have included sociolinguistic
second language acquisition (SLA) studies in my course materials:
Pease-Alvarez and Vasquez (1994), Saville-Troike and Kleifken (1986),
Strong (1983), Willett (1987), and Wong Fillmore (1979) come quickly
to mind. In discussing the importance of L1 retention, my students
have examined the early studies of Modiano (1973), Rosier and Holm
(1980), and Toukomaa and Skutnabb-Kangas (1979) as well as the
more recent Pease-Alvarez, Garcia, and Espinosa (1991). The Open
University series Every Child’s Language Book II (1985) contains a series
of pieces written by teachers working in British programs for commu-
nity languages. My students have appreciated these descriptions of
local and specific experience with the rewards and problems of at-
THE FORUM 577

tempting L1 maintenance in schools. Specific descriptions of children,
teachers, and classroom practices by authors like Edelsky (1986), Heath
(1993), Hudelson (1984), Rigg (1989), and Urzúa (1986) become occa-
sions for my students to consider teaching strategies used with L2
learners that address sociolinguistic differences between school ways
and community ways of communicating.
The research in which I am currently most interested is an im-
mensely varied body of ethnographic work that has the potential to
change the ways we work in TESL over the next few years. One way
to characterize this work is to note that its practitioners are united in
“an emancipator interest in the overcoming of social oppression”
(Hammersley, 1992, p. 99) and that they are committed to examining
the local and macropolitics that constrain the actions of oppressed
people (often the subjects/objects of social research). Drawing not only
from socialist but from a variety of feminist perspectives, these critical
ethnographers have criticized previous research concerned merely
with identifying differences in, for example, the ways of speaking
between oppressed and privileged groups and with normalizing those
differences as cultural (as much of the sociolinguistic work has done).
The sociolinguistic work is flawed, argue the critical ethnographers,
because it underestimates or even ignores the histories, the ongoing
dynamics and effects of differential privilege and social conflict. Praxis,
understanding and action directed toward changing the “maldistribu-
tion of power and resources underlying our society” (Lather, 1991,
p. 51), must rest on a clear understanding of these complex matters.
Some of the studies I have found helpful in this regard are Auerbach
and McGrail (1991), Giltrow and Colhoun (1992), McDermott (1993),
Mehan (1993), Peirce (1993, 1995), Rockhill (1990), and Ryan (1989).
Rockhill worked with Hispanic women in Los Angeles and includes
in this 1990 piece their articulations about their economical and sexual
domination by their husbands with regard to their aspirations toward
education and literacy. Peirce (1993, 1995) examines the experiences
of five immigrant women in Canada, quotes at length from the inter-
views she conducted with them, and shows how her subjects’ SLA is
situated in particular class, ethnic, and gendered social contexts and
how these learners understand and maneuvre within those contexts.
Giltrow and Colhoun (1992) show that for the Guatemalan Mayans in
Vancouver with whom they worked, learning English both sui generis
and in the context of the classes they attend is a problematic practice.
The Mayans’ questions about the ESL instruction they received are
of primary importance to teachers of ESL. Ryan (1989) conducted
ethnographic research in an Innut community in northern Quebec
and explains how Foucault’s notion of discipline is helpful in explaining
the students’ resistance to the practices of the school. Auerbach and
578 TESOL QUARTERLY

McGrail (1991) describe a project of participatory ESL education, illus-
trating pedagogical decisions and activities aimed at preparing students
to “make changes outside the classroom” (p. 96). Mehan (1993) consid-
ers the politics of representation as he and colleagues examine the
discourse of professionals in a school that collaborates in constructing
a deviant identity for a student. McDermott’s (1993) cleverly titled
paper, “The Acquisition of a Child by a Learning Disability,” invites
us to consider making cultural categories like learning disabled (rather
than children) the unit of analysis. I am convinced beginning ESL
teachers (and more experienced teachers) might profitably consider
the ways in which being an ESL student is also an ascribed and con-
structed identity.
The universe of ethnographic research from which we might select
studies instructive and relevant to newcomers to ESL teaching is vast:
Most of the social sciences can be drawn on in attempting to understand
our work. In discussing here a few of the pieces I use, I make no
attempt to be comprehensive; in addition to the studies I have missed,
do not understand, do not like, or cannot teach, there are others that
there is no space to discuss. This response is a selection from a selection
and intended merely to open a discussion with others about what
ethnographic research we use in our work with beginning teachers of
ESL.
THE AUTHOR
Kelleen Toohey teaches in the Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, in
Burnaby, British Columbia. She has been involved in the education of ESL teach-
ers, heritage languages (languages other than English and French), and First
Nations (aboriginal) languages. She is currently involved in an ethnographic study
of a kindergarten in which half the children are learning ESL.
REFERENCES
Au, K., & Jordan, C. (1981). Teaching reading to Hawaiian children: Finding a
culturally appropriate solution. In H. Trueba, G. Guthrie, & K. Au (Eds.),
Culture and the bilingual classroom (pp. 139–152). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Auerbach, E., & McGrail, L. (1991). Rosa’s challenge: Connecting classroom and
community contexts. In S. Benesch, ESL in America: Myths and possibilities (pp.
96–11). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Edelsky, C. (1986). Writing in a bilingual program: Había una vez. Norwood, NJ:
Ablex.
Giltrow, J., & Colhoun, E. (1992). The culture of power: ESL traditions, Mayan
resistance. In B. Burnaby & A. Cumming (Eds.), Socio-political aspects of ESL
(pp. 50–66). Toronto: OISE Press.
Gumperz, J., & Cook-Gumperz, J. (1981). Ethnic differences in communicative
style. In C. A. Ferguson & S. B. Heath (Eds.), Language in the U.S.A. (pp. 430–
445). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
THE FORUM 579

Hammersley, M. (1992). What’s wrong with ethnography? Methodological explorations.
New York: Routledge.
Heath, S. B. (1993). Inner-city life through drama: Imagining the language class-
Hudelson, S. (1984). Kan yu ret an rayt en ingles: Children become literate in a
second language. TESOL Quarterly, 18, 221–238.
Hymes, D. (1972). Models of the interaction of language and social life. In
J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of
communication (pp. 35–71). New York: HoIt, Rinehart & Winston.
Hymes, D. (1974). Ways of speaking. In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations
in the ethnography of speaking (pp. 433–451). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research within the postmodern. New York:
Routledge.
McDermott, R. (1993). The acquisition of a child by a learning disability. In
S. Chaiklin & J. Lave, Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context
(pp. 269–305). Cambridge: Cambridge University press.
Mehan, H. (1993). Beneath the skin and between the ears: A case study in the
politics of representation. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave, Understanding practice: Per-
spectives on activity and context (pp. 241–268). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Michaels, S. (1981). “Sharing time”: Children’s narrative styles and differential
access to literacy. Language in Society, 10, pp. 423–42.
Modiano, N. (1973). Indian education in the Chiapas Highlands. New York: HoIt,
Rinehart & Winston.
Open University. (1985). Every child’s language: Book II. Clevedon, England: Multi-
lingual Matters.
Pease-Alvarez, L., Garcia, E., & Espinosa, P. (1991). Effective instruction for lan-
guage-minority students: An early childhood case study. Early Childhood Research
Pease-Alvarez, L., & Vasquez, O. (1994). Language socialization in ethnic minority
communities. In F. Genessee, Educating second language children: The whole child,
the whole curriculum, the whole community (pp. 82–102). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Peirce, B. N. (1993). Language learning, social identity and immigrant women. Unpub-
lished doctoral thesis, University of Toronto.
Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL
Philips, S. (1972). Participant structures and communicative competence: Warm
Springs children in community and classroom. In C. B. Cazden, V. P. John, &
D. Hymes (Eds.), Functions of language in the classroom (pp. 370–394). New York:
Teachers College Press.
Rigg, P. (1989). Language experience approach: Reading naturally. In P. Rigg &
V. Allen (Eds.), When they don’t all speak English. Urbana: National Council of
Teachers of English.
Rockhill, K. (1990). Literacy as threat/desire: Longing to be SOMEBODY. TESL
Talk, 20, 89–110.
Rosier, P., & Holm, W. (1980). The Rock Point experience: A longitudinal study of a
Navajo school program (Saad Naaki Bee Na’nitin). Washington, DC: Center for
Applied Linguistics.
580 TESOL QUARTERLY

Ryan, J. (1989). Disciplining the Innut: Normalization, characterization and school-
ing. Curriculum Inquiry, 19, 379–403.
Saville-Troike, M., & Kleifken, J. A. (1986). Scripts for school: Cross-cultural
communication in elementary classrooms. Text, 6, 207–221.
Strong, M. (1983). Social styles and the second language acquisition of Spanish-
speaking kindergartners. TESOL Quarterly, 17, 241–258.
Toukomaa, P., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1979). The intensive teaching of the mother
tongue to migrant children of pre-school age and children in the lower level of comprehen-
sive school. Helsinki: The Finnish National Commission for UNESCO.
Urzúa, C. (1986). A children’s story. In P. Rigg & D. S. Enright (Eds.), Children
and ESL: Integrating perspectives (pp. 93–112). Washington, DC: TESOL.
Willett, G. (1987). Contrasting acculturation patterns of two non-English-speaking
preschoolers. In H. Trueba (Ed.), Success or failure: Learning and the language
minority student (pp. 69–84). Cambridge: Newbury House.
Wong Fillmore, L. (1979). Individual differences in second language acquisition.
In C. Fillmore, D. Kempler, & W. Wang (Eds.), Individual differences in language
ability and language behavior (pp. 203–228). New York: Academic Press.
Asking “Good” Questions: Perspectives From

Qualitative Research on Practice, Knowledge,
and Understanding in Teacher Education
DONALD FREEMAN
School for International Training, Associação Alumni
■ Ithas become increasingly clear to me, over the past 20 years as a

teacher, teacher educator, and researcher in teacher education, that
the complexities of teaching and how it is learned cannot be understood
exclusively from the outside in. Teaching cannot be studied by reduc-
ing it solely to behaviors, observable phenomena, or investigations of
what people do in classrooms (see Freeman, in press). Instead, to
understand classroom practice, I believe it is imperative to examine
how participants—teachers, students, parents, and others involved in
schools and classrooms-construe their worlds, the actions they take,
and the ways in which they explain those actions to themselves and to
others (Shulman, 1986).
To pursue this commitment, I sought out a form of inquiry that
focused on how people make sense of their environment and their
experience. Within this hermeneutic frame of qualitative research,
however, is an essential tension between how participants see what
they do and how it appears to others, like researchers. This tension
between participation and observation, sometimes referred to as the
emic versus the etic (Pike, 1964), is more than a simple difference in
point of view, however. It permeates every level of qualitative research
from how questions are asked; to how data are gathered and analyzed;
THE FORUM 581

to how, with, and to whom research results are reported. This tension
is central to how qualitative research informs my work as a teacher
educator, for it has given rise to “good” questions about what I do. I
can categorize these questions within three perspectives: on practice,
on knowledge, and on understanding.
A PERSPECTIVE ON PRACTICE
Any researched examination of teacher education needs a disciplin-
ary home (Freeman & Richards, 1993). Research questions, methods,
and even findings depend on that home to provide a frame of refer-
ence, a point of comparison, and a locus of ongoing conversation and
debate. As I became involved in qualitative research, I quickly found
this selection of disciplinary home both crucial and intriguing. My
initial interest in the efficacy of teacher education led me to the research
domain known as teacher thinking (Clark & Peterson, 1986). Israeli
researcher Elbaz (1991) explains this domain in terms of reestablishing
teachers’ voices about their work: “Students of teacher thinking have
all been concerned to redress an imbalance which had in the past given
us knowledge of teaching from the outside only; many have been
committed to return to teachers the right to speak for and about
teaching” (p. 10).
Research on teacher thinking has helped me rethink my work as a
teacher educator. It has pushed me to consider how the intersecting
domains of teacher socialization, teacher learning, and individual and
institutional change affect what I do. In examining how individuals
learn to teach and how social and historical contexts contribute in
that learning process, I have been forced to broaden my questions.
Although I began with concerns over the impact of teacher preparation
on classroom practice (see Freeman, 1992), I have become increasingly
drawn to underlying questions of what teachers know in order to do
what they do.
A PERSPECTIVE ON KNOWLEDGE
Thus inquiry into practice has led to an examination of knowledge
or, perhaps better put, knowing. Views of teachers’ knowledge are a
fascinating, if ill-defined, area of study. This research, with anteced-
ents in the philosophical work of Dewey (1933) and Schwab (1978),
has focused on several issues in the last decade. Investigations into how
teaching knowledge derives, yet can be distinguished, from disciplinary
knowledge have led to studies of teachers’ “pedagogical content knowl-
edge” (Shulman, 1987; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987). Questions
of how time becomes experience, how expertise develops, and how
582 TESOL QUARTERLY

teachers’ knowledge evolves throughout their careers have provided
another focus (Berliner, 1988; Genburg, 1992). There have been ex-
aminations of how teachers’ knowledge is situated in the larger land-
scape of their individual professional and personal lives (Kelchter-
mans, 1995). People have challenged the balance of power and
authority in studying what teachers know: How and to what degree
should researchers and teachers collaborate in the creation and pro-
mulgation of such knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1986, 1990)?
These various avenues of investigation have led me to reconsider
how we define teaching as the principal subject matter of teacher
education. Clearly the knowledge or knowing that language teachers
live by is more than simply what they derive from the study of academic
disciplines or the so-called practical study of teaching methods or even
what comes from classroom experience (see Freeman, 1995). But what
is—or are—the knowing(s) on which teachers base what they do? How
are these various sources of knowledge combined in learning to teach
and in the day-to-day classroom practice?
A PERSPECTIVE ON UNDERSTANDING
Grappling with questions of teacher learning has shaped a third
perspective, that of understanding. Any framing of questions about
learning is a tricky matter—even more so when the investigation fo-
cuses on how one social practice, like teaching, is learned and what a
second social practice, like teacher education, can contribute. Time
spent simultaneously in the realms of the research and practice of
teacher education has helped me to conceptualize this complex inter-
section of teaching and teacher education. I have come to see it funda-
mentally as an issue of epistemology: How do we know what we know?
And how do we learn what we know?
Three ideas—phenomenological ethnography (Marton, 1981),
grounded theory (Strauss, 1987), and positionality (Foucault, 1980)—
have helped me to wade into this epistemological mess. Each speaks
to the concept of point of view. Phenomenological ethnography ad-
dresses how data are collected and analyzed; grounded theory, to
how you go about building theoretical explanations from data; and
positionality, to how any knowledge can be seen as shaped by privileges
and constraints of gender, social class, ethnicity, and personal and
class background. Together these powerful concepts have shaken loose
the basic notion that there is—or can be-one certain point of view.
They have opened possibilities of researching how teachers themselves
conceive of their teaching or their content, for example, as distinct
from how they practice it or how others think teaching or content
should be. In what I do as a teacher educator, these three allied notions
THE FORUM 583

have coaxed me to rethink what learners bring to their education
as teachers, and how the myriad and intersecting social contexts of
professional program, school site, personal biography, and subject
matter can shape what and how people learn to teach (see Zinn, 1995).
I cannot really say that I am any further along with these questions.
But I am certain that my experiences with qualitative research have
helped—and even forced—me to question what I do more fully. The
result, I believe, are good questions, which, as one of my children once
pointed out, is what we call questions for which we do not have ready
answers.
THE AUTHOR
Donald Freeman is Professor at the School for International Training. He is on
leave in 1995 to develop a teacher development program at Associação Alumni
in São Paulo.
REFERENCES
Berliner, D. (1988). The development of expertise in pedagogy [brochure]. Washington,
DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Clark, C., & Peterson, P. (1986). Teachers’ thought processes. In M. Wittrock
(Ed.), The handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 255–297). New York:
Macmillan.
Connelly, M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1986). On narrative method, personal philosophy,
and narrative unities in the study of teaching. Journal of Research in Science
Teaching, 23, 293–310.
Connelly, M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative
inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19, 2–14.
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Boston: D. C. Heath.
Elbaz, F. (1991). Research on teacher’s knowledge: The evolution of a discourse.
Journal of Curriculum Studies, 23, 1-19.
Foucault, M. (1980). The Foucault reader. New York: Pantheon Books.
Freeman, D. (1992). To make the tacit explicit: Teacher education, emerging
discourse, and conceptions of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 7, 439–
454.
Freeman, D. (1995). Educational linguistics and the education of second language
teachers. In J. Alatis (Ed.), Proceedings of the 1994 Georgetown University Round
Table on Languages and Linguistics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press.
Freeman, D. (in press). Redefining the relationship between research and what
teachers know. In K. Bailey & D. Nunan (Eds.), Voices from the second language
classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Freeman, D., & Richards, J. C. (1993). Conceptions of teaching and the education
of second language teachers. TESOL Quarterly, 27, 193–216.
Genburg, V. (1992). Patterns and organizing perspectives: A view of expertise.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 8, 485–496.
Kelchtermans, G. (1995). Biographical methods in the study of teachers’ profes-
sional development. In I. Varlgren, G. Handal, & S. Vaage (Eds.), Teachers’
584 TESOL QUARTERLY

minds and actions: Research on teachers’ thinking and practice (pp. 93–108). London:
Falmer Press.
Marton, F. (1981). Phenomenography: Describing conceptions of the world
around us. Instructional Science, 10, 177–200.
Pike, K. (1964). Language in relation to a verified theory of structures of human behavior.
The Hague: Mouton.
Schwab, J. (1978). Education and the structure of the disciplines. In I. Westbury
& N. J. Wilkof (Eds.), Science, curriculum, and liberal education (pp. 229–272).
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shulman, L. (1986). Paradigms and research programs in the study of teaching.
In M. Wittrock (Ed.), The handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 3–36).
New York: Macmillan.
Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge-base and teaching: Foundations of the new re-
form. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1–22.
Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Wilson, S., Shulman, L., &. Richert, A. (1987). “150 different ways” of knowing:
Representations of knowledge in teaching. In J. Calderhead (Ed), Exploring
teachers’ thinking (pp. 104–124). London: Cassell.
Zinn, D. (1995). What prospective teachers bring to teaching: A review of the literature
on prior knowledge about teaching and its influence on learning to teach. Qualifying
paper, Harvard University, Boston.
THE FORUM 585

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BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
The TESOL Quarterly invites readers to submit short reports and updates on
their work. These summaries may address any areas of interest to Quarterly
readers. Authors’ addresses are printed with these reports to enable interested
readers to contact the authors for more details.
Edited by GRAHAM CROOKES and KATHRYN A. DAVIS

University of Hawaii at Manoa
Interviewing in a Multicultural
Multilingual Setting
TARA GOLDSTEIN
University of Toronto
■ This report will discuss the challenge of conducting interviews in a

multicultural/multilingual setting where the linguistic and cultural prac-
tices of the researcher and the research participants differ. The discussion
will focus on an ethnographic case study of bilingual life and language
choice in a Canadian manufacturing factory mostly staffed with Portu-
guese immigrant workers (Goldstein, 1991, 1992, 1994a, 1994b). This
study of bilingual life and language choice at work was motivated by my
own experience as a workplace ESL instructor and my own questions
around workplace language classes organized in Canada to meet official
language communication needs of immigrants working outside the home.
Although my comments here refer specifically to the practice of ethno-
graphic interviewing, I believe that they are relevant to researchers work-
ing in interview situations that are not seen as ethnographic.
BACKGROUND
The 2-year ethnographic study progressed through three major re-
search stages that increasingly zoomed in (Mehan, Hertweck, & Meihls,
1986) on the research setting. Stage 1 began with an attempt to gain a
wide-angle view of the research setting. The major goal at this stage was
to explore what life at the factory was like for those who worked there.
Research activities in Stage 2 were undertaken to generate hypotheses
about language choice conventions on the production floor. Although the
information I was able to get at this second stage allowed me to make
several broad hypotheses about language choice rules on the manufactur-
ing floor, I found that I could not fully explain all the differences between
587
the ways different workers communicated. Part of the problem was that
I did not understand or speak any Portuguese. Although I could tell who
was using what language to speak to whom, I had no idea what people
were talking about. To understand the more subtle differences between
the ways different speakers were using the two languages, I needed to
know what people were saying. Furthermore, the information I had gath-
ered in Stage 2 could not help me explain why particular language prac-
tices were in place.
My next steps, then, were to record, transcribe, and translate samples
of natural speech on the manufacturing floor to find out what people
were saying to each when they were using Portuguese and English. At
the same time as I recorded natural speech in the Production Department,
I interviewed the Portuguese employees working in the department to
see if I could find out why particular language practices were in place.
These activities took place in Stage 3 of the project and are the focus of
the discussion in this report.
WORKING WITH A LINGUISTIC AND

CULTURAL INTERPRETER
During the third stage of the project, I worked with a fluently bilingual
Portuguese/English research assistant, Dora Matos who was born and
university educated in mainland Portugal. In Canada, she taught ESL and
Portuguese literacy classes for immigrant men and women from Portugal
and the Azores. Although Matos herself speaks the standard Portuguese
used by Portuguese university graduates, she understands and was able
to transcribe and translate the Azorean variety as a result of her work
with students from the Azores. Matos had also spent a year working in
the Azores as an engineer while she was still living in Portugal. Importantly,
Matos played the role not only of linguistic interpreter but also of cultural
interpreter: She was able to provide me with many useful insights concern-
ing the appropriateness and clarity of my interview questions as a result
of her work with Azorean students and the time she had spent living in
the Azores.
My work with a bilingual/bicultural research assistant requires some
discussion. It can be argued that I should have become as fluent as possible
in Portuguese before undertaking this research project. Such fluency
would have allowed me to interview the workers on the line myself and
acquire a firsthand, rather than secondhand, understanding of what peo-
ple were saying when they spoke Portuguese on the lines. If I had been
fluent in Portuguese, I would have been dependent neither on Matos’s
interpretation of what participants were saying at their interviews nor on
her interpretation of how Portuguese was being spoken on the lines.
Generally speaking, ethnographers are expected to engage in partici-
pant observation over an extended period of time within the community
they are studying. Through active participation in the community, ethnog-
raphers not only gain information specifically related to research questions
588 TESOL QUARTERLY

but also learn the language and social conventions of the community. As
an ethnographer who spent 2 years in the community under study but
did not engage in this kind of language learning and cultural learning
by myself, I need to ask questions about the strengths and limitations of
my ethnographic analysis.
Working with a linguistic and cultural interpreter has meant working
with two layers of interpretation, a characteristic of my work that some
readers may see as a limitation. However, working with a linguistic and
cultural interpreter has also provided me with the sociocultural, sociolin-
guistic background knowledge necessary for understanding talk by Azor-
ean workers. This knowledge, the importance—and complexity—of which
has been discussed by sociolinguists interested in intercultural interview
situations (see, e.g., Belfiore & Heller, 1992; Gumperz, 1992), was not
accessible to me without a linguistic and cultural interpreter. It is this
knowledge that strengthens my analysis.
Ultimately, it is the reader who judges the claims and interpretations
researchers make in their analysis and the strengths and limitations of
their work. Because careful attention to interviewing practices in cross-
cultural settings is critical to the strength of a study’s findings and because
such attention is still the exception rather than the rule. I offer the follow-
ing report of the work Matos and I undertook together to stimulate
thought and discussion around (mis)interpretation and (misunders-
tanding in cross-cultural interview situations.
PREPARING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

In a work that examines the research interview as a culturally con-
structed communicative event, Briggs (1986) argues that it is important
to understand the norms the interviewees have for talking about them-
selves and talking about their experiences. Different groups of people
have differing kinds of restrictions on who may ask what questions of
whom under what circumstances. Furthermore, questions may not mean
the same thing to a member of another speech community, even if trans-
lated accurately.
To make sure that interviewer and interviewee share the same under-
standing of the meanings of the questions they are asking and answering,
Briggs argues that the interviewer must carefully (a) examine the compati-
bility of native communicative patterns and the norms presupposed by
the interview and (b) examine interviews for hidden misunderstandings.
Because interviews themselves can suppress native communicative rou-
tines, the interviewer needs to conduct a limited amount of sociolinguistic
fieldwork on the native communicative routines prior to interviewing re-
search participants. The success of the research interview with speakers
of other languages depends on the researcher’s capacity for allowing
native communicative routines to work their way into the interview situ-
ation.
To learn how to ask (Briggs, 1986) meaningful questions during the
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 589

interviews I was going to undertake with Portuguese workers, I needed
to first discover how people talked about themselves and how they de-
scribed their experiences at the factory. To do so, I turned to the tape
recordings I had made of one of the lunchtime English classes the Portu-
guese workers attended. The classroom recordings were chosen because
talk between the instructor and his students included examples of workers
talking about themselves in English. I could have also examined Portu-
guese interactions among Portuguese coworkers
In listening to the tapes of the class to find out how people talked about
themselves and their experiences to someone who was not Portuguese, I
found out some important information that I kept in mind while designing
and conducting the interviews. The following excerpt from my field notes
traces my attempt to analyze how the Portuguese workers in the class
talked about themselves and their experiences. The excerpt below refers
to the instructor’s classroom presentation and discussion of the English
proverb, “When it rains, it pours.”
1. In trying to get the students to give examples of the meaning of the

1
proverb “when it rains it pours.” Carl, the instructor, gives a hypothetical
example about himself “Let’s say, for example, myself. Let’s say I spent,
urn, one month looking for a job . . . . All of a sudden in one day, I get
two jobs. So I can say, ‘When it rains, it pours’ . . . . Now when one
bad thing happens, many bad things happen. Or when one good thing
happens, more good things happen.”
This personal example from his own life (I’m not sure how aware the
students are that it is hypothetical because the only clue to its being so
is let’s say) provokes Idalina to connect the proverb to her life and say,
“Yeah, some days are like that. First thing in the morning, starts bad
and all day it’s gonna be, bad things gonna happen.”
Carl pushes her to continue to connect the proverb to real life events
(not necessarily her own): “Yes, and can you give, can you give some
more examples of that?”
At this point, Gracinda, having understood that Carl wants them to
talk about bad events in their own lives, says to someone else in the class
in Portuguese, “That’s not a subject to talk about with a man.”
Matos’s comment was this: “It is an event to talk to a male, especially
an English male. Many Azorean women may find it difficult to talk to a
male because they are shy [as opposed to others who are outgoing].
Gracinda will give her opinion on a subject, but not to anybody.”
There are two important things to learn from these exchanges. First,
when Carl gives an example from his own life, it provokes Idalina to give
an example from her life. Thus, if interviewers want people to give them
an example of their experience of something, they may want to give an
1
The names of the participants in this study have been changed to maintain their anonymity.
590 TESOL QUARTERLY

example from their own life first. Second, for many Azoreans some things
are not acceptable to talk about with a man. Hence the interviewer needs
to determine whether or not there is anything that might not be acceptable
to talk about with a Canadian-born, English-speaking single woman if you
are a Portuguese man or a Portuguese woman.
To make sure that I would not inadvertently ask interviewees questions
that they felt they could not or should not answer, I piloted my interview
with two fluently bilingual Portuguese supervisors, one male and one
female. After each of the interviews, I asked the supervisors whether any
of the questions were inappropriate and, thus, should not be asked and
whether they would change the wording of any of the questions. As well,
during the pilot interviews, I watched for nonverbal responses that might
indicate a lack of understanding of a question. Finally, the supervisors
and I discussed where the interviews should be held in the factory—where
most of the workers would be most comfortable talking to me.
Each worker interviewed chose what language in which to conduct the
interview. Matos was available to translate whenever necessary. After we
conducted the first two interviews—which the participants chose to con-
duct in Portuguese—Matos and I analyzed the interview responses and
made some additional changes to the interview schedule. Although the
question, “What do you think when another person who speaks Portuguese
speaks English to you?” was not a problem for the bilingual supervisors,
it was a problem for the two women workers who chose to use Portuguese
in the interview. The question drew a blank look and no response—it was
not clear to the women what kind of answer or information I was looking
for. In response to this confusion, Matos and I tried making this abstract
question more concrete by referring to people’s everyday experiences.
We changed the question to, “If you were working on the line beside
Idalina, and if Idalina started speaking English to you, what would you
say? What would you feel?” This question was much more successful. It
elicited such answers as
2. Before I’m mad because I don’t speak English. I don’t understand the
people who talk English. It make me crazy because maybe they talk about
me . . . . Now, I don’t care. Before I don’t understand . . . . Now, I don’t
speak very, very good, but I understand.
The success we experienced by referring to people’s everyday experiences

was actually foreshadowed in the sociolinguistic fieldwork I did in Carl’s
classroom. My field notes stated,
3. When Carl gives an example from his own life, it provokes Idalina to
give an example from her life: If you want people to give you an example
of their experience of something, you may want to give them an example
from your own life first.

In hindsight, what was important in Carl’s example was not only the fact
that it was based in his own real-life experience but also the fact that it
was based in everyday life experience.
In a similar vein, questions that elicited people’s stories about working
on different lines with different supervisors and different workers (e.g.,
“Tell me about working on Joanne’s line, with Joanne’s crew.” “Tell me
about working on Luisa’s line, with Luisa’s crew.”) provided me with rich
data about language and cultural practices on the production lines. These
were data that I did not access with such hypothetical questions as “If I
got a job on your line tomorrow, what advice would you give me so I
could do a good job?” Importantly, my ability to ask such questions as
“Tell me about working on Joanne’s line” was dependent on a certain
amount of background knowledge of how things worked on the manufac-
turing floor. For example, I needed to know that Joanne and Luisa—and
the crews who worked with each of them—had different ways of getting
work done. This background knowledge of how things worked at work—
knowledge that I shared with the workers I interviewed—was crucial for
gathering the kind of information I was looking for.
In their work on participation and decision making in cross-cultural
interviews between immigrant clients and providers of government ser-
vices, Belfiore and Heller (1992) also refer to the importance of shared
background knowledge, noting that “background knowledge shared by
both the [government employment/job-training] counselor and the client
is essential for the participation of both parties in arriving at a mutually acceptable
outcome [italics added]” (p. 223).
In conclusion, this report describes one researcher’s experience of con-
ducting ethnographic interviews in a setting where her own linguistic
and cultural practices of speaking differed from those of the research
participants. I discovered that my ability to ask meaningful questions in
cross-cultural research interviews depended on (at least) two things: (a)
an awareness of the norms the interviewees had for talking about them-
selves and talking about their experiences and (b) shared background
knowledge about these experiences. To gain this kind of awareness and
knowledge, I needed to work with a linguistic and cultural interpreter
and spend some time learning how to ask meaningful questions before
conducting any interviews.
As mentioned earlier, the work of linguistic and cultural interpretation
in this research project was undertaken by a Portuguese colleague of mine
who taught ESL and Portuguese literacy classes for immigrant men and
women from Portugal and the Azores. Matos’s interest in the research
project was sparked by her own questions concerning bilingual life and
language choice in multicultural/multilingual educational settings. Re-
cently, we have begun to hear a lot about the benefits of action research
projects in the field of L2 education (see, e.g., Crookes, 1993). My experi-
ence suggests there is great potential in organizing opportunities for ESL
teachers from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds to team up
with each other and with applied linguistics researchers to conduct action
592 TESOL QUARTERLY

research projects around questions of language teaching and learning in
multicultural/multilingual settings.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research discussed in this report was undertaken as my doctorate thesis study.
I thank and acknowledge my thesis supervisor, Monica Heller, as well as thesis
committee members Roger Simon and Barbara Burnaby, all from the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education, for their interest and expert guidance. I also
thank York University for its financial support and express my appreciation for
making research funding available for part-time faculty. Finally, I want to acknowl-
edge the important contribution made by Dora Matos, my research assistant, whose
warmth and ability to relate to the Portuguese workers who participated in this
study was invaluable to the data collection stage of the project. Matos’s work as
linguistic and cultural interpreter also significantly contributed to the sociolinguis-
tic analysis of language use on the production floor of the factory. Finally, I thank
Kathryn Davis, Anne Lazaraton, and the anonymous reviewer for their suggestions
on revising this paper. Their suggestions were most helpful.
REFERENCES
Belfiore, M. E., & Heller, M. (1992). Cross-cultural interviews: Participation and
decision-making. In B. Burnaby & A. Cumming (Eds.), Sociopolitical aspects of
ESL (pp. 233–240). Toronto: OISE Press,
Briggs, C. (1986). Learning how to ask: A sociolinguistic appraisal of the role of the
interview in social science research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crookes, G. (1993). Action research for second language teachers: Going beyond
teacher research. Applied Linguistics, 14, 130–144.
Goldstein, T. (1991). Immigrants in the multicultural/multilingual workplace: Ways of
communicating and experience at work. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Univer-
sity of Toronto.
Goldstein, T. (1992). Language choice and women learners of ESL. In K. Hall,
M. Bucholz, & B. Moonwomon (Eds.), Locating Power: Proceedings of the Second
Berkeley Women and Language Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 171–181). Berkeley, CA:
Berkeley Women and Language Group.
Goldstein, T. (1994a). Bilingual life and language choice on the production floor.
Multilingual, 13, 213–224.
Goldstein, T. (1994 b). “We are sisters so we don’t have to be polite to each other”:
Language choice and English language training in the multilingual workplace.
TESL Canada Journal, 11, 30–45.
Gumperz, J. J. (1992). Interviewing in intercultural situations. In P. Drew &
J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings (pp. 302-327).
Mehan, H., Hertweck, A., & Meihls, J. L. (1986). Handicapping the handicapped.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Author’s Address: Faculty of Education, University of Toronto, 371 Bloor

Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V5,

The Thirtieth Annual Convention and Exposition
Teachers of English to Speakers of
Other Languages, Inc.
For more information please contact:

TESOL, Inc. Conventions Department
1600 Cameron Street, Suite 300
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-2751 USA
Telephone (703) 836-0774 Fax (703) 836-7864
E-mail [email protected]
REVIEWS
The TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant to
TESOL professionals. In addition to textbooks and reference materials, these
include computer and video software, testing instruments, and other forms of
nonprint materials.
Edited by H. DOUGLAS BROWN

San Francisco State University
Guides for the Novice Qualitative Researcher
Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction.

Corrine Glesne and Alan Peshkin. New York: Longman, 1992. Pp.
xvi + 199.
Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences.

Bruce L. Berg. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1989. Pp. viii + 172.
Ethnography: Principles in Practice.

Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson. London and New York:
Tavistock Publications, 1983. Pp. x + 273.
■ Until about a decade ago, few books were available to guide novice
qualitative researchers. In fact, all three of the books reviewed here
cite this lack of textual support as a reason for their own publication.
There was, and perhaps still is, a perception that ethnographic and
qualitative research has a mystical and intuitive quality that does not
lend itself to step-by-step instruction. “Traditionally, [qualitative] re-
searchers have learned their craft through a combination of trial and
error, and mentoring with more experienced researchers” (Berg,
p. vii). Of course, there were other people’s qualitative studies to look
to for guidance, but often the process of actually doing the research
received little attention, so novices would have to infer a great deal
from reading a study. Hammersley and Atkinson provide a very useful
annotated bibliography of what was available in the way of instruction
until 1982, including brief critical remarks. The works they list are
not as comprehensive as the works reviewed here. Included are ethno-
graphic studies in which the researcher discusses methods to some
595
extent, as well as works such as Agar’s The Professional Stranger (1980)
and Spradley’s volumes on participant observation (1980) and inter-
viewing (1979), which concentrate more on a technique than on a
comprehensive view of qualitative methodology. Essentially, though,
qualitative research was a “sink or swim” enterprise for many students.
The past 10 years have seen the publication of many more compre-
hensive books and articles that attempt to fill this void—these three
are only a small sample from some of the most well-known researchers.
They represent somewhat different orientations and, although they
all claim to address novice researchers, they differ considerably in style
and user friendliness. And lest anyone get the wrong idea, no single
book is ever going to be enough to prepare researchers for their field
experience. In addition to reading one or several of these guides,
novices need to take courses on qualitative research in which they can
grapple with theoretical and methodological questions through peer
and teacher-student interaction. They also need to read examples of
exemplary qualitative research and test the waters themselves by doing
pilot studies or mini–research projects (see Davis, this issue).
In terms of audience accessibility, Glesne and Peshkin’s Becoming
Qualitative Researchers is by far the most readable of the three. The
book flows along like a friendly chat, with liberal use of the second
person and plenty of examples from the authors’ own experiences as
well as those of their students. Specialized terms are used only when
necessary and are explained clearly. The other two books are denser.
Hammersley and Atkinson in particular make quite a few assumptions
about the background knowledge of the reader, although they do note
that they have seasoned practitioners as well as novices in mind as an
audience .
In terms of orientation and focus, both Berg and Glesne and Peshkin
cover qualitative approaches in general, whereas Hammersley and
Atkinson focus squarely on ethnography, which is one methodological
approach among other qualitative approaches. Berg confuses the issue
considerably when he says there are “three ways to collect qualitative
data: 1) interviewing; 2) ethnography; and 3) unobtrusive measures”
(p. 4). I would argue, and so I think would the authors of the other
two books, that interviewing and unobtrusive measures are often if not
always part of ethnographic data collection, and that Berg is relegating
ethnography to the status of a data collection technique when in fact
it is a methodological approach that encompasses many data collection
techniques (see Davis, this issue). Perhaps he is equating ethnography
with participant observation.
Both Berg and Hammersley and Atkinson adhere explicitly to partic-
ular theories about how human interaction can best be understood.
596 TESOL QUARTERLY

These theories inform and shape their discussions about qualitative
research. Berg is a symbolic interactionist, believing that
human beings communicate what they learn through symbols, the most
common system of symbols being language. Linguistic symbols amount to
arbitrary sounds or physical gestures to which people, by mutual agreement
over time, have attached significance or meaning. The core task of symbolic
interactionists as researchers, then, is to capture the essence of this process
for interpreting (or attaching) meaning to various symbols. (p. 7)
The symbolic interaction perspective is reflected in Berg’s view of

interviewing as “dramaturgy,” involving the “elements and language
of theater, statecraft, and stage management” (p. 15). Berg applies
the language of dramaturgy metaphorically to the interview situation,
seeing the interviewer as someone who takes on various roles, making
the exchange part of a “conscious social performance” (p. 34).
Hammersley and Atkinson’s work, on the other hand, reflects their
central concern with reflexivity, which they define as the recognition
“that we are part of the social world we study” (p. 14). As a result of
this recognition, “rather than engaging in futile attempts to eliminate
the effects of the researcher, we should set about understanding them”
(p. 17). Glesne and Peshkin do not explicitly adhere to a particular
theory of social interaction, but they do include a good discussion on
how students can both draw on and build theory.
Each book gives numerous examples from qualitative studies to
illustrate their methodological points. Glesne and Peshkin focus pri-
marily on examples from educational settings. Berg, on the other hand,
comes from a sociological foundation and draws his examples mostly
from research on drug users and various kinds of “deviants’’—among
whom he includes homosexuals, thereby revealing his own heterocen-
tricity. Hammersley and Atkinson’s examples cover a wide range in-
cluding classic anthropological studies such as Malinowski (1922) and
more recent studies of education and urban youth subcultures, mainly
in England. Both Berg and Hammersley and Atkinson give very few
examples from the work of women researchers, whereas Glesne and
Peshkin present a more balanced view of gender in qualitative research.
None of the three books focuses to any extent on language or cross-
cultural communication issues, which may be a disappointment for
TESOL audiences. Glesne and Peshkin, in a section that answers typical
student questions about research, respond as follows to someone who
asks whether to leave in every uhm, you know, and so on: “Use your
judgement. Leave in enough of such sounds and words to capture the
person’s speech authentically, but not so much as to impose on a
REVIEWS 597
reader’s patience. Authenticity can be overdone; how many ‘you
know’s’ and ‘uhm’s’ should readers suffer?” (p. 169). Clearly, the stud-
ies they are thinking of are not concerned with discourse and the
meanings of such particles. Hammersley and Atkinson likewise indi-
cate that it is not usual to record the nuances of speech (pp. 155–
156). One might expect Berg, with his theoretical orientation toward
language as a symbolic system, to pay more attention to the language
use of informants, but like the others he is rather quiet on the subject.
However, more and more qualitative studies do pay attention to the
nuances of language, especially when the study focuses on communica-
tion. The relatively low cost of audio and video recording equipment
now makes such studies, often called microethnography, much more
feasible (see, for example, Erickson, 1987; Henze, 1992; Scollon &
Scollon, 1981).
These three books span a period of almost 10 years, during which
qualitative research has not only attracted new practitioners in a variety
of fields but also deepened its sophistication and reflectiveness. In
Anthropology as Cultural Critique, Marcus and Fischer (1986) call our
attention to the present as an exploratory time in the human sciences,
particularly in anthropology. “Such exploration . . . lies in the move
from a simple interest in the description of cultural others to a more
balanced purpose of cultural critique which plays off other cultural
realities against our own in order to gain a more adequate knowledge
of them all” (p. x). Taken together, the three books that I review here
illustrate this shift in the ways we think about studying other people.
Hammersley and Atkinson’s discussions about reflexivity, and Glesne
and Peshkin’s advice to “get as fully as possible in touch with the
embodied self who performs the acts of research’ (p. 106), indicate
that increasingly qualitative researchers are placing themselves within
the research design rather than outside of it as supposedly unobtrusive
observers. Finally, whereas Berg and Hammersley and Atkinson dis-
cuss covert tactics as an option, Glesne and Peshkin note the move
away from covert research and toward a greater sense of responsibility
to and reciprocity with the “others” we study.
In closing, I note that the three volumes overlap considerably, espe-
cially when it comes to the actual techniques of data collection. They
tend to differ more in the areas of theory, ethics, and the role of
the researcher. Hammersley and Atkinson, as noted, have included a
wonderful annotated bibliography, and their in-depth discussion about
positivism, naturalism, and reflexivity is very helpful for those with
some research background. Berg’s chapters on content analysis and
unobtrusive measures are likewise helpful, particularly because they
are not discussed in such detail in the other two volumes. However,
among the three I find Glesne and Peshkin the best overall treatment
598 TESOL QUARTERLY

of qualitative research for the novice, the most readable, and the most
up-to-date in terms of current debates within anthropology.
REFERENCES
Agar, M. (1980). The professional stranger. New York: Academic Press.
Erickson, F. (1987). Transformation and school success: The politics and culture
of educational achievement. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 18, 335–356.
Henze, R. C. (1992). Informal teaching and learning: A study of everyday cognition in
a Greek community. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the western Pacific. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul.
Marcus, G. E., & Fischer, M. M. J. (1986). Anthropology as cultural critique: An
experimental moment in the human sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (1981). Narrative, literacy, and face in interethnic communica-
Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: HoIt, Rinehart &
Winston.
Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart& Winston.
ROSEMARY C. HENZE
ARC Associates
Language Planning in Multilingual Contexts:

Policies, Communities, and Schools in Luxembourg.
Kathryn A. Davis. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994. Pp. xix +
220.
■ This book is a fine addition to a growing collection of book-length

ethnographic case studies of language planning and educational policy
in multilingual settings. As with other recent studies (Freeman, 1993;
Hornberger, 1988), this study explicitly links macro- to microlevels of
analysis—the macrolevel of national language and education policy to
the microlevel of patterns of language use and learning in schools
and communities—in order to shed light on both. This study lives up
to that promise by showing, on the one hand, why Luxembourg’s
recent measures designed to increase the population’s multilingual
language and literacy skill levels have not met with unqualified success
and, on the other, how present patterns of language and literacy use
and learning vary across social classes and are a reflection of national
political, socioeconomic, and cultural history.
Luxembourg’s 1984 trilingual language policy and the ongoing re-
forms in its nationalized system of education (including the establish-
ment of the technical high school as an alternative to the college prepa-
REVIEWS 599
ratory high school) came in response to the 1975 national economic
crisis that led ultimately to a shift from an industrial (iron and steel)
to a service-oriented economy, from blue-collar to white-collar labor
demand, and from a traditional and stable triglossia (French, German,
and Letzebuergesch) to a more complex set of language needs includ-
ing the need for more multilingualism and higher skill levels in lan-
guages of wider communication (especially French and English).
In an effort to understand what impact the new policies have on the
nation and its people, Davis spent the 1986–1987 year as participant
observer in the industrial south of Luxembourg (including Luxem-
bourg City) after having lived and worked in Luxembourg previously
for 5 years. She observed in schools at all levels and in lower-, middle-,
and upper-class homes, taking notes, collecting documents, conducting
interviews, and carrying out a survey on language use on a sample of
200 individuals (125 of whom were students). Based on these data,
she describes Luxembourg’s language policy as it is intended at the
national level (Chapters 1 and 2), implemented in the schools (Chapters
3 and 4), and experienced in lower-, middle-, and upper-class lives
(Chapters 5 and 6). She concludes with observations about the disjunc-
tures between these levels of policy and some recommendations for
addressing the disjunctures, including forward mapping in policy im-
plementation and the incorporation of community language and social
norms into classroom practices (Chapter 7).
The composite case studies presented in Chapters 5 and 6 represent
a useful ethnographic analytic and writing tool and are the best part
of the book, in my view. Through her description and interpretation
of a day in the life of one family each in upper-, middle-, and lower-
class communities, Davis shows how language policy as experienced
varies greatly according to social class. Whereas the upper- and middle-
class child learns, in both home and school, to value and practice
multilingualism (albeit to different degrees), the lower-class child does
not. Indeed, Davis makes clear how multilingualism, the mark of the
elite, becomes for the lower class an object of rejection. This contradic-
tion between policy as intended and as experienced, she points out, is
clear evidence that language policy cannot succeed without an under-
standing of the targeted population. Davis’s study allows for just such
a possibility and thereby enriches our understanding of language
planning.
REFERENCES
Freeman, R. (1993). Language planning and identity planning for social change: Gaining
the ability and the right to participate. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, George-
town University, Washington, DC.
600 TESOL QUARTERLY

Hornberger, N. H. (1988). Bilingual education and language maintenance: A southern
Peruvian Quechua case. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
NANCY H. HORNBERGER
The University of Pennsylvania
Research Methods in Language Learning.

David Nunan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp.
xii + 249.
■ Finally, classroom language teachers with no sophisticated research

background are provided with a user-friendly research book. Nunan’s
Research Methods in Language Learning will certainly help both novice
and experienced language teachers understand the fundamental prin-
ciples and methods of conducting classroom-based research. The book
is also targeting students of applied linguistics, education researchers,
and teachers in training. Nunan introduces his readers to eight theoret-
ically grounded methods: the experimental method, ethnography, case
study, classroom observation, introspective methods, elicitation tech-
niques, interaction analysis, and program evaluation.
The book is divided into 10 chapters in which the author presents
and explains a particular research method or technique and gives an
example from an actual research study that the reader can use for
further investigation. In these research examples the author provides
all the different steps of the selected research. For example, in Chapter
2 readers are introduced to a study by Chaudron and Richards that
follows the linear stages of the psychometric model of research. Nunan
follows this example with a critique that highlights the strengths and
weaknesses of the study. He ends every chapter with a clearly stated
conclusion and a questions-and-tasks section that gives readers the
opportunity of reviewing and testing their comprehension of the mate-
rials. Some of the tasks are research design questions in which readers
conduct their own research. In addition, every chapter ends with a
further reading section for those who want to delve a little bit deeper
into a particular research method.
Of particular interest to the classroom language teacher is the first
chapter, where Nunan gives an overview of research traditions in
applied linguistics. He also introduces the reader to a clearly stated
distinction between quantitative and qualitative research methods. Nu-
nan argues that the difference between these two methods reflects
“two ways of thinking about and understanding the world around us”
(p. 10). Equally important, he emphasizes that it is the research ques-
REVIEWS 601
tions that should lead to a particular research method and not the
other way round. He states that “the research method or methods one
employs should be determined by the questions which one wishes
to investigate, rather than by any predetermined adherence to one
tradition rather than another” (p. 71).
In addition to introducing language teachers to conducting their
own research, Research Methods in Language Learning aims at facilitating
the reading, understanding, and critiquing of published studies in
applied linguistics, a task that can be intimidating to teachers who
are unfamiliar with the technical language of ESL/EFL research. The
significance of the book lies in its explanation of a plethora of technical
research terms, such as reliability, validity, inference, construct, and context,
to name just a few.
Even though the book is written clearly, novice teachers who want
to have a solid understanding of the content may require some back-
ground information. The book remains, however, a practical and
timely contribution to the field of EFL/ESL research.
SALAH TROUDI
Florida State University
The Study of Second Language Acquisition.

Rod Ellis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 802.
■ The Study of Second Language Acquisition is one of the few books in

the field of second language acquisition (SLA) to give a comprehensive
overview of learner language and its study. The breadth of informa-
tion contained within this book is commendable, and it is without a
doubt a valuable and worthwhile resource for libraries, serious scholars
of SLA, and teachers of second languages.
The book is divided into seven parts which in turn are divided into
chapters, each covering a specific field of SLA. The division of parts
and chapters is a useful tool for the researcher who requires particular
information on a specific area. These would include teachers of an
L2, whom Ellis cites as “probably the principal kind of reader for
which the book is intended” (p. 4) and for whom Part 6 of the book
on classroom interaction and formal instruction would be particularly
useful.
As a beginning student in the field of SLA, I found the most useful
feature of Ellis’s book to be its extensive bibliography. Works dating
from as early as 1933 to as recently as 1993 are included in what
602 TESOL QUARTERLY

can only be described as the most comprehensive list of the research
available on SLA.
Other features of this book helpful to beginning students and experi-
enced scholars alike are its glossary and numerous tables. The glossary,
in addition to giving complete definitions of words and terms associated
with SLA research, also contains the names of the theorists connected
with a particular term. The tables are another form of easy reference
that successfully condense some of the more complex issues of SLA
research into a comprehensible format.
Certain flaws in Ellis’s book make the text tedious and difficult to
follow, especially for beginning students such as myself. The organiza-
tion within the chapters is a heroic attempt at simplifying some very
complex issues. Unfortunately, the numerous headings, subheadings,
and sub-subheadings result in an information-processing nightmare
and serve to confuse rather than guide the reader. In addition, Ellis
does not provide adequate information on data analysis, interpretation,
and different methodological approaches—limitations of considerable
importance to beginning students. Finally, despite claims of objectivity,
Ellis quite obviously prefers certain theorists over others. Krashen, for
instance, is barely mentioned in a chapter on input and interaction,
despite his influence on the field.
Although not the most appropriate book for beginning students,
The Study of Second Language Acquisition nevertheless accomplishes a
momentous task and is particularly useful to L2 teachers as well as
being an excellent research source.
JULIE KEARNEY
Texas A&M University
Problem/Solution: A Reference for ESL Writers.

Patricia Byrd and Beverly Benson. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1994.
Pp. iii + 270.
■ In keeping with its title, Byrd and Benson’s book is not merely a
textbook; it is a tool to provide high-intermediate to advanced ESL/
EFL writers with ways to solve their writing problems. Problem/Solution
contains help for those errors most likely to trouble the targeted ESL
writers. Presented in alphabetical order, headings like Agreement,
Parallelism, Transition, and Verbs assist the student in quickly identi-
fying a problem and determining the best correct response. Problem/
Solution achieves its objectives and provides useful information to
writers.
REVIEWS 603
Aiming at communicative competence, the book addresses the issue
of strategic competence by focusing on enabling students to correct
breakdowns in communication caused by inaccurate grammar. Stu-
dents are urged to learn both to recognize problems and to acquire
strategies to correct them. Recognizing that writing will invariably
involve making errors and that learning to correct errors is an inevita-
ble part of writing, Problem/Solution acknowledges writing as an inter-
active, recursive process, placing it firmly in the process-based writing
camp. One of the main strengths of this book is its emphasis on the
student as an increasingly independent, responsible writer. The text
focuses on both accuracy and fluency in written communication, en-
couraging students to use the reference to help revise actual errors
and self-teach questionable grammar points before they are misused.
Problem/Solution begins with an editing key listing symbols and words
teachers often use to signify errors in student writing. For instance,
entries listed under Fragments include fragment, frag, f, incomplete,
and inc. Readers are provided with these abbreviations to help them
interpret teachers’ often incomprehensible comments.
Each section is broken down into units that address specific issues
(Noun-Pronoun Agreement, Avoiding Sexist Language, Irregular
Verbs, etc.). Each unit contains four parts: General Information about
the problem, Problem Information explaining common errors, Prac-
tice Activities, and Cross-References referring to other helpful areas
of the book. Different fonts and symbols differentiate between correct
statements and incorrect ones in addition to highlighting explanations
and suggestions. ESL student writing samples are used for authentic
examples, and the subjects include a wide range of topics such as
college life, acculturation, history, geography, and sociology. Practice
activities vary, and an answer key in the back of the book contains
answers to odd-numbered practice questions, allowing students to eval-
uate themselves.
For use in the classroom, a formal writing text would be needed to
accompany the book, as it rightly claims only to be a reference manual.
A helpful element would be an index. Even with the convenient alpha-
betical ordering of the subjects, some are still difficult to locate, as only
the main headings, and not individual problem areas, are alphabetized.
Finally, correction of the unfortunate comma error in the publicity no-
tice on the back of the book would add to its credibility. However, these
small flaws cannot overshadow the fact that Problem/Solution’s focus on
strategic competence, the writing process, and the learner as an indepen-
dent being make it an effective and functional tool for ESL writers.
SUZANNE HOUSE
The Pennsylvania State University
604 TESOL QUARTERLY

Making Business Decisions: Real Cases from Real Companies.
Frances Boyd. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1994. Pp. x + 163.
■ Making Business Decisions attempts to develop the sociolinguistic and

discourse competence of English for special purposes business stu-
dents. It has 10 units, each focusing on one company via themes
and case histories, for example, franchising (Kentucky Fried Chicken,
Japan) and crisis management and business ethics (Tylenol poisoning).
A cassette of conversations with managers and owners of some compa-
nies is included.
Part 1 of each unit opens with company information, including
product photos. Some units include data-gathering exercises such as
interviews or graph and chart reviews. Another exercise asks two to
three students each to scan a different reading, complete a fact sheet,
and then share their data with each other. Next come group discussion
questions and vocabulary exercises. Part 2, Making Decisions, deals
with the theme(s) of each unit. A problem is introduced and strategies
for negotiation are given, followed by a business meeting exercise,
writing activities, and a summary with questions.
The book has numerous positive points. It is visually attractive with
plenty of white space, a fair number of photos, a variety of print styles
and sizes, and an easy-to-follow layout. Its use of well-known companies
and real information makes it superior to texts without such elements.
And it gives students considerable practice in business-related dis-
course. Negotiating strategies, for example, use such discourse func-
tions as interrupting (“Could I just add a point . . . ?”) and proposing
possibilities (“What if we were . . . . ”). The cassette is of good quality
with variation in voices, interview formats, and realistic background
noise.
The book does have some shortcomings. One is the extensive and
repetitious scanning exercises in each unit. Varying the reading
method (e.g., skimming) and information format would stem the bore-
dom that might set in by the end of the book. Also, student writing
is limited. Follow-up Activities in Units 2 and 3 show a business letter
and interoffice memo, respectively, with questions about form, style,
and content for pair discussion. But most students pick up form and
style by repeated writing and revising, not by simple analysis. A third
weakness is the limited attention paid to business vocabulary. The
word exercises emphasize both business and general-purpose terms but
no basic business vocabulary (e.g., balance sheet, benefits). Opportunity to
practice new vocabulary is also limited.
In my opinion, this book would be exceptional for advanced learners
who understand different legal forms of business (sole proprietorship,
corporation); who know something of Western management-employee
REVIEWS 605
relations, marketing, and functions of financial statements; and who
have a fairly good business vocabulary. However, despite the author’s
claims that the book requires no special knowledge of business, stu-
dents without the prerequisite knowledge above may find it a bit intim-
idating. According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), “it is unfair to
give learners communicative tasks and activities for which they do not
have enough of the necessary language knowledge” (p. 109). Making
Business Decisions would be valuable for teaching, say, middle managers
at Samsung Corporation but perhaps of limited value in developing
countries with little history of free enterprise.
REFERENCES
Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). English for specific purposes: A learning-centered
approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
COLEMAN SOUTH
Minnesota State University, Akita, Japan
Expressions: Stories and Poems.

Pat Fiene and Karen A. Fox. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1992,
Pp. 122.
■ Pat Fiene and Karen A. Fox have put together an interesting compila-
tion of stories and poems for Contemporary’s Whole Language series.
It is part of a literature-based reading programme sustained by the
whole language philosophy, whose theoretical foundation lies in integ-
rating all five language skills—reading, writing, thinking, listening, and
speaking—into dynamic, theme-centred topics that encourage optimal
learning acquisition. The programme consists of this book, Expressions,
and its companion book, Viewpoints, a collection of thought-provoking,
nonfiction prose selections.
Teachers could adapt these books for use with upper-level high
school students, intensive English language programme students, or,
indeed, any individual adult learner hungry for interesting, un-
abridged, and authentic reading material
The compilers are highly successful in this endeavour. The book
contains 10 stories and 10 poems by famous and lesser-known authors
from varying ethnic backgrounds. The text reflects their diverse world
view, which is, of course, in keeping with the current impetus of
innovative educators in advocating the use of authentic, multicultural
606 TESOL QUARTERLY

literature as a means of breaking down barriers among different cul-
tural groups.
In addition, the themes chosen hold universal appeal for the devel-
oping adult reader: facing fear, breaking stereotypical perceptions,
dealing with feelings arising from a lost love, the evanescent world of
dreams, the morality of the white lie, the problems of the handicapped,
the gross inequity in the law that prompted Rosa Parks’s civil disobedi-
ence. This is but a sampling of the engrossing reading material that
awaits the student fortunate enough to meander through this book.
Contemporary’s Whole Language programme embraces the concept
of the whole language teaching philosophy; it would, perhaps, be
appropriate here to point out to the uninitiated that this term implies
a philosophy and not merely a methodology. The term does not entail
an actual technique or set of materials within the framework of a
curriculum but rather the dynamic interaction among the activities, the
materials, the teacher, and the students. Because the whole language
philosophy works best when the language (which is, after all, what
teachers are trying to communicate to their students) and the interac-
tion process are meaningful, relevant, authentic, and contextually em-
bedded, it would appear that this book, in its insightful, authentic
selections, lives up to these expectations.
Contemporary provides a Teacher’s Guide for both books in the
series, containing step-by-step lesson plans and activities for each story
and poem. Not being privy to this publication, I was unable to assess
its value. However, I can attest to the fact that its purchase is not
essential for making use of the book because the compilers’ choice of
material sparks the imagination of teachers and students alike, as
witnessed by the fact that I used the book quite successfully without
it.
CHRISTINE I. HAWKES-LEWIS
University of Idaho
Culturally Speaking (2nd ed.).

Rhona B. Genzel and Martha Graves Cummings. Boston: Heinle &
Heinle, 1994. Pp. iii + 195.
■ CulturallySpeaking is designed to provide students with communica-

tive and thought-provoking experiences for studying conversation and
culture in North America. The book is intended for an audience of
intermediate-level students of ESL and would be invaluable to any
REVIEWS 607
adult academic ESL classroom with the goal of promoting communica-
tive competence in a new language.
Although the intent of this textbook is to promote primarily ESL
speaking skills, it also incorporates other skills necessary for effective
communication in a language. The various activities have been created
to encourage the development of verbal and nonverbal communication
and require students to utilize their listening, reading, and writing
abilities as well. Chapter topics include getting along with people,
sharing common interests, participating in social events, and using
the telephone. Chapter subtopics include introductions, health, the
concept of time, and special uses of the telephone. A chapter summary
provides review through in-depth discussions and exercises that en-
courage students to apply their understanding. The book includes an
answer key to activities and a glossary of terms. Photographs and other
illustrations are creatively utilized throughout the text.
The material of the book is presented in ways that allow the students
to think about and discuss the material, use the material in meaningful
contexts, and reflect on the topics. Some of the activities in the book
include the sharing of ideas, participation in role plays, cultural analysis
and comparison, and observations. Students learn idioms, practice
dialogues, and learn how to handle misunderstandings in certain situa-
tions. Students are even given opportunities to listen to the accompa-
nying cassette tape, which offers a model for conversational English,
including how to pronounce words and use inflection to convey
meaning.
Culturally Speaking clearly follows a communicative approach to sec-
ond language acquisition and promotes the notion that the exchange
of thoughts and ideas should occur in meaningful contexts. It requires
students to negotiate meaning and share experiences in order to gain
a more complete understanding of cultural concepts and situations. In-
class and out-of-class tasks require students to study the environment in
which the target language is spoken. Students are very often encour-
aged to work in pairs and small groups to complete the activities in the
book. However, because not all students are completely comfortable
studying a language in a group environment, teachers may want to
supplement the activities in the text with ones that require students
to work more independently.
Culturally Speaking provides students with a wide array of interesting
and meaningful activities to assist them in learning to communicate
effectively in North American culture. It promotes a challenging and
interactive learning environment while building the self-confidence
and conversational competence of students. The book is an innovative,
challenging, and rewarding experience for teachers and students alike.
608 TESOL QUARTERLY

Teachers will undoubtedly find it an invaluable contribution to their
L2 classrooms.
RHONDA S. DENNIS
Wilson College
English Connections: Grammar for Communication.

Isabel Kentengian (Book 1), Linda Lee (Book 2), Catherine Porter
and Elizabeth Minicz (Book 3). Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1993
(Book 1), 1994 (Books 2 & 3). Pp. x + 182 (each book).
■ English Connections is a series of textbooks that combines real-life

English, small-group exercises and discussions, and grammar in con-
text. Based on Diane Larsen-Freeman’s approach to teaching gram-
mar, the series is designed for beginning to low-intermediate adults
studying ESL. Each of the three textbooks has a student book, a teach-
er’s manual, a workbook, and a set of two audiotapes for listening
practice. The characters throughout the books are adults from around
the world who are in an ESL class together. Everyday situations such
as shopping, cooking, and playing sports are used to introduce basic
grammar concepts such as articles, present tense verbs, and count and
noncount nouns. The exercises in each chapter consist of paired or
group work to practice the grammar and vocabulary.
This series is successful in presenting everyday English grammar
and vocabulary clearly and with a communicative approach. The black-
and-white illustrations provide simple visual cues to guide group dis-
cussions. The grammar explanations, highlighted in boxes, use clear
examples and nontechnical language. Throughout, the focus is on
group activities, conversation practice, and active participation by every
student.
The short student workbooks provide take-home practice of the
grammar, writing, and vocabulary for each lesson. The teacher’s man-
ual offers many ideas for extending the lesson with authentic materials:
old food containers to practice count and noncount nouns, supermar-
ket fliers to review prices and food vocabulary, piles of money to
practice numbers.
My one criticism of the series is that, in their effort to make the
books relevant to adult ESL students, the authors occasionally include
material that is not familiar to all ESL students. When Pedro plays the
charango, my Asian students were lost. The names of the characters,
while including those from around the world (Anton, Abdul, Chan,
REVIEWS 609
and Young-soon), do not always indicate gender and can leave students
wondering whether the character is male or female for grammar exer-
cises. Also, many of my students want to learn to pronounce U.S.
names, not unfamiliar foreign names.
Despite these drawbacks, the books provide an excellent presentation
of basic English for adults. With very little effort on the part of the
teacher, they can be expanded with authentic materials for further
practice of the grammar and vocabulary. Because of the communica-
tive format, they can be used in multilevel classes where students have
different abilities and learning styles. This series offers a wide variety
of activities to make language learning enjoyable and interesting
ALLISON PETRO
University of Rhode Island
Write More! An Intermediate Text for ESL Writers.

Eileen Prince. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1994. Pp. xvi + 335.
■ Like its precursor, Write Soon!, Eileen Prince’s Write More! for inter-
mediate ESL learners relies on students working in pairs, thus freeing
the teacher to work with individuals or small groups on specific prob-
lems. The text consists of two stand-alone sections, Writing Based on
Firsthand Knowledge and Writing Based on Research, that lead the
student through the steps necessary to produce a finished research
paper. Each section contains three chapters, but Section 2 provides
almost twice as much teaching material as Section 1. The entire text
provides 25–50 hours of material.
Each of the six chapters focuses on different rhetorical, organiza-
tional, grammatical, and mechanical aspects of writing. Each chapter
is divided into nine sections. The first section, Thinking About It,
leads students to generate ideas, and the second section, Reading and
Remembering, centers around the reading passages and contains com-
prehension questions that the student can answer in writing in the
blanks provided. Section 3, Looking at How It’s Written, continues
the analysis of the reading passage, this time focusing on how ideas
are connected. Section 4, Preparing to Write, asks the student to con-
sider the author’s intention in writing the piece and the way concepts
studied earlier are put to use now. All of these sections, as well as the
ones following, encourage partners to discuss their ideas, thus giving
students opportunities to practice speaking and listening as well as
reading and writing.
The fifth section, Writing More, mounts a frontal attack on the
610 TESOL QUARTERLY

chronic problem of how to help students expand their writing. Sugges-
tions include enhancing a narrative with dialogue, asking partners for
ideas, and expanding an outline—all with plenty of room in the text
for practice. The sixth section, Writing It Right, provides extensive
instruction and practice in grammar, mechanics, and proofreading,
and is coordinated with the Portfolio of Word Forms and the Portfolio
of Grammatical Forms at the end of the book. These two portfolios
contain chapter-by-chapter explanations and exercises for all the gram-
matical features spotlighted in the text, with lined spaces where stu-
dents can experiment with the concepts immediately. Section 7, Writ-
ing It Over, helps students guide each other through a second draft
of each chapter’s writing project. Section 8, called More Writing in
Part I and More Research in Part II, provides ideas that encourage
students to expand their efforts on their own. The ninth section,
Personal Glossary, provides a convenient place for students to record
new vocabulary. The book closes with a glossary of terms used in the
readings, using easy-to-understand, full-sentence definitions.
Write More! appears at first to be an elegantly structured, simply
designed text for intermediate ESL learners, and it is But the high-
quality readings also make it a full resource book for preparing ESL
students for college-level work, even when there is no library available
to teachers or students. It is a highly commendable work
SALLY ROSS CARPENTER

Purdue University
REVIEWS 611
Editors: Guy Cook Barbara Seidlhofer
Principle & Practice
in Applied Linguistics
● provides a wide-ranging overview
of the many and diverse issues in
applied linguistics today.
● Considers the relation of key
areas of enquiry both to
professional practice and to the
discipline as a whole.
● Includes state-of-the-art papers
by leading specialists which
emphasize the reciprocal
relationship of principle and
practice, and the interdisciplinary
nature of applied linguistics.
Studies in honour of H.G. WIDDOWSON

Principle & Practice in Applied Linguistics has
been compiled in honour of H.G. Widdowson,
an internationally acclaimed authority on
applied linguistics and language teaching. This
volume is dedicated to him for his invaluable
contribution to so many aspects of the
profession.
Principle & Practice in Applied Linguistics
Hardback 0 19 442147 3
Paperback 0 19 442148 1
For further details, please contact your nearest OUP office, or write to:
Oxford University Press ESL/EFL Department, 198 Madison Avenue, New York,
NY 10016 USA Phone: (800) 542-2442
Oxford University Press, ELT Division, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK
Phone: (1865) 56767
BOOK NOTICES
The TESOL Quarterly prints brief book notices of 100 words or less announcing
books of interest to readers. Book Notices are not solicited. They are descrip-
tive rather than evaluative. They are compiled by the Book Review Editor from
selected books that publishers have sent to TESOL.
English Conversation. Amy B. M. Tsui. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1994. Pp. xviii + 298.
■ Part of Oxford’s Describing English Language series, which examines

changes now taking place in our understanding of the English language
and considers their implications for language learning and teaching, this
book provides a comprehensive description of the functions of conversa-
tional utterances in English. Using authentic, naturally occurring data, the
author proposes a descriptive framework for characterizing conversational
utterances, organization, and development. Insights are offered into the
sequencing of patterns of interaction. In the final chapter, the author
outlines aspects of conversational patterning that have yet to be accounted
for. The study draws on insights from speech act theory, ethnomethodol-
ogy, and discourse analysis.
Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Ron

Scollon and Suzanne Wong Scollon. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Pp.
xii + 271.
■ This volume is an introduction and practical guide to the main concepts

and principal problems of intercultural communication. Viewed from
within the framework of interactive sociolinguistics associated with Tan-
nen, Gumperz, and others, the authors focus in particular on the discourse
of Asians and of Westerners, the discourse of men and women, corporate
discourse and the discourse of professional organizations, and intergener-
ational discourse. Drawing on research in pragmatic, discourse analysis,
organizational communication, social psychology, and the ethnography of
communication, the book presents students, researchers, and practitioners
with a unified framework for the analysis of discourse.
Mirror Images: Teaching Writing in Black and White. Joan

Krater, Jane Zeni, and Nancy Devlin Cason. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, 1994. Pp. xii + 515.
■ Inthe Midwestern suburb of Webster Groves, Missouri, a team of middle

and high school teachers—all female, all but one White—studied the
achievement of African-American student writers. Through 6 years of
action research, the teachers discovered that instead of trying to “fix”
613
their students, they needed to “fix” their teaching methods, the ambiance
of their classrooms, and their own cultural awareness. The authors de-
scribe the teachers’ journey of self-reflecting, questioning, analyzing, and
changing; they also follow the story of several students who change from
being disengaged from their classrooms to becoming involved, active,
guiding forces in their English classes.
Language and Literacy in Social Practice. Janet Maybin (Ed.).

Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters, 1994. Pp. xv + 271.
■ This anthology focuses on the importance of social factors in language

and literacy development and the shift from talking about skills and com-
petencies to investigating the relationships between language and literacy
practices, personal identities, and social and cultural processes. Section 1
introduces theoretical issues involved in understanding the meaning and
functions of language within real-life settings. In Section 2, ethnographic
accounts provide evidence of the various ways in which talk, reading, and
writing are related to particular kinds of social practice and values. Section
3 reviews orality and literacy from cross-cultural and historical perspec-
tives. Section 4 explores political aspects of language and literacy learning.
Language, Literacy and Learning in Educational Practice.

Barry Stierer and Janet Maybin (Eds.). Clevedon, England:
Multilingual Matters, 1994. Pp. xvi + 319.
■ The papers in this anthology address a number of issues regarding

language and literacy: questions of what should be taught, how it should
be taught, who should control such decisions, and issues surrounding the
gap between research evidence and competing social and political values.
The editors have chosen material that enlightens the reader on the recent
rapid development of new conceptual frameworks for understanding
language, literacy, and learning. Drawing from such diverse fields as an-
thropology, cultural studies, social psychology, and critical linguistics, the
articles help readers to consider ways in which new developments in theory
and research may be applied to everyday practice.
Power in Education: The Case of Miao University Students

and Its Significance for American Culture. Henry T. Trueba
and Yali Zou. Washington, DC: Falmer Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 230.
■ This case study focuses on the empowerment of some of the poorest

Miao peasants who eventually became university students and obtained
high prestige as part of mainstream Chinese society. The data gathered
and reported in this book show the devotion Miao students had to their
villages, families, and community, and how they made enormous sacrifices
to reach academic excellence in school. The book covers the relationship
614 TESOL QUARTERLY

of ethnic identity to academic achievement, the historical context of the
Miao people, the testimonies of students and their professors relative to
their university experiences, and a discussion of the role of ethnicity in
motivating students to achieve in a highly competitive society.
Interlanguage Pragmatics. Gabrielle Kasper and Shoshana

Blum-Kulka. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. vi +
253.
■ A collection of 16 previously unpublished essays, this book offers a

synthesis of current research in the field of interlanguage pragmatic,
discussing from diverse perspectives the development, comprehension,
and production of pragmatic knowledge in an L2. The editors’ general
introduction offers a critical overview of issues. Each of the three major
sections is prefaced by an introduction by the editors that provides relevant
theoretical and methodological background. The first section covers cogni-
tive approaches to interlanguage pragmatic development. The second
addresses interlanguage speech acts. The final section is devoted to dis-
coursal perspectives on interlanguage.
Evaluation in ELT. Cyril Weir and Jon Roberts. Oxford:

Blackwell, 1994. Pp. xiii + 338.
■ This book equips readers to deal with the types of evaluation they may
be involved in during their professional lives, as agents of insider or
outsider evaluation or as subjects of evaluation. It provides a framework
of the field, a series of case studies illustrating types of evaluation, guid-
ance on essential evaluation procedures, and a comprehensive bibliogra-
phy. Based on the practical experience of the authors as insider and
outsider evaluators of institutions, teacher education programs, language
courses, short training courses, and other programs in English language
teaching, the material acts as a guide for practitioners and as a course
book for students of the field.
BOOK NOTICES 615

INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS
EDITORIAL POLICY
The TESOL Quarterly, a professional, refereed journal, encourages submis-
sion of previously unpublished articles on topics of significance to individu-
als concerned with the teaching of English as a second or foreign language
and of standard English as a second dialect. As a publication that repre-
sents a variety of cross-disciplinary interests, both theoretical and practical,
the Quarterly invites manuscripts on a wide range of topics, especially in
the following areas:
1. psychology and sociology of language 3. testing and evaluation
learning and teaching; issues in research 4. professional
and research methodology preparation
2. curriculum design and development; 5. language planning
instructional methods, materials, and 6. professional standards
techniques
Because the Quarterly is committed to publishing manuscripts that contrib-
ute to bridging theory and practice in our profession, it particularly wel-
comes submissions drawing on relevant research (e.g., in anthropology,
applied and theoretical linguistics, communication, education, English
education [including reading and writing theory], psycholinguistics, psy-
chology, first and second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and sociol-
ogy) and that address implications and applications of this research to
issues in our profession. The Quarterly prefers that all submissions be
written so that their content is accessible to a broad readership, including
those individuals who may not have familiarity with the subject matter
addressed.
GENERAL INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS

Submission Categories
The TESOL Quarterly invites submissions in five categories:
Full-length articles. Contributors are strongly encouraged to submit
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English Department
1600 Holloway Ave.
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617
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Submit two copies of the Review to the Review Editor:
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American Language Institute
1600 Holloway Avenue
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Review Articles. The TESOL Quarterly also welcomes occasional review
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Brief Reports and Summaries. The TESOL Quarterly also invites short
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age manuscripts which either present preliminary findings or focus on
618 TESOL QUARTERLY

some aspect of a larger study. In all cases, the discussion of issues should
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to The Forum should generally be no longer than five double-spaced
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butions are typically solicited, readers may send topic suggestions and/or
make known their availability as contributors by writing directly to the
Editors of these subsections.
Research Issues: Teaching Issues:
Donna M. Johnson Bonny Norton Peirce
English Department Modern Language Centre
ML 455 Ontario Institute for
University of Arizona Studies in Education
Tucson, AZ 85721 252 Bloor St. W.
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Canada
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a special topic. Topics are approved by the Editorial Advisory Board of
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terly. Issues will generally contain both invited articles designed to survey
and illuminate central themes as well as articles solicited through a call
for papers.
General Submission Guidelines
1. All submissions to the Quarterly should conform to the requirements
of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th
INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS 619

ed.), which can be obtained from the Order Department, American
Psychological Association, P.O. Box 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784-0710.
The Publication Manual is also available in many libraries and book-
stores. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references and
reference citations, which must be in APA format.
2. All submissions to the TESOL Quarterly should be accompanied by a
cover letter which includes a full mailing address and both a daytime
and an evening telephone number. Where available, include an elec-
tronic mail address and fax number.
3. Authors of full-length articles should include two copies of a very brief
biographical statement (in sentence form, maximum 50 words), plus
any special notations or acknowledgments that they would like to have
included. Double spacing should be used throughout.
4. The TESOL Quarterly provides 25 free reprints of published full-length
articles and 10 reprints of material published in the Reviews, Brief
Reports and Summaries, and The Forum sections.
5. Manuscripts submitted to the TESOL Quarterly cannot be returned to
authors. Authors should be sure to keep a copy for themselves.
6. It is understood that manuscripts submitted to the TESOL Quarterly
have not been previously published and are not under consideration
for publication elsewhere.
7. It is the responsibility of the author(s) of a manuscript submitted to
the TESOL Quarterly to indicate to the Editor the existence of any work
already published (or under consideration for publication elsewhere)
by the author(s) that is similar in content to that of the manuscript.
8. The Editor of the TESOL Quarterly reserves the right to make editorial
changes in any manuscript accepted for publication to enhance clarity
or style. The author will be consulted only if the editing has been
substantial.
9. The views expressed by contributors to the TESOL Quarterly do not
necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Editorial Advisory Board,
or TESOL. Material published in the Quarterly should not be construed
to have the endorsement of TESOL.
Statistical Guidelines
Because of the educational role the Quarterly plays modeling research in
the field, it is of particular concern that published research articles meet
high statistical standards. In order to support this goal, the following
guidelines are provided.
Reporting the study. Studies submitted to the Quarterly should be ex-
plained clearly and in enough detail that it would be possible to replicate
the design of the study on the basis of the information provided in the
article. Likewise, the study should include sufficient information to allow
readers to evaluate the claims made by the author. In order to accommo-
620 TESOL QUARTERLY

date both of these requirements, authors of statistical studies should pre-
sent the following.
1. A clear statement of the research questions and the hypotheses which

are being examined
2. Descriptive statistics, including the means, standard deviations, and
sample sizes, necessary for the reader to correctly interpret and evalu-
ate any inferential statistics
3. Appropriate types of reliability and validity of any tests, ratings, ques-
tionnaires, and so on.
4. Graphs and charts which help explain the results
5. Clear and careful descriptions of the instruments used and the types
of intervention employed in the study
6. Explicit identifications of dependent, independent, moderator, inter-
vening, and control variables
7. Complete source tables for statistical tests
8. Discussions of how the assumptions underlying the research design
were met, assumptions such as random selection and assignment of
subjects, sufficiently large sample sizes so that the results are stable,
etc.
9. Tests of the assumptions of any statistical tests, when appropriate
10. Realistic interpretations of the statistical significance of the results,
keeping in mind that the meaningfulness of the results is a separate
and important issue, especially for correlation
Conducting the analyses. Quantitative studies submitted to the TESOL

Quarterly should reflect a concern for controlling Type I and Type II
error. Thus, studies should avoid multiple t tests, multiple ANOVAs,
etc. However, in the very few instances in which multiple tests might
be employed, the author should explain the effects of such use on the
probability values in the results. In reporting the statistical analyses, au-
thors should choose one significance level (usually .05) and report all
results in terms of that level. Likewise, studies should report effect size
through such strength of association measures as omega-squared or eta-
squared along with beta (the possibility of Type II error) whenever this
may be important to interpreting the significance of the results.
Interpreting the results. The results should be explained clearly and the
implications discussed such that readers without extensive training in the
use of statistics can understand them. Care should be taken in making
causal inferences from statistical results, and these should be avoided with
correlational studies. Results of the study should not be overinterpreted
or overgeneralized. Finally, alternative explanations of the results should
be discussed.

Qualitative Research Guidelines
To ensure that Quarterly articles model rigorous qualitative research, the
following guidelines are provided.
Conducting the study. Studies submitted to the Quarterly should exhibit
an in-depth understanding of the philosophical perspectives and research
methodologies inherent in conducting qualitative research. Utilizing these
perspectives and methods in the course of conducting research helps
to ensure that studies are credible, valid, and dependable rather than
impressionistic and superficial. Reports of qualitative research should
meet the following criteria.
1. Data collection (as well as analyses and reporting) is aimed at uncov-

ering an emit perspective. In other words, the study focuses on re-
search participants’ perspectives and interpretations of behavior,
events, and situations rather than etic (outsider-imposed) categories,
models, and viewpoints.
2. Data collection strategies include prolonged engagement, persistent
observation, and triangulation. Researchers should conduct ongoing
observations over a sufficient period of time so as to build trust with
respondents, learn the culture (e.g., classroom, school, or community),
and check for misinformation introduced by both the researcher and
the researched. Triangulation involves the use of multiple methods
and sources such as participant-observation, informal and formal in-
terviewing, and collection of relevant or available documents.
Analyzing the data. Data analysis is also guided by the philosophy and
methods underlying qualitative research studies. The researcher should
engage in comprehensive data treatment in which data from all relevant
sources are analyzed. In addition, many qualitative studies demand an
analytic inductive approach involving a cyclical process of data collection,
analysis (taking an emit perspective and utilizing the descriptive language
the respondents themselves use), creation of hypotheses, and testing of
hypotheses in further data collection.
Reporting the data. The researcher should generally provide “thick de-
scription” with sufficient detail to allow the reader to determine whether
transfer to other situations can be considered. Reports also should include
the following.
1. A description of the theoretical or conceptual framework that guides

research questions and interpretations.
2. A clear statement of the research questions.
3. A description of the research site, participants, procedures for ensur-
ing participant anonymity, and data collection strategies. A descrip-
tion of the roles of the researcher(s).
4. A description of a clear and salient organization of patterns found
622 TESOL QUARTERLY

through data analysis. Reports of patterns should include representa-
tive examples not anecdotal information.
5. Interpretations that exhibit a holistic perspective in which the author
traces the meaning of patterns across all the theoretically salient or
descriptively relevant micro- and macrocontexts in which they are
embedded.
6. Interpretations and conclusions that provide evidence of grounded
theory and discussion of how this theory relates to current research/
theory in the field, including relevant citations. In other words, the
article should focus on the issues or behavior that are salient to partici-
pants and that not only reveal an in-depth understanding of the
situation studied but also suggest how it connects to current related
theories.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
Publishers are invited to send copies of their new materials to the TESOL Quar-
terly Review Editor H. Douglas Brown, San Francisco State University, at the ad-
dress listed in the Information for Contributors section. Packages should be la-
beled REVIEW COPIES.
TESOL Quarterly readers are invited to contribute review articles and evaluative
or comparative reviews for consideration for publication in the Review or Book
Notices section of the Quarterly. These should be sent to the TESOL Quarterly
Review Editor H. Douglas Brown, San Francisco State University, at the ad-
dress listed in the Information for Contributors section.
TESOL gratefully acknowledges receipt of the following publications.
Baker-González, J., & Blau, E. K. Ediger, A., Alexander, R., & Srutwa,
(1995). Budding understanding: A the- K. (1989). Reading for meaning.
matic approach to reading comprehen- White Plains, NY: Longman.
sion. Reading, MA: Addison- English, L. M., & Lynn, S. (1995).
Wesley. Business across cultures: Effective com-
BBC English dictionary. (1992). Lon- munication strategies. White Plains,
don: HarperCollins. NY: Longman.
Bonner, M. (1994). Step into writing. Fuchs, M., & Bonner, M. (1995). Fo-
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. cus on grammar: A high-intermediate
Bonner, M. (1995). Focus on grammar: course for reference and practice.
An intermediate course for reference White Plains, NY: Longman.
and practice (Teacher’s Manual). Fuchs, M., & Bonner, M. (1995). Fo-
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. cus on grammar (Workbook). White
Bottomley, Y., Dalton, J., & Corbel, Plains, NY: Longman.
C. (1994). From proficiency to compe- Gabler, B., & Scholnick, N. F. (1995).
tencies: A collaborative approach to cur- Listen-in’: Listening/speaking attack
riculum innovation. Sydney: National strategies for students of ESL. New
Centre for English Language York: St. Martin’s Press.
Teaching and Research. Gopinathan, S., Pakir, A., & Saravanan,
Brazil, D. (1995). A grammar of speech. V. (1994). Language, society and educa-
Oxford: Oxford University Press. tion in Singapore: Issues and trends. Sin-
Burton, E., & Maharg, L. (1995). Go- gapore: Times Academic Press.
ing places (Book 1). White Plains, Harmon, R. (1995). Talkin’ American:
NY: Longman. A dictionary of informal words and ex-
Burton, E., & Maharg, L. (1995). Go- pressions. Fullerton, CA: Signal
ing places (Book 2, Student Book). Press.
White Plains, NY: Longman. Harris, T., & Rowe, A., (1995). Explor-
Cameron, P. (1995). Tales from many ing English (Book 1). White Plains,
cultures. Reading, MA: Addison- NY: Longman.
Wesley. Harris, T., & Rowe, A. (1995). Explor-
Cook, G., (1994). Discourse and litera- ing English (Book 1, Workbook).
ture, Oxford; Oxford University White Plains, NY: Longman.
Press. Harris, T., & Rowe, A. (1995). Explor-
Davies, F. (1995). Introducing reading ing English (Book 2). White Plains,
London: Penguin. NY: Longman.
624
Harris, T., & Rowe, A. (1995). Explor- Nunan, D. (1995). Atlas: Learning-
ing English (Book 3). White Plains, centered communication (Book 1). Bos-
NY: Longman. ton: Heinle & Heinle.
Harris, T., & Rowe, A. (1995). Explor- Nunan, D. (1995). Atlas: Learning-cen-
ing English (Book 4). White Plains, tered communication (Book 1, Work-
NY: Longman. book). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Hough, D. (1995). Before hearsay. Nunan, D. (1995). Atlas: Learning-cen-
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. tered communication (Book 1, Teach-
Huckin, T., Haynes, M., & Coady, J. er’s Extended Edition). Boston:
(1993). Second language reading and Heinle & Heinle.
vocabulary learning. Norwood, NJ: Nunan, D. (1995). Atlas: Learning-cen-
Ablex. tered communication (Book 2). Bos-
Huizenga, J. (1995). Arrivals: Cross- ton: Heinle & Heinle.
cultural experiences in literature. Read- Nunan, D. (1995). Atlas: Learning-cen-
ing, MA: Addison-Wesley. tered communication (Book 2, Work-
Jackson, E. (1994). Non-language out- book). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
comes in the adult migrant English pro- Nunan, D. (1995). Atlas: Learning-cen-
gram. Sydney: National Centre for tered communication (Book 2, Teach-
English Language Teaching and er’s Extended Edition). Boston:
Research. Heinle & Heinle.
Jones, P. W. (1995). Grammar: Games Nunan, D. (1995). Atlas: Learning-cen-
and activities for teachers. London: tered communication (Book 3). Bos-
Penguin. ton: Heinle & Heinle.
Kitao, S. K., & Kitao, K. (1995). Devel- O’Grady, C., & Millen, M. (1994).
oping reading strategies. Tokyo: Ei- Finding common ground: Cross-cul-
chosha. tural communication strategies for job
Kitao, S. K., & Kitao, K. (1995). seekers. Sydney: National Centre for
Traveling and living in the U.S.: Us- English Language Teaching and
ing authentic English. Tokyo: Asahi Research.
Press. Robinson, B. (1995). Focus: Interactive
Lidell, P. (1993). CALL: Theory and ap- grammar for students of ESL (2nd
plication. Victoria, British Colum- ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
bia: University of Victoria. Rodgers, D. (1995). Business communi-
Llanas, A., & Williams, L. (1995). cations: International case studies in
Atlas workbook: Learning-centered com- English. New York: St. Martin’s
munication (Book 3). Boston: Heinle Press.
& Heinle. Rubin, J., McKay, S., & Mansoor, I.
Manidis, M., & Prescott, P. (1994). (1995). English works. White Plains,
Assessing oral language proficiency: A NY: Longman.
handbook for teachers in the adult mi- SAIL Journal (No. 1). (1995). Yoko-
grant English program. Sydney: Na- hama, Japan: Mori Accelerative
tional Centre for English Language Learning Center.
Teaching and Research. Schoenberg, I. E. (1995). Focus on
Marcus, S., (1995). A world of fiction: grammar: A basic course for reference
Twenty timeless short stories. Reading, and practice. Reading, MA: Addi-
MA: Addison-Wesley. son-Wesley.
Maurer, J. (1995). Focus on grammar: Solorzano, H. S., & Frazier, L. L.
An advanced course for reference and (1995). Introductory topics: Intermedi-
practice. White Plains, NY: ate listening comprehension. White
Longman. Plains, NY: Longman.
Numrich, C. (1995). Consider the is- Tsui, A. B. M. (1995). Introducing
sues. White Plains, NY: Addison- classroom interaction. London:
Wesley. Penguin.
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED 625

Turkenik, C. (1995). Choices: Writing Walker, M. (1995). Success (Bonus
projects for students of ESL. New Practice Book 4). Reading, MA:
York: St. Martin’s Press. Addison-Wesley.
Van Lier, L. (1995). Introducing Watkins, D. (1995). The idiom advan-
language awareness. London: tage: Fluency in speaking and lis-
Penguin. tening. Reading, MA: Addison-
Virgona, C. (1994). Seeking directions: Wesley.
Training industry trainers in a multilin- Wilkinson, J. (1995). Introducing stan-
gual workforce. Sydney: National dard English. London: Penguin.
Centre for English Language Woods, E. (1995). Introducing gram-
Teaching and Research. mar. London: Penguin.
Walker, M. (1995). Success: Communi- Young, A. R., & Strauch, A. O.
cating in English (Basic beginner (1994). Nitty gritty grammar: Sentence
level). Reading, MA: Addison- essentials for writers. New York: St.
Wesley. Martin’s Press.
Contributions Invited
New Ways in Using Authentic Models in
Language Teaching
Edited by Ruth E. Larimer and Jennifer Allen
Deadline Extended to December 1, 1995
It’s not too late to submit an activity to New Ways in Using

Authentic Models in Language Teaching.
The editors are soliciting contributions on using
● Television ● Interviews
● Classroom language ● Advertising
● Pamphlets and brochures ● Stamps, maps, and other realia

● Casual conversation ● Your original ideas
● Business conversation
Activities may be directed at any population of learners.
To receive a copy of the guidelines for submission, please send a self-addressed envelope
with $.64 postage (within the U.S. only; TESOL will provide postage for requests outside the
U.S.) to
Colleen Urland
New Ways Series, TESOL Central Office
1600 Cameron St., #300
Alexandria, VA 22314 USA
Specify New Ways in Using Authentic Models in Language Teaching in your request. TESOL
cannot fax or e-mail submission guidelines.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUARTERLY Volume 29, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1995

A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES

Ethnography: Principles in Practice

Language Planning in Multilingual Contexts: Policies, Communities, and Schools

OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE BOARD 1995-96

■ This special issue of the TESOL Quarterly is devoted to the topic of

Also in this issue:

424 TESOL QUARTERLY

Kathryn A. Davis and Anne Lazaraton, Guest Editors

IN THIS ISSUE 425

In addition to full-length articles, we solicit short reports that address

At this stage, we are soliciting two-page abstracts for full-length

December 31, 1995

Qualitative Theory and Methods in

T his article reviews basic issues of theory and method in qualitative

Applied linguistics includes a broad range of research perspectives

Second Language Acquisition

SLA researchers have generally accepted the use of the research

428 TESOL QUARTERLY

Linguistic anthropologists interested in language acquisition began

Linguistic theory treats of [ sic ] competence in terms of the child’s acquisition

The inclusion of social and cultural considerations and, in particular,

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 429

As suggested by its name, sociolinguistics focuses on the social aspects

430 TESOL QUARTERLY

With the increasing acceptance of qualitative research in education,

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 431

432 TESOL QUARTERLY

Educational researchers such as Erickson (1986) base their understand-

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 433

As an example of “rich description,” Erickson (1986) refers to the

434 TESOL QUARTERLY

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 435

INTERPRETIVE QUALITATIVE RESEARCH THEORY

Theory and method are inextricably bound together in conducting

The Role of Theory

Contrary to the often-held belief that qualitative researchers have

436 TESOL QUARTERLY

In terms of the researcher’s own personal perspectives in studying

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 437

A classic example of a materialist theory is the neo-Marxist assumption

438 TESOL QUARTERLY

Interpretation and Theory

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 439

A major goal of interpretive qualitative research is to develop theory

440 TESOL QUARTERLY

Of all the aspects of interpretive qualitative research, methodology

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 441

Negotiating Site Entry and Research Ethics

Although a study maybe well designed, it can easily be compromised

442 TESOL QUARTERLY

Data Collection and Analysis

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 443

444 TESOL QUARTERLY

must be emergent rather than preordained: because meaning is determined

Thus, a study begins as a broad conceptualization of the theoretical

QUALITATIVE THEORY AND METHODS 445