Abstract
In this chapter, the author proposes using the qualitative research method of autoethnography to improve one's practice in teaching English to students of other languages (TESOL). This chapter first includes an overview of autoethnography followed by discussion of evidence-based practices and learning activities that apply the methodology. The chapter then explores the method through a case study involving the author and her son. Through this autoethnography account, the author demonstrates the process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting autobiographical data to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our students. The case demonstrates how intersectionalities, including race and gender, have an impact on the learning experiences. In this way, this protocol has methodological and pedagogical implications for TESOL praxis. This chapter finally discusses the implications of this methodology in TESOL as a viable qualitative research methodology to gain new insights and understandings for TESOL educators.
TopAutoethnography
Anthropologists and sociologists have been writing and using autoethnography since colonial periods. The term ethnography comes from the Greek words ethnos, which means people and graphei, which means to write. As one kind of qualitative method, ethnography differs from positivistic inquiry, which often tests hypotheses to find them true or false, as it does not require a hypothesis to begin the research. As Hughes (1992) stated, ethnography can provide comprehensive insights about the cultures, interactions, lives, families, and perspectives of a particular group of people. Ethnography grew from anthropology, when researchers such as Malinowski and Boas were “immersing” themselves in fieldwork for a long period and getting a comprehensive understanding of the culture and interaction between people. These early ethnographies often focused on people and cultures subjugated under colonialism.
Autoethnography adds to the root terms of ethno and graph auto, which refers to self (Canagarajah, 2012). Chang (2008) also points out that autoethnography is grounded in ethnography and, as a self-narrative, has “self-transformative potential” (Chang, 2008, p. 54) to support a deeper cultural understanding of both self and others. The major difference between ethnography and autoethnography is that the researcher is the insider in the research in an autoethnography, instead of “trying to become an insider” as in an ethnography (Duncan, 2004, p. 3).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Positionality: A researcher’s or teacher’s relative social, cultural, and political location in relation to another person in a particular context. Positionality is closely related to a person’s social identities, standpoints, and cultural practices.
Reflexivity: Bringing in one’s own positioning of the data generated by sharing one’s unique perspective on the teaching and learning relationship. In the tradition of reflexive sociology, Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) AU32: The in-text citation "Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. define reflexivity as “one critically examines one’s own position within the field of academic production - not in order to be more objective and less subjective, but rather to understand the false distinction between these two categories” (p. 30).
Autoethnography: A qualitative method where the researcher uses reflection and narrative writing to make sense of personal experiences in a cultural, social, and political context. Chang (2008) claimed that through autoethnography, educators could collect, analyze, and interpret their own autobiographical data to gain a cultural understanding of the connectivity between self and others.
Intersectionality: The intersection of multiple social identities including gender, race, social class, and national origin. This concept was developed by Black feminist response to the limitations of the accumulated disadvantage model ( Mullings, 1997 ) and the recognition that the intersections of gender with other dimensions of social identity are the starting point of theory (Crenshaw, 1994 AU30: The in-text citation "Crenshaw, 1994" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. , 2005 AU31: The in-text citation "Crenshaw 2005" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ).