INTRODUCTION

Classroom research is all about gathering evidence to answer questions that concern educators, whether they be about teaching methodology, learners’ strategies, teachers’ beliefs, or classroom materials. For teachers, a primary reason for doing research as part of teacher education is to become more effective teachers. As Johnson (1992: 5) puts it:

Becoming involved in classroom research can also help teachers evaluate existing research. Once teachers become aware of the challenges that exist in doing classroom research – from formulating focused research questions to gathering and analysing relevant data – they will become more critical readers of existing research. In light of these benefits of classroom research, it is essential that novice teachers be introduced to the basics of classroom research methods and assumptions.

This chapter explores the following questions:

• • What is classroom research, and how does it differ from reflective teaching?

• • What are someways in which teacher educators can introduce novice teachers to the important distinction between qualitative and quantitative research?

• • What topics are investigated, what methods are typically employed in L2 classroom research, and how can novice teachers be introduced to these methods?

• • What challenges do L2 language educators face in promoting classroom research?

SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS

To begin, it is necessary to clarify how classroom research will be defined in this chapter. Allwright and Bailey (1991: 2) maintain that classroom research is a cover term for “a whole range of research studies on classroom language learning and teaching. The obvious unifying factor is that the emphasis is solidly on trying to understand what goes on in the classroom setting.” This definition highlights the great diversity of studies that can be included in classroom research.

In their discussion of language and gender, Freeman and McElhinny presaged our move from the macrolevel to the microlevel of social analysis as they traced research and theory in a field that spans both the view that the subordinate status of women is reflected in and partly perpetuated by gender-differentiated language use and a view of discourse as constitutive of social identities which are negotiated and constructed in interaction. Here, in Part 3 of our exploration of language, society, and education, we move to the microlevel of both social and linguistic analysis for a closer look, as we learn about the role and linguistic realizations of such phenomena as situated comembership, contextualization cues, sociolinguistic transfer, interpretative mismatch, and oppositional discourse in face-to-face interaction. As discussed in the other three parts of this book and shown in Figure a in the front matter, the macro-micro distinction here connotes emphasis, rather than exclusion; the authors of the three chapters in this part take care to point out that the larger social and cultural context is both reflected in and affected by the microlevel interactions they explore in depth.

Frederick Erickson, in “Ethnographic Microanalysis,” opens the part with an overview of the perspective, methods, and salient findings of the ethnographic microanalysis of social interaction, also known as microethnography, the research approach which he is primarily responsible for developing.

To those who view literacy as an individual skill, it may be surprising to see a chapter on literacy in a sociolinguistics text. Yet, for those who view literacy as a social practice, literacy is an essential component of the study of sociolinguistics. One purpose of this chapter is to illuminate the debate between those who view literacy as an individual skill and those who see it as a social practice and to point out the dangers of ignoring the social aspect of literacy. This chapter supports the notion that literacy is a complex interplay between both individual skills and social knowledge. However, since the focus of this book is on the interaction between language and society, the chapter will emphasize the ways in which literate behavior is dependent on the social context. The chapter will examine four aspects of literacy as it relates to the social context – (1) as a collaborative practice, (2) as a reflection of community values and traditions about how to approach texts, (3) as a reflection of cultural values and traditions about text and topic development, and (4) as a reflection of social relationships as well as a vehicle for changing the status quo. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of viewing literacy as a social practice for language classrooms in Anglophone countries. Throughout the chapter, the term text will be used to refer to any printed material, ranging from signs and forms to extended academic prose.

The chapters in this part, which focus on how the larger social context affects an individual's use of particular linguistic forms, illustrate a macrolevel of social analysis and a microlevel of linguistic analysis. The authors of Part II demonstrate how geographical location, ethnic background, social class, and gender can all influence an individual's use of particular phonological, structural, lexical, and discourse features of English. At the same time, the chapters illustrate how these linguistic features can serve to define speech communities and perpetuate existing social relationships. Taken together, the next three chapters exemplify the tremendous variation that can exist in the use of English in Anglophone countries.

In Chapter 5, John Rickford examines how geographical region, social class, and ethnic background can affect the linguistic features an individual uses. To begin, Rickford discusses typical methods for studying regional variation and points out the reasons for the development of regional dialects, including geography, settlement patterns, and migration routes. He goes on to define such terms as dialect areas, isoglosses, and relic areas. This discussion is followed by an examination of language variation due to age and social class and network in which Rickford introduces such concepts as age grading, the principle of accountability, and sociolinguistic markers and indicators. Finally, he discusses the manner in which race and ethnicity can influence language use and summarizes the major phonological and grammatical features of African-American Vernacular English.

The chapters in this part explore how the larger social and political context can affect social attitudes toward particular languages and language varieties, as well as individual motivation to learn a language. This part also examines the manner in which the social and political context influences language use on a macrolevel as, for example, in the designation of an official language or a bilingual's choice of language. Taken together, all the chapters in Part I employ a macrolevel social and linguistic analysis as they describe such concepts as linguistic standards, diglossia, language transfer, and corpus and status planning. We begin with a focus on language attitudes, since it is here that the social and individual factors of language use dramatically affect one another.

In the first chapter, “Language Attitudes, Motivation, and Standards,” Mary McGroarty examines how social factors influence an individual's attitude and motivation toward learning a language and how social attitudes create and legitimize language standards. In this chapter, McGroarty provides a definition of attitudes and motivation and surveys early research of these constructs. She then discusses current theoretical approaches to studying language attitudes and motivation, emphasizing the research done in school settings and on teacher, student, and parent attitudes. Next, McGroarty discusses how language attitudes influence the creation of norms and standards as well as the formation of language policies.

The foregoing three chapters emphasize the emergent and socially and culturally situated nature of interaction and the role that specific features of communication play therein. Throughout all three chapters, the theme of the individual as a communicative actor drawing on a range of linguistic resources in specific social situations stands out. We will turn now to a consideration of larger units of communicative interaction and how participants' social and cultural identities are played out there.

Muriel Saville-Troike, in “The Ethnography of Communication,” opens this part with an overview of the basic concepts, methods, and language teaching applications of the ethnography of communication, a research approach which was inaugurated in 1962 by Dell Hymes and which undergirds all the approaches and areas of study covered in Parts 3 and 4 of this volume. Saville-Troike begins by identifying the principal concerns of this approach as being the relationship of language form and use to patterns and functions of communication, to world view and social organization, and to linguistic and social universals and inequalities. She goes on to review such basic sociolinguistic concepts as speech community, communicative repertoire, and communicative competence as they evolved and came to be defined in the ethnography of communication, as well as the characteristic methods and the units of analysis of ethnographic research into communication – communicative (or speech) situation, communicative (or speech) event, and communicative (or speech) act.

In many countries today, classrooms reflect a rich diversity of linguistic backgrounds. Students bring to the classroom not only other languages but also different varieties of English and culturally learned ways of using English. It is against this backdrop that teachers in general, and language teachers specifically, face the challenging task of respecting linguistic diversity while promoting common standards. Central to fulfilling this task is an understanding of the relationship between language and society, for it is the social context that both provides the conditions for linguistic diversity and reinforces the conventions necessary to maintain linguistic standards. The purpose of this book is to help language teachers and teachers of linguistically diverse and multicultural classes gain an understanding of the many ways in which language and society interact. It is addressed to pre-service and in-service teachers, primarily teachers in ESL/EFL and bilingual classrooms, teachers of linguistically and culturally diverse classes, and foreign language teachers.

Deciding how to present a text dealing with the relationship between language and society is problematic because some scholars in the field emphasize the manner in which social and political forces influence language use, often referred to as the sociology of language, whereas others focus on how language and language use reflect the larger society, at times referred to as sociolinguistics. In large part, the distinction rests on whether one emphasizes the society or the language.