Language Learners as Ethnographers

By C. Roberts, M. Byram, A. Barro, S. Jordan, B. Street. 2000

246 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This book describes a new approach to teaching and learning cultural studies. Borrowing the idea of ethnography from anthropologists, it argues that language students can be taught methods for investigating the cultural and social patterns of interaction and the values and beliefs that account for them. Doing an ethnographic study while living abroad immerses students in the life of particular groups, proving an intellectual challenge and the opportunity for intense intercultural encounters. The first half of the book discusses some of the current concepts in cultural and intercultural learning. The second half is a description of how the ethnography program can be run in higher education institutions, using extensive examples from ethnography courses and student projects. Overall, this book argues that the idea of language learners as ethnographers can be transferred to many contexts and that language learning should be interdisciplinary. This book is relevant to teachers of modern and foreign languages, European Studies, Latin American Studies and to teachers of upper secondary school students and trainers in intercultural communication.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Language and Linguistics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5efd2c1a05d635dd351fb64684aae65e624c037e

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Citations in the corpus

The competences of the telecollaborative teacher (2015, background): “…has done much to highlight the social contexts of language use, it ‘has come to be interpreted somewhat narrowly and prescriptively, as appropriate language use rather than competence in the social and cultural practices of a community of which language is a part’ (Roberts et al. 2001: 26).”
Language Learning and Study Abroad: A Critical Reading of Research (2009, background): “and Nielson 2003) and ethnographic inquiry (Jurasek, Lamson, and O’Maley 1995; Roberts et al. 2001; Jackson 2006).”
The pedagogical benefits of a linguistic landscape project in Japan (2013, background): “In this new role, they would connect classroom language study with language use in wider society, and thereby begin to formulate their own inductive theories of language (for a complementary and comprehensive discussion of language students as researchers, see Roberts et al. 2001).”
Intercultural awareness: modelling an understanding of cultures in intercultural communication through English as a lingua franca (2011, background): “Such is the dynamic nature of culture that Roberts, Byram, Barro, Jordan, and Street ( 2001 ), drawing on Street ( 1993 ), recommend using culture as a verb and discuss ‘doing culture’ in an attempt to rid culture of the static connotations given to nouns.”
Understanding the "Other Side": Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange (2003, background): “In this mail, a supposed aspect of British cultural behaviour (Britons' unwillingness "to express their feelings") and a native's understanding of it are explained by a member of that culture, thereby exposing Susana not only to British behaviour, but also to an understanding of that behaviour "from”
Cultivating cosmopolitan, intercultural citizenship through critical reflection and international, experiential learning (2011, background): “@In the semester preceding the sojourn, the participants take several courses that are specially designed for them: literary studies, ethnographic research, and intercultural communication. Each lasts 14 weeks, with 3 hours per week. In the literature course, the students read English novels and pla”