ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the use of ethnography as an alternative yet much less exploited approach to the study of language learning that takes place beyond the classroom. Drawing on socio-cultural approaches to language learning, scholars have recently expanded their scope of research to include social aspects and meanings of language learning such as learners’ identities and their beliefs and values, which underlie their language learning practices. However, these dynamic perspectives of individuals as language learners as well as their out-of-school learning processes are difficult to trace and cannot be adequately assessed by and accessed through snapshots of teenagers’ perspectives derived merely from self-reports, survey or interview questions (Livingstone, 2001). Consequently, and in view of the fact that language learning researchers in different parts of the world are only now starting to pay greater attention to the use of qualitative and ethnographic methods, this chapter argues for the need of further ethnographic research conducted in non-institutional settings. Such research, involving the use of long-term observations, in-depth interviews and intensive fieldwork, could help establish a better understanding of the social processes and meanings involved in out-of-school language learning and all its complexities.
