Ethnography Galore

This week's readings provide concrete examples of ethnographic method of research as exemplified in the articles of Canagarajah, Kathy Mills, Athanases and Heath, and a critical theoretical approach to the method of ethnography itself in the article of Hammersley. The issues raised in Hammersley's article are useful in interrogating some of the ethnographic research practices of some analysts. I am particularly drawn to the ethnographic research conducted by Canagarajah in Sri Lanka with some college students to determine issues of domination and resistance among students. He uses the American Kernel Lessons (AKL) intermediate pre-packaged materials to see whether students would be receptive or reactive to that material. It turned out that most students resisted the AKL materials because they didn't fulfill their expected desire of learning "standard" grammar to pass standardized test. This is to say that the ESOL course did not meet the student's ESP expectations. Furthermore, most students aspired towards "Standard English" acquisition for various socio-political reasons. One question that comes to mind at this point is which context - local or global - determines the literacy choices of these students in Sri Lanka? Although most of these students found the textual situations in the AKL difficult to interpret because of cultural difference, they nevertheless aspire towards global citizenship through a monolingual approach to language.