Finding Treasure

After spending a couple of weeks studying hard for a statistics exam, doing a practice participant observation and critiquing a study, I finally returned to my research. Sometimes I need a break from reading and searching for literature so I can come back with a new or better focus. When I returned to search for more literature, I changed the keywords to "teaching abroad" and found a couple of studies which have examined almost exactly what I want using the approach I was thinking about implementing.

I am surprised that a less specific keyword search came up with some better studies. Previously I was using terms like "native-speaking English teachers," "English as a foreign language," "intercultural communication," "intercultural competence," and various combinations of these terms. These results have given me plenty of literature for a theoretical framework for intercultural communication competence training for EFL instructors, but they didn't provide enough examples of how to investigate EFL instructors dealing with the culture(s) of the classroom abroad. So I'm a bit surprised that "teaching abroad" yielded better results without mention of culture or teaching English.

My database of choice for the past year has been Wilson Web. I have used others, but Wilson Web has turned up the most and best literature. It also seems to "understand" my keyword searches better.

The treasure I found is a short article on a lengthy qualitative study of native-speaking English teachers teaching writing in Chinese universities. Although I was disappointed that the list of references was shorter than I expected, it helped me locate a couple more treasures. Reading through these studies confirms that there haven't been enough studies about this topic, but there is a big need for it, which leads me to another treasure. I have more support to build a stronger case for carrying out my research.

I have yet to find a lengthy study or a dissertation that closely matches my research interest, but I'm finding the right researchers who may be able to point me in the right direction. I am very excited about what I may find, but I understand that I may be setting myself up for disappointment.

Some Possible Ways to Collect Data

Last week, I was thinking about the various ways I could collect data for my research. I used my personal experience to help inform my thoughts, although I have kept in mind that my experience may not be typical for an EFL teacher abroad.

At this point, I have conceptual three ways to gather qualitative data. One is to do about a year's worth of participant observation. I believe this would be the most "reliable" approach as I could "objectively" observe my participants adjusting their teaching techniques to the classroom culture. However, this method would require the most time, resources, and cooperation.

The second idea, which I would combine with the first, but it would be more feasible to do without the first, is to interview these participants. At most, this would require me to visit the site for a first and maybe final meeting, but I could conduct the majority of interviews online via Skype, Google voice and video chat, or some video conferencing program like Adobe Connect. Here I could collect the participants' impressions of the foreign classroom and their development of their teaching approaches and philosophies.

The third idea, which is the most feasible but least "reliable" in terms of objective truth, is conducting interviews of participants who have had experience teaching EFL abroad. I learned in the qualitative methods course that this technique is called a "retrospective interview." There are too many risks with collecting reliable data as I feel that I could manipulate the interview too easily to get the answers I'm looking for not to mention the fact that memory is fallible and people like to embellish their experiences to make the narrative more interesting.

I believe that the best approach, if I had the time and resources, is to use a combination all three methods, which would support the concept of triangulation. As I asked in my class, I wonder if it is possible to do a part of the combination (the faster and cheaper aspects) for a dissertation and to a follow-up study (the slower and more expensive aspects) later on. I do not desire a dissertation that is fast and cheap, but the saying on campus is that "a good dissertation is a done dissertation."

A Lot of Reading

Within the past few days, I have discovered a treasure trove of literature online and in print. Of all the literature, the one I look forward to reading the most is The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence. It has two chapters very relevant to my dissertation. One concerns the intercultural competence in teacher education and the other in foreign languages.

I also found that using "cultural" and "competence" as key words in the contexts of English education or foreign language education for searching for articles using the university's database, I have come upon several relevant articles. One of them seems to be raising the same questions and approach that I would like to do, but I've only read the abstract so far.

While in the midst of coursework, I have found it difficult to reserve time to read for my dissertation. When I finally have some time to read, I find myself drained from reading materials for courses and writing papers. I need to find a way to prioritize my reading. It is not necessary for me to finish reading some papers for my research this semester, but it is important for me to finish reading for classes if I'd like a satisfactory grade. My strategy so far has been to skim over class readings that seem not to overlap with my research area. This strategy is mildly successful, but not successful enough for me to get the feeling of accomplishment.

Limiting My Target Population

After reading a little about intercultural communication and qualitative methods, I have decided to limit my target population. I started with a wide net: American EFL instructors who teach or have taught abroad in countries where English is not the official or dominant language.

I have decided to limit this population to instructors who teach or have taught high school students or older as the learners will have some developing or developed concept of native culture and "foreign" culture. As I read more of the literature, I will be able to rephrase this in much clearer and more appropriate terminology with sufficient evidence to back up my reasoning.

I believe this will not be the last time I will adjust my target population.

A Reacquaintance

When it comes to gathering literature for my research, I have easily found enough for the context of teaching English as a second and/or foreign language. I can also find lots of examples for case studies and ethnographies of living and/or working in a foreign country. However, I've had some difficulty finding an overlap of the two...until recently.

I took a course on cross-cultural and intercultural communication in my MA program, which was 8 years ago. I kept the textbook all these years, and I recently opened it up in hopes to find a relevant chapter with a nice list of references. The textbook is Intercultural Communication, A Reader by Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter, the ninth edition published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. The most relevant chapter is "Intercultural Communication in the University Classroom" by Lisa M. Skow and Laurie Stephan. And in this chapter is a useful table outlining the "value differences in teaching and learning" from a study by Geert Hofstede, who is quite famous or infamous in the field of cultural anthropology.

I believe that I might uncover more useful literature by finding sources that cite Hofstede that either support or criticize his approach or conclusions. Although this is quite exciting, I must keep my focus on my current course work.

The Quantitative Qualitative Dispute

This week I've been mulling over personal feelings over using qualitative and quantitative research. I have realized through taking my qualitative research course this semester that my liberal arts undergraduate program (with emphasis in the humanities) trained me for qualitative research. Ever since graduated from the college, I've had a qualitative sense of finding "answers," especially in intercultural communication contexts.

However, when I look through the literature in ESL education, I am more satisfied when uncovering research that primarily use quantitative methods. This has revealed to me that I have a bias for selecting quantitative research but for using qualitative methods. I hope that I can mitigate these biases. I would like to value literature using primarily qualitative methods as highly as literature using quantitative methods. Even more so, I would like to become more comfortable using quantitative approaches to research although it appears that my research questions are better suited for qualitative research.

Where am I now?

I'm two weeks into my second year of coursework. This semester is roughly the halfway point through my courses before taking the comprehensive exams. In terms of research, I should be at the very early stages of developing ideas for research. I believe I'm getting ahead of myself in that most of my cohorts haven't selected a research question or topic yet.

As stated in a previous post, I selected my current research interest, topic, and questions at the end of my first semester. During my second semester, I started finding some articles related to the topic in addition to another research interest I had. I did this to make sure I wanted to pursue research in the cultural competence of EFL teachers, specifically concerning classroom dynamics.

By the end of my second semester, I was certain of my choice. I let my adviser know and that I was ready to choose my cognate area of study. A cognate area is an area of study outside one's field (ESL education) that will support your dissertation. I chose cultural anthropology since I would like to observe and/or interview EFL instructors and one of the most important variables deals with cultural competence. At this point, my choice of cognate is not set in stone. Both my adviser and I are practicing caution. I'd like to have this choice firmed by the end of the semester as I would like to take one course in cultural anthropology next semester.

A very helpful class this semester is all about qualitative research. (It's the class that has inspired me to start this blog.) Each reading and each class discussion has my mind racing with ideas for research that it sometimes distracts me from my real world contexts. I call this productive daydreaming. I've created this blog to bring my productive daydreaming into reality.

More productive daydreaming comes about from an assignment for a class on developing a second language curriculum. My assignment is to develop a curriculum to benefit students who intend to teach EFL outside of the United States. This activity will help me connect my research to practice.

Although it seems likely that my research will be primarily qualitative, I do not want to rule out quantitative methods. Just today I found a list of measurement tools for intercultural communication competence. How many of them are sound? I don't know yet. Will I use them? I don't know yet. These tools could be useful either before or after an interview. I'm thinking of myself and how an inventory on my cultural competence may influence how I answer interview questions on the same topic. Would such an inventory serve me better or after interviews? It may help my participants explain themselves more clearly, however the inventory may cause them to focus more on their strengths or weaknesses in terms of cultural competence if they become overly self-conscious.

Another big debate that has been going through my head for the past week is participant observation, which would not be very efficient in terms of cost and money. Can I conduct a valid study based heavily on interviews? I predict that this question will be answered to my liking by the end of the semester.

Also ahead of me for this semester is an extensive and perhaps even an exhaustive reading list. My academic adviser has provided me with several book-length studies already. My potential cognate adviser has many readings in mind as well. I'm also casually searching for journal articles. By the end of the semester, I should have a very long list of readings related to my research in education, cultural anthropology, and qualitative methods.

I'm both exhausted and exhilarated, and I'm anticipating to be more exhausted and exhilarated within the next few years.

Why Blog This?

While reading through my assigned textbooks for qualitative research, I found that not many researchers publish the process of a dissertation. I thought it would be good practice to write about the road to my dissertation for four reasons:

1. It may help develop my writing skills,
2. This information may be helpful for future PhD students, especially in ESL Education,
3. This blog, if completed, may be helpful for researchers on the process of developing a dissertation.
4. It can help me remember all the thoughts that run through my head pertaining to my research. As a PhD student, I sometimes will come upon a good idea but then lose it because of a task pertaining to my assistantships or coursework. I will try to control myself from deleting the bad ideas. Perhaps later, someone could do a quantitative analysis on my good ideas and bad ideas.

Background

In August 2009, I began my life as a PhD student in Foreign Language & ESL Education at the University of Iowa. I came to the university with a research interest in the use of role-plays and simulations in the context of task-based instruction. During my first semester, I realized that interest in this topic is limited to practitioners and that interest is waning. However, it is thriving in the context of computer-mediated communication. I later found out that research on any second language teaching approach or activity centered around emerging technologies is hot. Although I have a passion for incorporating technology into the classroom, I do not have a passion for researching it. In general, I rank technology high when it comes to teaching (practice) but low when it comes to researching (theory).

If I want to research the use of technology in the classroom, I prefer to investigate how to apply students' critical thinking skills to their usage and production of information online. At the end of my first year, I discovered that the blanket term for this field is multiliteracies, which include media literacy. This is a burgeoning field in education research, and there is little out there in ESL education. I believe it would be very exciting to be conduct research on multiliteracies in the contexts of both ESL and EFL.

However I am more interested in investigating how do the classroom dynamics of an EFL classroom outside of the United States affect the pedagogical decisions of a native-speaking instructor. This research idea came to me during my first semester while I taking a course, Second Language Classroom Learning, that brought up many discussion questions I wanted to research. I found that this topic to be an excellent intersection of my personal experience, interests, and career goals. However it baffles me why I hadn't thought of this area to research sooner.

I spent my second semester deciding which of the two research interests I would like to pursue for my dissertation, multiliteracies in an EAP classroom or cultural competence of EFL instructors. After doing preliminary readings of literature in both fields, the latter seemed more appealing. Also I could envision my research approach and career goals more clearly with the latter topic.