Investigating Process

After speaking with a couple of my professors and reading a lot of literature about culture and semiotics, I have come to grapple with my research questions. I know who I want to study, and I know their general context, but when it comes to culture, it is difficult to come out with satisfactory results. After nearly a year looking at the literature, I still haven't come across a study that does what I want to do.

My highest interest now is investigating the native-speaking EFL instructors new to a national culture, specifically their process in acculturating to the various cultures in their context: the national culture, the regional culture, the institutional culture, and the culture of the second or foreign language teaching community. I would like to investigate their motivation and process to acquire the skills to acculturate to any of these cultures. How many of them are aware of their willingness to become a member of the national or global EFL teaching community and a "culturally competent" resident of their host country, region, and city?

A large number of native-speaking EFL instructors new to host country are inexperienced teachers, so I'd like to see how many of them are actually interested in the profession or become interested in the profession within their first year. Also, I'd like to see how many of them are actually interested in the host culture or become interested in the host culture enough to adapt themselves to fit in to the society.

To me, this seems more feasible to do in a qualitative method. And it leaves enough room to narrow my focus once I have initiated the investigation in the field.