Brainstorming Ethnographic Research Topics

I have just learned today that, most likely, 50-100% of the adjunct positions at my school will be cut in the Fall semester, so my teaching context for the Fall is still to be determined. However, my primary employment is as a Learning Center employee (mostly classified, with some hours as part-time faculty), where I tutor individuals in so-called “English fundamentals” and supervise a staff of approximately 20-35 students (but who knows how many that will be in the Fall with the current California budget situation). I have a number of ideas that might be appropriate for ethnographic study, including researching the following situations:

➢ On a seemingly regular basis (at least once per semester?), I tutor students from our noncredit ESL program, and each semester it seems as if at least one student comments derogatorily to me about how fellow students from their particular “culture” act in class - the women talk too much, in “their language”, not paying attention to the teacher and not taking the course seriously. I think it would be interesting to observe classroom interactions, hopefully without too many preconceptions (such as the ones I might walk in with based on these student comments), and see what kinds of interactions are really occurring - in small groups of students, in the group as a whole, with the teacher; it might also be interesting to compare how students’ behavior differs in different teacher situations (teachers of different genders, nationalities, home languages, teaching styles, etc.). This would be interesting information for anyone who wants to know more about classroom interactions as they takes place in the noncredit ESL setting as well as perhaps to compare to similar credit course settings at the college/community college level.

➢ In my position as a student worker supervisor, it would also be interesting to examine interactions and language development/usage within my employee population. Our employees speak a number of languages at home (English, Spanish, Armenian, Russian, Hebrew, Vietnamese, etc.), and I would like to investigate how students (who are employees) negotiate their multiple identities in their work setting - identities as students, employees, friends, rule-enforcers, language learners, etc.). This is a setting that would be easier to navigate in terms of access but perhaps more difficult to immerse myself in as participant/observer (ironically) since I do this as part of my daily routine. I would find it more difficult to see the invisible patterns that I am accustomed to, but going into a project like this knowing that, perhaps I would be more sensitive to some of the otherwise undetectable patterns. This topic would also appeal to other language professionals interested in identity construction not only of language learners but of students in general (since not all of my students are language learners); it could also contribute to the growing body of research on students simultaneously engaged in language learning and student work, which currently consists of a lot of research on students in volunteer/service learning settings.