learning about the changed classroom situation which it brings about and
so on. (1994,163).
I believe in this kind of research, which deals with intervention of different types.
After reading more about the project in the next chapter, the reader will note the
resemblance of my research with the concept of Holliday's ethnographic action research.
However, Holliday thinks that ethnography in SLA research has been too emic,
in the sense that it has focused on classroom language and forgotten the outside reality.
In other words, the emic principle has blotted out the holistic one. This emic perspective,
according to Holliday, has only focused on what is said and has generally ignored what
is done. Although Holliday talks about interacting,
we Ieam about a culture from the way in which it interacts with ourselves (1996,245),
his meaning of interaction is obviously wider than what van Lier's approach implies.
Stating that ethnography "has often been restricted to oral aspects of classroom
behaviour" (1996,234). The "emicism of verbal data", as he calls it, is too narrow and
specific for understanding what happens in FL teaching∕leaming situations. Instead, he
says, a "sociological imagination in the researcher will enable ...(him/her to) locate
oneself and one's actions critically within a wider community or world scenario" (ibid.).
In other words, he considers that research in this field has to analyse and interpret data
taking into account "the multiplicity of relations between students, educators, the
community, and also the people, material, and concepts which the profession transports
along cultures"(ibid.).
It is evident that Holliday's concept of emic is different in meaning from van
Lier's. However, Holliday is not talking about a different connotation of concepts but a
different position as an ethnographic researcher. As I understand Holliday's argument,
the development of this thesis goes very well with his approach since it has been carried
out in such a way to analyse "the multiplicity of relations" between all the people, events
and processes that have been involved in setting up and running the SAC in Oaxaca.
However, if I needed to describe my own position as researcher I would say that it is an
emic position. Let me elaborate on this.
First of all, I was bom in the same country of the participants of the project. This
does not only mean that we were able to communicate in the same language, which is in
itself a better situation, but it also means that I am part of that culture that looks at
English as a symbol of an outsider culture, but at the same time considers it as an