important personal goal. I have also been part of the same educational framework. Like
the participants, I have studied English at Mexican schools, and I also know the
classroom conditions in which English courses take place. I have learned English in a
very similar situation, and I have also experienced the effectiveness of teacher-led
methodology and a (for me, almost unconscious) scepticism about the idea of learning
without a teacher. I, like them, also belong to the learning culture of the SAC in Oaxaca,
which means much more than getting to know the same materials and the same people.
In short, to paraphrase Delamont and Atkinson’s words (1995,10), I am inevitably using
my membership knowledge in order to recognise and interpret the SAC situation in
Oaxaca.

Secondly, the nature of my research calls for a closer relationship with the
learner. As I said some paragraphs above, it is impossible to just sit down and "observe"
without getting involved. My purpose is to delve into learning processes that are not
overt. For me, that means a need for intervention (see above) rather than observation.
Moreover, it implies getting to know the learner and his/her learning processes. It also
means getting involved in the learning processes rather than trying to capture them from
the outside.

Finally, I have learned that only being involved in the learning processes you can
understand them. This, in turn, has allowed me, as a researcher, to interpret them and
make decisions inside the research process. From outside, I definitively would not be
able to decide anything. As I see it, the ongoing understanding and decision-making were
two essential elements of the project, something that would not have been experienced if
I had been standing "outside" it.

As the reader can see, my position as researcher is nothing if not an emic
position. Actually, I would say that I fall into the category of "indigenous ethnographer"
(Clifford, 1986, 9):

Insiders studying their own cultures offer new angles of vision and depths of
understanding (ibid)

Let me go now to a discussion of Freeman's position in comparison with the two
ethnographic approaches already mentioned. This discussion is deeply related to my
emic research stance and the way I carried out my study. In particular, I am interested in
the specific focus of Freeman's ethnographic analysis and his point of view about the
emic∕etic dychotomy.

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