5.2.1.3 Freeman
In regard to the focus of ethnographic analysis, van Lier says that ethnography
"studies human behaviour in its social context"(1988,48). Holliday also uses the word
"behaviour" to define ethnography. However, the associations and research limitations
are obvious. Using different terms, Byram writes that
Ethnography ...answers a legitimate curiosity as to what it is like to belong to
another culture...a curiosity which is not so much about facts as about the way
these facts are subjectively experienced, and which calls for interpretation and
description. (1989,88)
With this, Byram does two things. He prevents the association with some schools
that have isolated and worked with behaviour in a vacuum and he broadens the
possibilities of ethnographic research. With regard to the latter, Freeman has developed
an interesting argument.
According to Freeman, descriptive research in the field of FL teaching and
learning can be carried out in three different ways. First, there is product research, that is,
when researchers are interested in finding out what is learned by students, i.e. the
outcome of the teaching∕leaming process. Second, researchers may be interested in
describing how something is learned. Thus, instead of looking at outcomes, they focus on
learners' behaviour. Most of this type of research, called process research, has been
carried out through observation. According to Freeman, Holliday's and van Lier's
approaches support ethnographic process research. Finally, there is research that is
focused neither on the "what" nor on the "how" but on the why of teaching∕leaming
processes. In other words, research of this type is interested on finding the reasons why
something was learned (the “what”) in the way in was learned (the “how”). Therefore,
according to Freeman, the object of research is a set of reasons (as opposed to behaviours
and outcomes). He thinks that the fact that something was learned in a specific way is
only important if we know the reasons of that teaching∕leaming process. Freeman calls
this hermeneutic or interpretative research. For him, the hermeneutic paradigm
(which) focuses on the perspectives of participants (often as contrasted with
those of outsiders), offers a means to examine the purposes, meanings and
interpretations of.....what people think and how they understand the world in
which they live and act. (1996,360)
However, "purposes, meanings and interpretations" are not observable events
open to the public domain. Looking for reasons means that we are dealing with "a