Ethnographers of difference in a critical EAP communityebecoming  

Oleh:

Grey, Marianne

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of English for Academic Purposes (Full Text) vol. 8 no. 2 (2009), page 121-133.
Topik: Difference; English for Academic Purposes; Ethnography; Hybridity; Multiliteracies; Nomadic practice; Visual images
Fulltext: Grey_Marianne.pdf (190.93KB)

Isi artikel

An engagement with difference has significant implications for the teaching and research of English for Academic Purposes where traditional focus has been on the preparation of students for university content courses, with an emphasis on skills development. What has largely been missing from this debate is a problematizing of the practices of a community of difference. This research draws on an ethnographic study of an EAP classroom in which I was both the teacher and the researcher. The international students become ethnographers of the diversity of the university community using alternative semiotic practices to carry out their research rather than a traditional reliance on reading and writing. I use examples of critical moments to show the ways in which difference is re-shaped when the students’ hybrid knowledges are made central. Critical EAP practice becomes one of creating difference, thus disrupting established norms of power/knowledge and raising the possibility for further questioning and change.  2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Difference; English for Academic Purposes; Ethnography; Hybridity; Multiliteracies; Nomadic practice; Visual images 1. Nomadic trajectories They left home together. The international students were going out into the community to seek the resources they needed for their diversity research project. My aim was for them to photograph their understandings of diversity in different communities where they would encounter uncertainty and contradiction. In order to do this, I asked them to take their digital cameras and mobile phones as well as pens and paper on which they had already noted some questions. They were nomadic ethnographers, armed with creative tools for which a new use would be invented. The new inventions were their visual images which were used as political probes of difference. As the ethnographers moved away from the classroom they were laughing and their eyes were flashing with excitement as they discussed their plans. I heard different languages being spoken and I was struck by the level of noise, the hum, the excitement, the companionship and connection of a developing community of difference. There was a flurry of excitement as they went to experiment in spaces of difference which promised new ideas and possibilities. All of us were filled with desire, a ‘‘joy,’’ at the prospect of encounters not yet known or made (Deleuze & Parnet, 2002, p. 100). For the students, it was a rare moment in their * Tel.: þ61 3 92148443; fax: þ61 3 98192117. E-mail address: mgrey@swin.edu.au 1475-1585/$ - see front matter  2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2008.09.006 www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap Journal of English for Academic Purposes 8 (2009) 121e133

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