Working Papers
in Language Education and Research
http://eliworkingpapers.org/
USING FIELDWORK ACTIVITIES TO
ENHANCE CLASSROOM LEARNING

Name: Erin Hughes

Corresponding Author:
erin-h@kanda.kuis.ac.jp
ISSN 2187-4972

To cite this article:

Hughes, E. (2014). Using fieldwork activities to enhance classroom
learning. Working Papers in Language Education and Research, 2 (1), 1326.

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USING FIELDWORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE CLASSROOM LEARNING
Erin Hughes
Kanda University of International Studies

ABSTRACTThis paper describes a short paper presentation conducted on February 23rd, 2013, at the
9th Annual CamTESOL conference on Language and Empowerment in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia. The presentation was intended to share one teacher’s experience using
ethnographic fieldwork techniques as a means of informing class content and engaging
students’ active participation with issues in her Gender and Sexuality class at Kanda
University of International Studies. No formal research was conducted on the efficacy ofusing fieldwork. Rather, the intention of this paper is to discuss the practicalconsiderations of using fieldwork as learner-generated content as well as its pedagogicalimplications for student empowerment.

1. INTRODUCTION
What is a ‘fieldwork activity’? For my purposes, I defined it as any task	
  that students	
  canperform outside of class which is intended to do at least one of the following:! make concepts introduced in class visible and real in students' own environments.
! give students a chance to bring in interesting ideas or objects into the classroom foranalysis and discussion.
! value and empower students' background knowledge and engage critical thinking skills! awaken students to ways they participate in, influence, and change their own culture andlanguage.
As fieldwork is the principle method of ethnography, and thus a means to incorporate culture
learning in with the language classroom, both the students and the teacher can examine cultural	
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frames of reference that influence their communication in the classroom (Damen 1987; Gonzalez
et. al, 2005; Corbett 2003). In that sense, it is a tool for teachers and students to better understandwhere the other is coming from culturally. The students are not doing true fieldwork as aprofessional anthropologist would. They are only being introduced to basic techniques ofobservation, note-taking, and analysis as can be applied to the students’ own cultural contexts inpractical and personal ways (Damen, 1987; p. 63). As a teacher, my expectations are not that mystudents master these techniques, but that they understand how they can be valuable to their own
independent inquiry as social actors. When students learn how to read the messages they receivefrom the world around them: through media, through the written word, through daily interactions
with peers, they gain a critical understanding necessary in order to rationally accept or reject theevidence of their belief systems. In other words, ethnographic fieldwork, as a method ofdeveloping critical consciousness, has transformational potential.

2. BACKGROUND
The impetus for using fieldwork came from sharing ideas with a colleague, whosuggested that I have my students do ‘challenges’ to help demonstrate important concepts inclass. Inspired by that, I took the term and applied it to the name ‘fieldwork challenge’ to evoke
for my students the idea that they would perform a task or experiment that would be ‘in thefield’: the realm of their lived experience; and that the task would not only be a challenge toaccomplish, but also a challenge to the students’ perceptions of themselves and their own culture.

	
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2.1 Procedure
It should be noted that the procedure I will explain here for administering fieldwork
activities has evolved over two years of teaching the course, through trial and error. Though theadministration procedure has largely been standardized, the fieldwork activities themselves areedited nearly every semester to clarify terms and correlate with the changing course content.
Before the start of the semester, I prepare three sets of 5 ‘fieldwork challenges’ for the students
to complete. Since there are three units in the course, students are required to choose one
challenge per unit, to be completed in a group of three or four people. About a week into a newunit, I devote some time in class to signing up for these activities. A copy of the five fieldwork
challenges is distributed to each student so that they may read and understand what is expectedof them. I give them time to discuss which challenges seem interesting to them and to ask anyquestions they may have. After that, I ask the class pick their top three preferred fieldwork
challenges, and to group themselves according to their first choice. In order to keep topics varied
and interesting, I limit the number of groups that can do the same challenge to only two. Usually,
there are one or two challenges that most want to do, but unfortunately, some have to fall backon their second or third choices in order to keep an even and varied distribution of topics.
Once the class has been divided into groups, I record their names and fieldwork choices
onto a roster (see appendix), and subsequently they are given time to exchange contact
information and devise a plan for completion. The descriptions of the fieldwork give instructions
as to how they can approach data collection, but the students are free to negotiate those terms if
their daily circumstances are restrictive. Besides the initial assignment period, the students have
only one other opportunity during class time to negotiate their plans and corroborate data, which	
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is a week after sign-up. The rest of their time to gather and analyze data must be done
independently outside of class.
Students are required to write up their groups’ notes, analyses, and reflections in a single
Microsoft Word document and post it to the Edmodo class webpage for everyone to access. In a
5-week unit, the deadline for the submission of their fieldwork data is the class day before theday of their presentations, which I specified in order to give myself and the students anopportunity to download and review the material before they discuss it in class. On the day ofpresentations, students sit with their fieldwork groups and plan how they are going to speak
about their data. They may also share their work with other groups who are doing the samechallenge. Presentations are impromptu and brief, meant to give everyone a summary
understanding of the fieldwork challenge and the results the groups obtained. At the end of theirpresentation, each group asks the class a discussion question based on the results of the fieldwork.
The discussion question is very important since it is a chance for the group to relate theirfieldwork to the course content and find out what their classmates’ opinions are. Presenters are
given responsibility to discuss and report the connections between the results, course content,
and their own experiences themselves, and then elicit responses from the class.
2.2 The Fieldwork Challenges
The fieldwork challenges are designed to move students from their insider emic
perspectives to detached, outsider etic perspectives. The first purpose of which is to make what isperceived as ‘normal’, and thus invisible to the students, visible (Damen 1987; Garfinkel 1967;
Fetterman 2010). This means students must be compelled by the nature of the task to attend tovarious aspects of their own culture, what Moran (2001) calls “products, practices, and	
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perspectives”. Products are defined as tangible cultural artifacts such as photographs, clothing,comic books, etc. Practices refer to behavior, and perspectives refer to ideologies and belief
systems that motivate the use of products and practices.
One fieldwork challenge that attends to practices asks students to collect complimentsthat are overheard from others in one’s environment. This was a suggested activity taken fromthe Gender Awareness in Language Education (GALE) special interest group website. This
activity lends itself well to not only analyzing the sociolinguistic structure of compliments, butalso to looking at the ways in which gender roles may be positively reinforced throughseemingly innocuous, yet value-laden judgments. Other fieldwork activities have been to observe
how parents interact with their children in public settings; to conduct surveys and interviews on
gender-related topics; to collect samples of and analyze gendered images and advertisements inthe environment; and to observe the reactions from peers after changing one’s behavior orappearance in a gendered way.
Another challenge asks that students spend the whole day at KUIS wearing some form ofclothing or makeup that is typical of the gender opposite to that with which they identify. The
key is ‘gender’, not ‘sex’. Therefore, even if a student is biologically female, but socially
identifies as male and wears masculine clothing, then she is asked to wear feminine clothing or
makeup. In order to minimize potential trauma from shame or embarrassment, students may
dress up as much or as little as they feel comfortable with. Of those who selected this challenge,some had chosen to wear full outfits; some had only put on eyeliner. As these students went
through their day, they were to note down the range of reactions they received from people at theschool and analyze them with their group members.

	
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To help students make sense of the data they collect, in-class lectures and activities focus
on topics that are relevant to the fieldwork. I provide background reading from which classdiscussion can be prompted. In the case of the aforementioned fieldwork example, one classtalked about a New York Times article concerning young boys dressing up in girls’ clothing,much to the anxiety of their parents (Padawer, 2012). From that discussion, the idea of double
standards between genders emerged, as parents were not nearly as upset when their daughters
dressed in boy’s clothing. The discussion surrounding the article could then be applied to theinterpretation of the fieldwork. To see more examples of specific fieldwork activities, please see
samples of fieldwork sign-up sheets provided in the appendix.

3. DISCUSSION
In my presentation at CamTESOL, I highlighted some of the potential drawbacks andpotential rewards of adding fieldwork activities to a curriculum, based on my experiences andstudent feedback. For teachers who prefer a clear evaluation structure in place, open-ended
fieldwork activities done in groups may prove difficult to assess. One reason is that effort andaccountability cannot be discerned easily. One student in the group may have done most of thework for everyone, or conversely, perhaps three out of four group members consistently met andstayed in contact with each other while one group member played absentee. To address thisproblem, I added the “planning sheet” as a scaffold in the administration procedure towards
assessing effort. As explained before, this is the only time in class besides the sign-up phasewhen all group members can plan and corroborate data together. These planning sheets ask
students to report about their current plans, their efforts so far, their intentions, and if they need	
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any help to complete the project. This gives students a chance to catch up with group members
who have been absent and organize their fieldwork completion schedules. Since every groupmember is responsible for their part as indicated in the planning sheet, it is hoped that this will
improve accountability and quality of their fieldwork results. Of course, further research would
need to be done to discern if they are proven to help.
Other potential hurdles have been: some students missing the point of the fieldwork
challenges entirely; some students not asking for help when they should; and students expressing
difficulty in interpreting the meaning of their results. Teachers can decide how best to addressthese issues in their own classes. In my case, it was a matter of refining the wording of the
fieldwork challenge descriptions in order to make them more specific and comprehensible;
adding more planning time in class in order to check on the students’ progress and answer theirquestions; and in general, enriching the content of the course to provide the students enoughbackground information to interpret their fieldwork results cogently.
The above difficulties notwithstanding, students have demonstrated profound realizations
from completing their fieldwork challenges, particularly with regard to awareness of how theirown behavior is gendered, the influence of society and culture on their gender identities, andawareness of double standards and prejudices - both on personal and political levels. One student
who chose to change her appearance to the opposite of her gender identity for one day reported
about her experience in her journal.
I did the field work challenge 9. I usually wear men’s clothes and I don’t wear makeup,
so I wore makeup at university. My friends helped me to do this filed work challenge
because I don’t know how to make up. After I wore makeup, my friends said looked good,
pretty and more feminine. Boys said ‘what happened to you?’ and ‘I would fell in lovewith you’ and ‘you should wear makeup often because look better than no makeup’.
However, after I wore makeup, I felt strange and uncomfortable. Also, I didn’t want to	
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see my face through a mirror. I have an image that girls got confidence after wearing
makeup, but I didn’t feel confidence. For some reason, I felt embarrassed. I should havefelt happy when they told me pretty or beautiful or something, but I never felt like that. I
like boyish style, and I want to be cool like man so I thought I felt uncomfortable. I don’t
have much information of this challenge because I did this field work challenge for one
day and just makeup about 3 hours, so I will try again next week…

Another student, who completed a fieldwork challenge that asked students to perform some task
or behavior that is normally attributed to the opposite of their identified gender, had this to say in
his results report:
In my opinion, one of the non-traditional roles for men is handling household accounts. I
have never tried it in my life. However, a few weeks ago, one of my friends gave me anotebook of it so I was interested in it. I found some receipts from my wallet and I could
see my payments for a week. Even at that time, I could not remember what I bought aweek ago. There were sometimes strange receipts and I found that I paid more than what
I expected. Furthermore, in total, there was a big difference between the sum of myreceipts and my present all money. I guess I did not count how much I spent at Lapazbecause they do not gave us receipt. I was so shocked because I had spent too much more
what I thought. I must say it is good to know my payments. I used to believe handlinghousehold accounts is not for men but now I think I have to do them (especially because I
am living alone).

As a last example, one girl reported two small “breaching” experiments, as I call them, since
they seem, to me, reminiscent of Garfinkel’s work (1967). Garfinkel’s primary interest was indiscovering the processes and procedures that produce and enact social orders. He believed thatby breaching, or transgressing, assumed and enacted orders, the limits and extent to the ordercould be revealed and further understood. In the following excerpt, the student reveals how
quietly performing, and not performing, certain actions unattributed to her sex could lead to
upsetting consequences, which inspired her to further reflect on the social boundaries ofgendered behavior in Japanese society.
	
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Firstly, I would like to write the observed result which is acting like a man at my house.
Usually, my sister and I set the table for meals and my father just waits and sits on chair.
So this time, I just sat my chair and waited my meals. Mother said nothing until finish
setting the table. However, before start to eat lunch, she asked me why you are angry. I
really surprised because I was not angry with anyone and I didn’t act like angry.
Secondly, I will explain second test which is eating Gyu-don alone. I’ve ate it at
Yoshino-ya more than 4 times with my friends however, I’ve never been to there alone.
Now, I just want to say it was awkward. When I entered there alone, there were only men
and they glanced to me (not once, more than twice!). The atmosphere was uncomfortable.
I can say from the above two tests, there is evidence that we live and act within limited“appropriate” behaviors as a man or woman. If a female doesn’t do housework, society
would say it’s not appropriate as a woman. If a girl went to eat ramen, gyu-don andyakiniku alone, may be society would recommend that she goes to a café alone instead.
When we compare the current society and the society from more than 5 decades’ ago,
actually we can say society has changed and females and males live more comfortably
than before. However, still there are expected roles and behaviors as male and female.

In such cases, the most rewarding aspect of the fieldwork challenges is that the students cometo conclusions on their own. They may expect certain results, but it is never guaranteed that they
will find them. Some students emerge from their experiences feeling shocked and bewildered,
while some feel more certain of their own convictions. Whatever their results may be, thefieldwork clearly afforded the students, and myself, the opportunity to reflect on some of theassumed boundaries that define our social experience.

	
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4. CONCLUSION
It would be impossible, nor desirable, to divorce a class on gender studies from social andpolitical realities in which the students and the teacher are situated. As I am coming from adifferent historical and cultural perspective than my students, I am aware that my own
ideological views on gender politics can influence my lectures. Therefore, it is a personal
challenge of mine to refine my own pedagogical practices to eliminate imposing dogma as a
figure of authority in the classroom (a feat made more difficult in cultures where the students
themselves have come to accept the teacher as the only authority in the classroom). Freire statesthat “it is contradictory to proclaim progressive politics and then to practice authoritarianism oropportunism in the classroom,” (1986, p. 216). Similarly, Giroux (2005) underscores the
problem of teachers who inadvertently promote the ideologies they seek to overturn by providing
curriculum materials that represent their own viewpoints. “Rather than responding with gratitude
for being politically enlightened,” he writes, “the students respond with scorn and resistance.” To
avoid such pedagogical mires, fieldwork can be a useful method that gives students theopportunity to encounter and problematize previously unnoticed or accepted cultural practices,institutions, and belief systems independently. When these issues are brought into the classroom
for discussion, students are more motivated to share their experiences and compare perspectives
because the incentive to do so is not only coming from the teacher or grades; it is coming fromthe students’ own curiosity and growing sociopolitical awareness. In that way, fieldwork has
great potential to help students develop the ‘intellectual discipline’ required to engage with theirworld in an active and critical fashion, on their own terms and in their own words.

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5. REFERENCES
Corbett, John (2003) An Intercultural Approach to English Language Teaching. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters
Damen, L. (1987). “A Pragmatic Approach to Intercultural Inquiry”, Culture Learning: The Fifth
Dimension in the Language Classroom. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
Fetterman, David M. (2010) Ethnography: Step by Step. 3rd. edition, Applied Social Research
Methods Series 17, SAGE Publications
Finn, Patrick J. (1999) “Making Literacy Dangerous Again”, Literacy with an Attitude. State
University of New York Press
Freire, P. & Donaldo Macedo (1987) “Literacy and Critical Pedagogy”, Literacy: Reading theWord and the World. London: Bergin & Garvey
Garfinkel. H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Giroux, Henry A. (1988) “Literacy and the Pedagogy of Voice and Political Empowerment”,
Educational Theory, vol. 38: 1, 61-75, March
Gonzalez, et al (2005) Funds of Knowledge. New Jersey : Laurence Erlbaum
Mathis, Mihoko Takahashi (N.D.) “Exploring Gender Issues in the Foreign Language
Classroom: An Ethnographic Approach”, retrieved fromhttp://www.tokyoprogressive.org.uk/gale/articles/mathis.html
Moran, Patrick R. (2001) Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice. Boston, MA: Heinle
Cengage Learning
Padawer, Ruth, “What’s So Bad about a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?” The New YorkTimes, US edition, August 8, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/magazine/whats-sobad-about-a-boy-who-wants-to-wear-a-dress.html?_r=2&
Shor, Ira (ed.) & Paulo Freire (1987), “Letter to North American Teachers”, Freire for theClassroom: A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching. New York: Heinemann	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  

	
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6. APPENDIXFirst	
  Set	  –	
  Choose	
  one,	
  due	  by	
  April	
  24th:	  Gender	  and	
  Sexuality	
  Concepts	
  1. Write	
  about	
  switching	
  gender	
  roles.	
  Choose	  a	
  chore	  around	  the	
  house,	
  or	
  a	
  type	  of	
  action	
  that	
  is	
  
not	
  usually	
  done	  by	
  someone	
  of	
  your	  gender	  and	
  complete	
  the	
  task	  without	
  explaining	
  why.	
  After	
  completing	
  the	
  task,	  describe	
  what	  you	
  did;	
  explain	
  how	  it	
  made	  you	
  feel;	
  and	
  tell	
  how	  others	  reacted	
  to	
  your	  efforts.	
  Post	  your	  analysis	
  on	
  Edmodo.	
  An	
  example	
  task	  could	
  be:	
  use	  masculine/feminine	
  speech	
  patterns;	
  sit	
  with	  your	  legs	  crossed/open	
  wide;	
  cook	  a	
  meal/do	
  laundry/babysit;	
  eat	  a	
  meal	  alone	  at	
  a	
  ramenya,	
  etc…	
  2. Interview	
  a	
  foreign	
  student	
  or	
  teacher	
  about	  their	
  views	
  on	
  gender	
  roles	
  for	
  about	
  10	
  minutes.	
  Ask	
  permission	
  to	
  record	  the	
  interview	  and	
  upload	
  the	
  audio	  to	
  Edmodo.	
  See	  me	
  for	
  sample	
  questions,	
  but	
  you	
  should	
  create	
  your	  own	  as	
  well.	
  Lead	  a	
  discussion	
  about	  the	
  interview.	
  3. Collect	  compliments.	
  Write	  down	
  any	
  compliments	
  you	
  hear	  or	
  overhear	
  from	  teachers,	  parents,	
  and	
  peers.	
  Categorize	
  comments	
  by	
  gender	  and	  then	
  look	  at	
  what	  each	
  gender	  is	
  complimented	
  on	
  or	
  appreciated	
  for.	
  Present	
  it	
  as	
  a	
  chart	  on	
  Edmodo.	
  4. Create	
  a	
  short	  survey	
  asking	
  participants	
  whether	
  they	  think	
  people’s	
  genders	
  are	
  biologically	
  determined	  or	
  socially	
  constructed.	
  Ask	  them	  why	  they	  think	
  that	  way.	
  Tally	
  your	  results,	
  analyze	
  them,	  and	  post	  them	  on	
  Edmodo	
  for	  discussion.	
  5. Capture	
  public	
  images	
  you	
  come	  across	
  in	
  your	  daily	  life	  of	
  men	
  and	
  women	
  of	
  various	
  ages.	
  Take	
  photos	
  of	
  them	  and	
  compile	
  them.	
  Such	  images	
  can	  be	
  from	  trains,	
  on	
  the	
  street,	
  on	
  storefronts,	
  in	
  magazines	
  you	
  usually	
  read,	
  on	
  TV	
  you	
  normally	
  watch,	
  anywhere	
  you	  go	
  in	
  your	  usual	
  routine.	
  Do	
  not	
  actively	
  change	
  what	  you	  do	
  and	
  where	
  you	  go	
  just	  to	
  find	  images.	
  Write	  an	
  analysis	
  of	
  the	
  images.	
  What	  are	  the	
  common	
  ways	  that	  men	
  and	
  women	
  are	
  depicted?	
  Why	  are	
  they	  depicted	
  that	  way?	
  	
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6.1

Fieldwork Challenge Sign-Up
If you wish to create your own fieldwork challenge, please email your ideas to me.
IMPORTANT: When doing these challenges, be careful and use your best judgment
and sensitivity to others.

Group Sign-up Sheet
Names

Challenge NumberGroup 1:
Group 2:
Group 3:
Group 4:
Group 5:
Group 6:

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  Papers	
  in	
  Language	  Education	  and	
  Research	
  Vol.	
  2	
  No.	  1.	
  February	  2014,	
  13	
  -­‐	
  26	
  
	
  

6.2 Planning Sheet
Which	
  Fieldwork	
  Challenge	
  are	
  you	
  doing?___________________	
  

	
  

Due	
  Date:___________	
  

What	
  will	  each	  person	
  in	
  your	  group	
  do?	
  	
  
Name	
  
	
  

Role/Job	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
What	
  have	  YOU	
  done	  so	
  far?	
  	
  
	
  
What	
  do	
  you	
  still	
  need	  to	
  do?	
  When	
  and	
  how	
  will	  you	  do	
  it?	
  
	
  
What	
  help	  do	
  you	
  need	  to	
  complete	
  your	
  FWC?	
  	
  ___________________________________________________________________________________	
  	
   26