An Invitation to the Less‐Treaded Path of Autoethnography in TESOL Research

Abstract

Although alternative perspectives continue to be part of TESOL research methodology, there are approaches to social science inquiry that are still not widely known to researchers in the field. More specifically, it may be argued that language education research needs further qualitative approaches that can interweave research and life, language and context, and self and society in processes of inquiry. Therefore, in this article the author invites the academic community of TESOL to consider autoethnography as a qualitative research approach with significant potential for research on issues of language teaching and learning. Based on a discussion of the theoretical and methodological perspectives of autoethnographic inquiry, he argues that, by bringing the self and society together, such an approach can contribute to the ongoing endeavor for deepening the epistemological understanding and widening the methodological scope of research in the field.