Inquiry Towards Transformative Learning:an Ethnography Of Group Learning Experience In Heritage Study

This study investigates a student group’s learning experience in the course "Culture and Heritage Study" in one university in Hangzhou, using the research method of ethnography. It has4research questions:(1) How do Cheng Shan group learn in "Culture and Heritage Study" curriculum?(2) How does research work as a journey of inquiry promote learning?(3) What is the teacher’s role in research-based curriculum in this case?(4) What enlightenment does this ethnography bring to the English language teaching? Through a period of two semesters’observation and participation with the focused group, the researcher collected a huge amount of data in the forms of interview record, classroom and fieldwork video, fieldwork notes and photos. By means of working with the group as a participant observer and teaching assistant, the study unveils the journey of transformative learning of the group members, including their struggles, frustration, sense of achievements and the joy of growth.The shared research-based course engages students in critical inquiry in the heritage and cultural area, offering students an opportunity to learn from collaborative practice in a learning community so as to open a door to different ways of seeing the world. But for a beginner, learning like a researcher is a challenging task. Students need to go through high-demanding tasks from presenting proposal, doing fieldwork to writing final paper. The main character of the study, Cyndi and her group experienced confusion and failure, as well as joys and inspiration, so that they finally found the key to be a researcher, that is inquiry as a process of meaning-making.In the process, teacher plays a role of a facilitator to let students learn, as light, slight but bright, detecting the horizon of student readiness and making it a handover of learning opportunities. Through the ethnographic narrative accounts of their learning process, this study strives to show how research-based curriculum integrates autonomous learning and cooperative learning and how research as inquiry facilitates students’ transformation. Finally this ethnographic study aims not only at a holistic understanding of students’transformative learning in a research-based curriculum by meaning-making in various interpretations, practices and Beings, but also to shed lights on today’s English language education and the necessity of the transdisciplinary transformation in higher education.