Traditionally, mobile assisted language learning (MALL) studies have concentrated on classroom practices (Duman, Orhon, & Gedik, 2015). However, with the influx of cheap mobile and smart technology these devices are becoming accessible even in urban centers in developing nations. Therefore, technology and language learning is not just occurring in the classroom but as well as in the home environment.  MALL, digital technologies (smartphones, tablets), and multiliteracy practices have ethnographically been examined from a static scale and fixed practices (Fitzgerald, & Debski, 2006). While investigating active use of technology, this study discovered how social devices could be utilized not just as evidence but components of trajectories in progressive multiliteracy learning. Moreover, results from this study demonstrated that these digital technologies not only were incorporated in learning but allowed researchers to pierce the 4th wall of research. In other words, a commonplace barrier in the field of ethnography, researchers facing a fourth wall dividing intentional and actually practices, was removed.

Context:

The context of the study was in the trilingual country of Kazakhstan in Central Eurasia. This is a post-Soviet country facing similar issues with other European nations such as: multilingualism, re-developing education, and national identity revitalization. These create interesting challenges in ethnographic research. For example, family language policy, particularly in multilingual language ecology creates a barrier or a 4th wall between home observation and videotaping. Consequently, the researchers discovered a new method organically arising from traditional videotaped interviews. During the analysis of the data it became apparent that utilizing MALL could overcome this predicament. This study aims to bridge the research gap in MALL, expanding the investigation to how these devices can aid research in sociocultural home practices and multilingual learning.

The justification for the methodology used was based on previous research in the area under investigation. We investigated participation in storytelling of pre- and early primary school aged children. Our belief was that children begin story collaboration as a pre-school age. One similar study by Laurent, Nicoladis, & Marentette (2015) used videotapes of parental interaction during storying creation. Their findings revealed that children as young as two were able to engage in storytelling interaction with parents (Laurent, Nicoladis, & Marentette, 2015: 2). The original study was a collective case study design involving over 25 hours of videotaped interviews and session observations focusing on children’s active communities of learning and multiliteracy resources

During the ethnographic observation process a new direction in research methods unfolded with the obtaining of unintentional information. The very social nature of the data collection tools, that of devices such as smartphones and tablets, utilized simultaneously in the literacy events and the research interviews, dismantled the fourth wall that typically exists in research.During interviews participants stated they believed in revitalizing Kazakh language, yet during videotaping of literacy activities other evidence was illustrated. Evidence taken from iPhone, iPad and other tablets revealed many participants started with Kazakh and continued the activity speaking Russian when they were interacting with their children. Thus, the thin veil that permeates between the observer, data collecting devices and participants was dissolved. A more intimate connection between video as research evidence and as learning tool was created. The same videos parents themselves began to create on their mobile devices became components in a community of learning. Parents began to share pictures and videos they had created during the multilingual, multiliteracy sessions. These videos evidenced learning opportunities housed in a community of learning. In addition, they created intimate ethnographic research moments. The research question guiding this study extends from the original empirical questions to highlight a new theoretical area in ethnographic methods addressing the fourth wall of ethnographic research.

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