Inadequacy of quantitative approaches to research led to the development of a separate field known as the qualitative approach to research. Such methods attempted to present the data from the perspective of the subjects on the observed groups so that the cultural and intellectual biases of the researcher would not distort the collection, presentation and analysis of the data (Alwright, 1988). It has increasingly been integrated into SLA research in recent years, its ultimate goal being to discover and to understand those phenomena from the perspective of participants in the activity. Long (1983) introduced non-participant observation (in contrast with participant observation introduced by Bailey, 1983) in which the investigator observes and
