This book arose from my work with postgraduate students on Aston University?s MSc in TESOL/TESP and PhD programmes and I should like to extend my thanks to them for all their enthusiasm, encouragement and insights. Over the years I have enjoyed rediscovering through their work the wonders that qualitative inquiry can reveal. I should also like to express a particular thank you to the British Council team in Mexico and to teachers and teacher trainers in universities there. Their enthusiasm for research and their positive response to my talks and workshops over the years contributed significantly to my decision to write this book. My particular gratitude extends to those novice researchers in all of the above groups who have kindly allowed me to include examples from their work in the text, where they are acknowledged by name. It would be impossible to summarise here the many ways in which my colleagues in the Language Studies Unit have helped me over the years, but I would like to thank them here for all their help, support and encouragement. They are a wonderful team. Particular thanks must go to Heather Phillips for bailing me out on numerous occasions and to Sue Garton for her helpful comments on Chapter 2. Outside the Unit, I?d like to thank my boss, Anne Stevens, for her unstinting support and Lourdes Ortega for valuable comments on my original ideas for the book. More than anything else, though, I am grateful to my friends and colleagues Julian Edge and Steve Mann, who read the manuscript and made detailed and illuminating comments on every section. After a hard spell of writing, it was hugely refreshing to take advantage of their generosity in order to share time with them and see my work in new ways. Any remaining errors are, of course, my own, but the book has benefited immensely from their wisdom and insight - as have I, in so many ways. Finally, my thanks and love to Francesca and Louisa for reminding me every single day why it is worth trying to understand.