Corpus construction and specialist vocabulary learning - PowerPoint Presentation

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Corpus construction and specialist vocabulary learning

by Chinese and Finnish EAP students

Nicole KengUniversity of Vaasa

Simon Smith

Coventry University

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Outline

BackgroundMotivation for corpus constructionResearch questionsUK studyFinland study

FindingsFuture directions

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DDL: corpus consultation

AuthenticRepresentativeBut“

In a nutshell, learners and teachers simply aren’t convinced.” (Boulton 2008)

Looking at data may be difficult or boring for some

“Reading concordances is too tough for most learners. It’s an advanced linguistic skill” (

Kilgarriff

2008)

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How to motivate?

Task outcomes: sense of ownership (Tyne 2009)

Movie-making vs. in-class presentationBlogging vs. hand-writing assignmentsMaking

a corpus vs.

using

a

corpus

Deployment of non-language skills

IT skills

Specialist knowledge

Hobbies

Academic major

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Corpus construction by learners

Zanettin (2002:7)

learners compile a corpus from the web, and analyse it with Wordsmith Tools"constructing the corpus was as useful as generating concordances from it”. Charles (2012)

“revelatory

moment when they see the patterns appear before their eyes 

in their own

data”

Lee & Swales (2006)

and

Boulton

(2008)

some

students purchased own

copies of Wordsmith

Tools



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Aston (2002) Corpus construction vs. making a fruit salad!

Control.

You can choose your own ingredientsText types

Special domains

Certainty.

If you make your own fruit salad, you know what went into it

Can identify texts

Understand why things are as they are

Creativity

.

Corpus-making, like cooking, can be fun!

Critical awareness

.

Through trial and error, and consulting books and experts, you will probably become a better chef (whether of corpora or fruit salads)

Communication

.

Making your own corpus or fruit salad can have more social spin-offs than opening a supermarket tin

opportunity to talk with co-constructors and with other chefs, as well as with the consumers of the end product.

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This study

Two EAP cohortsCredit bearing coursesIn-sessional

Coventry University(nearly all) Chinese studentsUniversity of Vaasa(all) Finnish students

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Research questions

What do students think about studying specialist vocabulary using corpora? Are there

differences between perceptions of the two cohorts?Are there differences

in the progress made by the two

cohorts?

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UK cohort

94 international students88 Chinese L1 AFIB majorY3 top-up

4 EAP groups (21-25n)IT literateGeneral vocabulary OKWeaker areasSubject knowledgeTechnical vocabulary

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Resources constructed and used by students

Specialized academic corporafrom course materials

and the webVocabulary portfoliosfrom these corpora

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The AFIB course

Duration: 1 yearVarious modules in Accountancy, Finance and Business (50 ECTS)EAP support module1

0 ECTS2 hours

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Corpus construction teaching plan

Allow 20-30 minutes per week

Familiarize students with corpus consultationUse lecture slides to create mini-corpusUse mini-corpus keywords to bootstrap web corpus

Use web corpus

for vocab and text study

to create Excel vocabulary portfolios

Occasional vocabulary quizzes

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What can they do with the corpora?

Lists of domain words and multi-word unitsWord sketchesConcordancesLink to original texts from WWW

Bootstrap new corpora from webCreate vocabulary portfolios

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CourseMoodle

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Lecture slides example

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Finland cohort

74 students at undergraduate levelCEFR B2-C1

Stage 1: Exploring corpus with Sketch Engine

Concordances, Word Sketches, Sketch Differences,

Thesaurus

Stage 2

: Writing

reflective

vocabulary reports

Stage 3:

Constructing corpora by collecting texts from their subject areas

Stage 4

: Creating

vocabulary portfolios

21

BNC

OWN CORPORA

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Stage 1: Introducing Sketch Engine functions

Concordances give you

example sentences from the corpus

Word Sketches

give

you

summary of word usage, showing which other words commonly go with the keyword, and in what grammatical relation they stand to it

Sketch Differences

show you

how apparently similar words differ in usage

Thesaurus

shows you

a list of similar words to the keyword

Student training slide

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Stage 2: Examples of reflective vocabulary reports

‘This function shows me

different meanings of the word

by giving me example sentences. I learnt that I can use the word

profit

in the meaning of advantage or good obtained from something. It can also be used in the meaning of money gained in business for instance:

The resulting value is profit before tax

.’ (Student 1)

[our emphasis]

23

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‘Concordances shows me that

one word can be connected to different meanings

. The word turnover

for example can be used in various meanings. It can mean company’s sales or the changes among employees.’ (Student 2)

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‘Word Sketches give me

a summary of word usage

, showing which other words commonly go with the keyword, and in what grammatical relation

they stand to it. For example I learnt that the word

profit

as object can be used in a sentence like

you can make a profit from services

. It can be used with preposition for example in the sentence like

he sold a car at a profit

.

’

(Student 1)

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Stage 3: Creating a Corpus

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Stage 4: Examples of Vocabulary Portfolio (Student 1)

4.8.2016

Vaasan yliopisto

27

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(Student 2)

4.8.2016

Vaasan yliopisto

28

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(Student 3)

4.8.2016

Vaasan yliopisto | Yksikkö | Kalvosarjan nimi

29

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4.8.2016

Vaasan yliopisto | Yksikkö | Kalvosarjan nimi

30

(Student 3 again)

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Question: What is the most useful skill/knowledge you learned in this course?

Survey results

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Survey results

Question: What is the most enjoyable part of this course?

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Student Feedback

‘It’s useful to

find the right words to use when writing because sometimes I don’t know the best way to express what I want to say in my sentences.’

‘This is a very useful tool to improve own knowledge of vocabulary. In my case,

it shows many words that have been used in the news and magazines

.’

‘Using corpora is

effortless and fun

way to learn vocabulary!’

Creating a specialized corpus could be useful when it comes to

researching a particular subject

or learning a subject in English.

It

is useful because of the different results which are much

more relevant

than searching on a much more general English corpus

.

I thought that the Sketch Engine was useful software not only for my English study but also

for AFIB study

In addition, the process of create my own corpora was very

enjoyable

and makes me sense of accomplishment.

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Some differences

(From reflective reports)

Awareness of collocationsGrammar patterns

Exploratory approach

For example I learnt that the word

profit

as object can be

used in a sentence

like

you can make a profit from services

.

It can be used with preposition

for example in the sentence like

he sold a car at a profit

.

(Student 1)

(From survey)

Still favour vocab quizzes, list-based learning

I

like to

remember words in a sentence

.

I

think

making word portfolio is

good […] If

it is used as a resource and

read it again and again

, it can be very useful

.

(Student 9)

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Next steps

Quantitative comparative study

Measure and compare effectiveness of our approachCompare improvement of specialist vocabulary knowledge

Pre-

and

post-test

Qualitative study on vocabulary learning styles

Based on differences found in this study

Interviews

Investigate continuing use by students

"Ongoing use also indicates substantial commitment to the personal

corpus" (Charles, 2014: 39)

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Conclusion and Summary

A discovery-based approach

Promote learner-centredness and task ownership

Raise learner awareness of relationship:

Integrate

language

and transferable

skills

“Using

corpora in the classroom is

FUN

!”

exploration in language learning

learner

progress

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Links

https://www.sketchengine.co.uk/

http://bootcat.sslmit.unibo.it/ http://www.slideshare.net/SimonSmith29/summer-sch-glossaries

https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ0abSIJSn0

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References

Aston, G. (2002). The learner as corpus designer. In B. Kettemann

, & G. Marko (Eds.), Teaching and learning by doing corpus analysis (pp. 9-25). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Boulton

, A. (

2008).

Bringing corpora to the masses: free and easy tools for language learning. In N.

Kübler

(Ed.),

Corpora, Language, Teaching, and Resources: From Theory to Practice

Bern: Peter Lang.

Charles

, M. (2012). Proper vocabulary and juicy collocations: EAP students evaluate do-it-yourself corpus-building.

English for Specific Purposes

, 31, 93-102.

Charles, M. (2014). Getting the corpus habit: EAP students’ long-term use of personal corpora. 

English for Specific Purposes

, 

35

, 30-40.

Kilgarriff

, A.,

Husak

, M., McAdam, K.,

Rundell

, M. &

Rychlý

, P. (2008). GDEX: Automatically finding good dictionary examples in a corpus. In

Proceedings of the

11th EURALEX International Congress,

Barcelona,

Catalonia

Lee

, D., & Swales, J. (2006). A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctoral students: Moving from available specialized corpora to self-compiled corpora. 

English for Specific Purposes

, 

25(1), 56-75.Tyne, H. (2009). Corpus oraux par et pour l'apprenant [Spoken corpora by and for the learner]. In A.

Boulton (Ed.), Des documents authentiques oraux aux corpus: Questions

d’apprentissage en didactique des langues (pp. 91-111). Nancy, France: Mélanges CRAPEL.

Zanettin, F. (2002) DIY Corpora: The WWW and the Translator. In Maia, B., Haller, J., & Urlrych, M. (eds.) Training the Language Services Provider for the New Millennium

. Porto: Facultade de Letras, Universidade do Porto, 239-248.396396