Schedule: 2009-09-10 (12:00 - 12:45)
Parallel Session 5 (Room A-31)

Title: Language awareness and medium-term benefits of corpus consultation.
Authors: Alex Boulton
Abstract: Data-driven learning (DDL) involves learners exploring corpora to discover language rather than "being taught". This is claimed to have a number of advantages, and while empirical evidence to date is encouraging, it is less conclusive than might be hoped – partly, it is argued, as it tends to focus on short-term goals by testing knowledge and retention of selected language items covered. It may be, however, that the real advantages of DDL lie in longer-term benefits; in addition to "incidental" learning and greater learner autonomy, these include language awareness and noticing ability (e.g. O'Sullivan, 2007), all of which are more difficult to assess in short courses. This paper reports on a medium-term experiment comparing such skills between experimental and control groups of lower-intermediate learners of English in an architecture school in France.

The control groups were taught in the usual way, while the last 15 minutes of the experimental classes were given over to exploring the British National Corpus on line (http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/), with learners working in pairs to look at specific language points which they had encountered. Information concerning these learners' attitudes towards the experimental technique was collected from a questionnaire, and their learning preferences gauged using the Learning Styles Index (Felder & Silverman, 1988/2002). These data are related to the main results, where both experimental and control groups were tested at the end of the 15-week course not on the language points covered, but on their sensitivity to other language items in a previously unseen text.

The time-frame of the present “experiment is not enough to allow the full effects of DDL to be revealed, but does provide some indication that its main advantages go well beyond the short-term learning outcomes generally examined in current research. If further long-term work can confirm these findings, it might go some way towards helping DDL to reach a wider audience.

References:

Felder, R. & L. Silverman. 1988/2002. Learning and teaching styles in engineering education. Engineering Education, 78/7, p. 674-681. http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/LS-1988.pdf

O'Sullivan, I. 2007. Enhancing a process-oriented approach to literacy and language learning: The role of corpus consultation literacy. ReCALL, 19/3, p. 269-286.
Keywords: data-driven learning, corpus, learning styles, benefits, noticing

Main topic: Corpora

Biodata: Alex Boulton is an English lecturer specialising in linguistics and language learning/teaching. His main research interests focus on ICT and language learning, especially in data-driven learning and corpus consultation for language learners, as well as autonomisation, learning to learn, and distance learning.
Type of presentation Paper presentation

Paper category Research

Target educational sector Higher education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project No

Schedule:	2009-09-10 (12:00 - 12:45) Parallel Session 5 (Room A-31)
Title:	Language awareness and medium-term benefits of corpus consultation.
Authors:	Alex Boulton
Abstract:	Data-driven learning (DDL) involves learners exploring corpora to discover language rather than "being taught". This is claimed to have a number of advantages, and while empirical evidence to date is encouraging, it is less conclusive than might be hoped – partly, it is argued, as it tends to focus on short-term goals by testing knowledge and retention of selected language items covered. It may be, however, that the real advantages of DDL lie in longer-term benefits; in addition to "incidental" learning and greater learner autonomy, these include language awareness and noticing ability (e.g. O'Sullivan, 2007), all of which are more difficult to assess in short courses. This paper reports on a medium-term experiment comparing such skills between experimental and control groups of lower-intermediate learners of English in an architecture school in France. The control groups were taught in the usual way, while the last 15 minutes of the experimental classes were given over to exploring the British National Corpus on line (http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/), with learners working in pairs to look at specific language points which they had encountered. Information concerning these learners' attitudes towards the experimental technique was collected from a questionnaire, and their learning preferences gauged using the Learning Styles Index (Felder & Silverman, 1988/2002). These data are related to the main results, where both experimental and control groups were tested at the end of the 15-week course not on the language points covered, but on their sensitivity to other language items in a previously unseen text. The time-frame of the present “experiment is not enough to allow the full effects of DDL to be revealed, but does provide some indication that its main advantages go well beyond the short-term learning outcomes generally examined in current research. If further long-term work can confirm these findings, it might go some way towards helping DDL to reach a wider audience. References: Felder, R. & L. Silverman. 1988/2002. Learning and teaching styles in engineering education. Engineering Education, 78/7, p. 674-681. http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/LS-1988.pdf O'Sullivan, I. 2007. Enhancing a process-oriented approach to literacy and language learning: The role of corpus consultation literacy. ReCALL, 19/3, p. 269-286.
Keywords:	data-driven learning, corpus, learning styles, benefits, noticing
Main topic:	Corpora
Biodata:	Alex Boulton is an English lecturer specialising in linguistics and language learning/teaching. His main research interests focus on ICT and language learning, especially in data-driven learning and corpus consultation for language learners, as well as autonomisation, learning to learn, and distance learning.
Type of presentation	Paper presentation
Paper category	Research
Target educational sector	Higher education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	No