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More than a linguistic reference: The influence of corpus technology on L2 academic writing

Presenter: Mark Lee 李洁禎Instructor: Dr. Pi-Ying Teresa Hsu

Date: October 27, 2008

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Contents I. Introduction

Ⅱ. Methods

Ⅲ. Data collection

Ⅳ. Findings

Ⅴ. My reflection for the research

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Introduction

Hyunsook, Y. (2008). More than a linguistic reference: The influence of corpus technology on L2 academic writing. Language Learning & Technology, 12(2), 31-48.

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Definition

corpus:

It is large collection of written

or spoken texts that is used for

language research.

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Purpose

To examine how corpus technology

affects students’ development of

competence as second language (L2)

writers

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Background

Few studies about students’ writing

experiences of corpus use

No studies providing the role of the corpus approach in L2 writing pedagogy

Few studies examining the effect of the corpus approach in students’ performance

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Research Questions

How do ESL students use corpus technology in L2 academic writing?

Checking and extending their current knowledge about words

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Research Questions

How does corpus technology affect their language learning and approaches to L2 writing?

Language awareness

More attentive to their writing

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Setting The class met twice per week for two

and a half hours per section for ten weeks.

The classroom teacher in this study used a free online corpus, the Collins COBUILD.

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The data comes from six sources

Classroom observation Interview Recall protocols Corpus search logs Class corpus assignment Written reflections on corpus use

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Participant Background

Name Program of study TOFEL

scoreL1 Computer

skillsWol (28 F) M.Ed., Special Education (4.0) Korean Low

Chan(29M) Ph.D., Natural Resources Education

(4.5) Korean Intermediate

June (24,F) M.S., Aerospace Engineering (3.5) Korean High

Sung(32,M)

Ph.D., History (4,0) Korean Low

Nick(29,M)

M.S., Nuclear Engineering (3.5) Romanian High

Ming(29,M)

Ph.D., Molecular Genetics (3.5) Chinese High

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Findings

Frequency of different fields for using corpus

﹥Majoring in unscience Majoring in science

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Findings

Gaining a psychological advantage

in students’ language learning

Changing the students’ learning and approaches to L2 writing

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My reflection

Contributing to increasing confidence

Increasing students’ cognition and affectivity

Taking more responsibility for language learning

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My reflection

Technology use for teaching writing

pedagogy

Corpus for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course

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Thank you for your attention.