How are these connected? Wood Tick - Leech – Mosquito They are all blood suckers Yawning - Laughter – Influenza They are all contagious Sheep - Watch - Seeing-Eye They are all dogs

Topic 2f/3a Methodology POSTER PRESENTATIONS ENG1377

METHODOLOGY SECTION What does this include? Participants Procedure Data Analysis Design Materials

Methods Section: Purpose The method describes the steps that you followed in conducting your study and the materials you used in each step. The methods section of the report clearly describes these materials and procedures. It should show your reader that your research has been carried out appropriately and, therefore, that the results can be believed.

Determine what section and label Participants Procedure & Data Analysis Results Identify Tense choice Modality / evaluative language Useful words/phrases Explicit grammar rules and L2 acquisition Explicit grammar rules and L2 acquisition

Section: Participants The participants were 20 secondary school Polish learners of English, aged 16–18. Both the school and the learners were randomly selected for the study. At the time of the interviews, they were attending English instruction in their school at the upper-intermediate level. The type of instruction they were exposed to could be described as the weak version of communicative language teaching (Howatt 1984: 279): this roughly means systematic and explicit treatment of English grammar combined with a variety of practice and communicative activities. Tense Modality Evaluative language Useful words No. of participants. Selection criteria Background of subjects Description

Section: Participants There were 14 females and 6 males in the group. Their average exposure to formal English instruction was 8.5 years. The average time spent by a participant in an English-speaking country equalled one week (the maximum was four weeks). All the subjects can thus be described as genuine foreign (rather than second) language learners. Tense Modality Evaluative language Useful words No. of male/ females Background of subjects’ English language exp.

Writing Guidelines: Participants Describe who participated in your study. How many participants were in the study and how were they selected/recruited? Random sampling? Describe any demographics of the participants that are important to the study.

Section: Methodology Procedure Tense Modality Evaluative language Useful words Each of the subjects was interviewed by one of the researchers. The topics that were talked about included the learners’ hobbies, their school life, trips abroad, plans for the future, etc. Each of the learners was also asked to describe two pictures. Any topic introduced by the learners was taken up as well. The interviews took place in the school outside the regular class times. Detailed description of interviewing procedure

They lasted between 20 and 30 minutes and were recorded. All the data from the interviews were then transcribed orthographically, and selected grammatical features were isolated and analysed for accuracy. In selecting grammatical features, we focused on those for which rules are given to learners in the process of instruction. They included tenses (simple present, simple past, present continuous, past continuous, and future simple), modal verbs, and pronominal forms (for example subject, object, possessive, and relative pronouns). Section: Procedure Tense Modality Evaluative language Useful words Specific details of interviews How the data was analysed Example of what the analysis included

In order to determine the accuracy of grammatical features in our learners’ performance, we employed a method called Target-Like Use ( TLU ). The formula is as follows (for a discussion of this and other scoring methods see Goldschneider and DeKeyser 2001): TLU¼ n correct suppliance in obligatory contexts en obligatory contextsT + en suppliance in non- obligatory contextsT We arbitrarily adopted 75 per cent TLU as an acceptable level of accuracy for learner performance: it seemed to us that for an upper-intermediate learner, a score of 75 per cent in a spontaneous production task is a clear enough indication of L2 proficiency in a particular area. This also gave us enough material to prepare the explicit knowledge test, in which all the categories with scores of 75 per cent or more were used. Section: Procedure Tense Modality Evaluative language Useful words Specific instrument used in data analysis

Writing Guidelines: Materials/ instruments used in the research procedure Describe the materials used in the study. Provide citations if the stimuli/instruments have been used in previous research. If there are questionnaires or surveys, describe them. (Refer to them in the appendix).

Section: Procedure In the test, each learner was provided with pairs of sentences: one member of the pair was a correct sentence used by that particular learner in the interview ( sometimes slightly modified in order to avoid any other grammatical or lexical deviations), the other sentence was an incorrect version invented by the researchers, in which the relevant grammatical category was responsible for the deviation. The learners’ task was first to identify the correct sentence in the pair and then give a rule or an explanation in Polish that accounted for the contrast between the good and the bad example. The rules that the subjects were supposed to provide concerned both the form and the meaning of the grammatical categories exemplified in the sentences. In the Appendix, for reasons of economy, we provide one randomly selected set of test sentences. The number of sentences that a learner received on the test depended on the number of categories for which that learner’s TLU scores in the interview equaled or exceeded 75 per cent. Overall, the length of the tests varied from 6 to 12 pairs of sentences per learner. Tense Modality Evaluative language Useful words Details of the procedure: what participants had to do

The rules/explanations given by the learners were evaluated independently by both of the researchers. The marking criteria for rules generally followed those used by Green and Hecht (1992: 171–2). This means that for a rule to count as valid, the learners did not need to produce any technical language: informal descriptions of the phenomena in question were also accepted. However, if technical language was employed by a learner, then only correct terminology was accepted. This was often difficult to determine motivated by the fact that with incorrect metalanguage, it whether a particular subject actually understood the phenomenon he/she was referring to. Since judging the validity of a rule is to some extent subjective, any discrepancies between the researchers’ judgements that arose were arbitrated by a third referee. Section: Procedure Tense Modality Evaluative language Useful words Marking Criteria used Explanation of difficulties encountered and how these were overcome

Writing Guidelines: Methodology Procedure Describe the procedure of the study in chronological order. Explain what the participants did in the order they did them. Summarize the instructions. What tasks did they perform? In what order did they perform them?

1 Two groups of Students in Higher Education - Group A and Group B - on a one-year Pre-Masters English for Academic Purposes course, each comprising 50 students were taught academic writing by different methods and compared. 2 Figure 3 displays the mean percentile scores on the five subsections of the academic writing test. 3 Students in Group B, which used the computer assisted facilities, performed considerably better than their non computer-assisted peers on all five subsections of the test by more than two to one in terms of scores attained in each of the subcategories. 4 For example, in the task achievement subcategory, Group A scored an average of 80 percent, while Group B students scored an average of 14 percent. Use Of A Writing Web-Site By Pre-Masters Students On An English for Academic Purposes Course. Introduction Where results can be found Statement of most important findings Statement commenting on the results

Language Choices SynonymsCollocations Participants Subjects; respondents Judged evaluated Used employed A little bit To some extent Given provided Figure out Determine Differences discrepancies Table X contains Table Y presents

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

What is a research proposal and why are you required to present your research proposal? A research proposal is a plan which you formulate to obtain answers to your research question. It also states the purpose of your research and outlines the tasks you undertake in view of your purpose. What should you include in your poster presentation? In groups, you will prepare poster presentation (8-12 minutes long) to tell your teacher and classmates about your research proposal. Include the following in the presentation:

Generic Outline

One option: TITLE GOES HERE AUTHORS INTRODUCTION (brief): Why study this? What is the aim of the study? BACKGROUND What you know about the topic/ background information (what others have found) What research gap have you found? RESEARCH QUESTIONS What questions will you ask? What do you hope to learn from the answers to these questions? DATA ANALYSIS How will you analyze your data? LITERATURE What you have read What have you found most helpful? What you plan to read What do you plan to read and why? METHODOLOGY How will you collect data? How many participants? What instruments will you use? TIME LINE When will you complete each section of the research?

Spaces for visuals if you want You will not need all sections for your proposal

Writing Workshop: Methodology Section CHINESE NEW YEAR DRAFT DUE 5pm Research Proposal POSTERS In-class Prep Mid-course evaluation Topic 3a Topic 3b Research proposal Prep In class?

No Class Collect Your Data Writing Workshops Discussion & Findings Writing Workshops Grammar focus Last Class No Class NO CLASS Study Groups

FINAL DUE Consultations by appointment DRAFT DUE 5pm