FOCUS project Using a corpus to develop online student activities Foundation Centre Megan Bruce and Jessica Sequera

Data Driven Learning – Developing the language lab A learning situation where “the language learner is also, essentially, a research worker whose learning needs to be driven by access to linguistic data – hence the term data-driven learning (DDL)”. (Johns 1991:2) The learner uses data to uncover the rules behind the language while the teacher “provides a context in which the learner can develop strategies for discovery” (ibid). Helps to develop criticality which is a crucial element of learning skills. Moves away from “single correct answer” towards understanding importance of patterns, alternatives and context. (Gabrielatos 2005)

“Grammar is a piano I play by ear” (Joan Didion) Perhaps surprisingly, international students have 2 advantages over home students: They expect to encounter language difficulties and work to solve them; They have a vocabulary to talk about language in order to receive support. Home students in contrast do not expect to encounter linguistic difficulty: They are surprised that non-academic words such as “heat”, “process”, “energy”, etc also have specific academic meanings; They don’t have any meta-language and often have significant confidence issues where grammar and language are concerned.

Teaching language without using language Students need to “notice” the characteristics of new words: Spelling, pronunciation, meaning, typical collocations, POS, register, grammatical characteristics (countability, transivity), frequency of use, derivatives, connotations, etc. Home students often do not have the meta-language to be taught some of the characteristics explicitly; Nation (1990) concludes that it takes 5-16 “noticings” to have both receptive and productive knowledge of a word. Words need to be noticed in an authentic context. A corpus can provide that context (Cobb 1997:314).

The FOCUS project A corpus of Durham student writings produced by UG/PG students across an increasingly broad range of disciplines e.g. Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Sociology, History, Sport, Criminology. Contains well over 1 million words and figures. Developing concordancing activities based on these corpora to allow students to discover more about target vocabulary in context. Supported by HEA and Durham University funding. Idea of Nation and the number of different encounters with a word. Corpus project to be used in both subject content modules (e.g. Chemistry) and skills modules (e.g. Academic Practice/EAP). Corpus hits can speed up the “noticing” process by showing word environments and allowing research. Suggestions for technical approaches to this.

Pressure? – you don’t know the meaning of pressure! www.community.dur.ac.uk/foundation.focus

Write on the Edge project Supporting students writing in unfamiliar genres: Chemistry finalists writing dissertations (extended text) Online prelab Live workshop developed by FOCUS team but delivered by Chemistry team Sports students writing lab reports (often without science A Levels) Live workshop in pilot year Online activities are available this year

Online activities for the Sport department Three separate lessons: Avoidance of ‘I’ Author prominent vs. information prominent referencing and use of reporting verbs (argue, state, claim) Nominalisation Areas identified for lessons were based on lecturer feedback of students’ problems and analysis of students’ texts

Sport Online Lessons Diagnostic quiz in Blackboard (stats tracked) Lessons developed through Xerte Final quiz in Blackboard (stats tracked)

Each lesson contains: Instruction about the language point Interactive activities Use of the corpus to work with the language points

The use of reporting verbs

Writer evaluation of a source Factive- writer presents the source as having a true opinion or correct information Examples: Acknowledge Demonstrate Substantiate Recognize Highlight Counter-factive- implies that the writer portrays the source as presenting incorrect information Disregard Misuse Speculate Conjecture Suggests (depending on context) Non-factive- the writer gives no clear indication as to his/her stance toward the source Argue Find Describe State The above taken from: Hyland (2002), Sowton (2012), Thompson and Yiyun (1991)

Categorisation of reporting verbs (Hyland 2002) Research acts (often statements of findings) Examples: Report Found Observe Show Discourse Acts- can focus on cognitive acts (ideas) and can show evaluation Affirm Explain Argue State Claim

The lessons…

Include list from the lesson

Avoiding ‘I’ through using passive voice

Nominalisation lesson using the corpus

Next steps Evaluate student and lecturer feedback to inform future changes (We are still gathering feedback from the Sport students) Work with the Education department to develop online activities for a reflective writing assignment for PGCE students

References Gabrielatos, C. (2005) Corpora and language teaching: Just a fling, or wedding bells? TESL-EJ, 8 (4). pp. 1-37. Hyland, K. (2002) ‘Activity and evaluation: Reporting practices in academic writing.’ In Flowerdew, J. (ed.), Academic Discourse. (pp. 115-130). Taylor and Francis: London. Johns, T.F. (1991). ‘Should you be persuaded: Two examples of data-driven learning’. In Johns, T.F. & P King (Eds) Classroom Concordancing. (pp1-13). Birmingham: ELR. Miller, G. A., & Gildea, P. M. (1987). How children learn words. Scientific American. pp. 94-99. Sowton, C. (2012) 50 Steps to improving your academic writing. Garnet Publishing Ltd: Reading. Thompson, G. and Yiyun, Y. (1991) ‘Evaluation in the Reporting Verbs Used in Academic Papers’ Applied Linguistics 12 (4). pp.365-382