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Learner Concordancing for EFL College Writing Accuracy

使用語料檢索以協助大專生增進英文寫作之正確性

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Abstract

As technologies advance, the use of corpora and concordance programs has shown their potential to help second language writing classes. Although some writing research has demonstrated usefulness of corpora in different ways, much less is known concerning how corpora can scaffold students’ correction and uptake of written corrective feedback for revision. The current study adopted a semester-long classroom-based research design keeping classroom ecology in order to examine how second-year EFL college students took up teacher-coded feedback by consulting corpus tools and other e-reference resources to rectify errors in their essays. Fourteen participants composed three multi-draft essay assignments plus a diagnostic essay in various genres. They used two Chinese–English concordance programs and “Corpus of Contemporary American English” to help their revisions. Questionnaires, interviews, students’ marked and revised essays, their written revision records, and video recording of learner–corpus interaction were analyzed and triangulated. Errors were found to decrease with increased frequency of corpus consultation over the semester. Although most participants appreciated the assistance of corpus tools, reservations were noted in the process. Two student cases with average writing performance point to learners’ engagement with corpora as one crucial factor interacting with perceptions and outcomes of lookups. Pedagogical implications and limitations are discussed.

摘要

隨著科技的進步,語料庫及其檢索系統之應用已展現對英文寫作教學之成效,但針對大學部非以英文為母語學習者,其使用語料檢索來更正英文作文錯誤之探索,則相對不足。本文植基於生態效度及課堂研究理念,觀察十四名大二學生在修讀一學期作文必修課中,如何利用老師標示作文中錯誤以及語料檢索工具以輔助改錯之過程。學生完成三份作文以及學期初診斷寫作,每篇作文經過三次撰稿修訂;使用之語料檢索系統含兩項中英檢索程式以及美國當代英文語料庫檢索系統。資料收集含問卷、訪談、學生被標錯之二稿及修正過之三稿、修正紀錄以及檢索改錯之螢幕錄影檔。我們發現學生在一學期當中,作文之錯誤隨三份作業越益變少,語料檢索則隨該三作業使用頻率增加。雖然問卷中,大部分學生對語料檢索輔助改錯持正面態度,他們對某些改錯效益持保留態度。兩項個案深入學生檢索改錯過程,發現學生投入程度是決定語料檢索頻率,成效及正負態度之關鍵性因素。文末提出教學應用以及本研究限制。

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Feng Chia University, 100 Wenhwa Road, Taichung, Taiwan

    Hsien-Chin Liou

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 2 List of error codes ([9], p. 314)
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Appendix 2

Table 3 Error types and examples students used corpora to correct
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Appendix 3

Table 4 Attitudes toward DDL for correction
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Liou, HC. Learner Concordancing for EFL College Writing Accuracy. English Teaching & Learning 43, 165–188 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42321-019-00022-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42321-019-00022-5

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