Corpus construction and specialist vocabulary learning

by Chinese and Finnish EAP students

Acknowledgments

• Dr Nicole Keng, University of Vaasa

• CU for funding presentation of study at AAAL 2017

Outline

• Background• Motivation for corpus construction• Research questions• UK study• Finland study• Findings• Future directions

What resources are out there for language learning?

• Dictionaries– Online– Paper

• Grammar books• Textbooks• Websites• Vocabulary lists• …• Corpora

What is a corpus?

• A database of language• A repository of texts• A more formal definition (McEnery, Xiao &

Tono 2005)

in machine-readable form,

A collection of sampled texts, written or spoken,

in various ways.

which may be annotated

Why use a corpus for language learning?

• Why not just use coursebooks and dictionaries?• Corpora are representative• Because a corpus can be large or enormous, it probably includes the word or phrase you are

looking for

• Corpora are authentic• Real texts, collected from the real world;• They show how people really speak and write.• Many, many example sentences

Coursebooks and dictionaries may be less representative and less authentic

DDL: corpus consultation

• Authentic• Representative• But– “In a nutshell, learners and teachers simply aren’t

convinced.” (Boulton 2008)• Looking at data may be difficult or boring for some– “Reading concordances is too tough for most learners.

It’s an advanced linguistic skill” (Kilgarriff et al 2008)

How to motivate?

• Task outcomes: sense of ownership (Tyne 2009)– Movie-making vs. in-class presentation– Blogging vs. hand-writing assignments– Making a corpus vs. using a corpus

• Deployment of non-language skills– IT skills– Specialist knowledge

• Hobbies• Academic major

Corpus construction by learners

• Zanettin (2002:7) – learners compile a corpus from the web, and analyse it with

Wordsmith Tools– "constructing the corpus was as useful as generating

concordances from it”. • Charles (2012)– “revelatory moment when they see the patterns appear

before their eyes in their own data”• Lee & Swales (2006) and Boulton (2008)– some students purchased own copies of Wordsmith Tools

This study

• Two EAP cohorts• Credit bearing courses– In-sessional

• Coventry University– (nearly all) Chinese students

• University of Vaasa– (all) Finnish students

Research questions

• What do students think about studying specialist vocabulary using corpora?

• Are there differences between perceptions of the two cohorts?

• Are there differences in the progress made by the two cohorts?

UK cohort

• 94 international students– 88 Chinese L1 – AFIB major– Y3 top-up

• 4 EAP groups (21-25n)• IT literate• General vocabulary OK• Weaker areas– Subject knowledge– Technical vocabulary

The AFIB course

• Duration: 1 year• Various modules in Accountancy, Finance and

Business (50 ECTS)• EAP support module– 10 ECTS– 2 hours

Resources constructed and used by students

1. Specialized academic corpora– from course materials– and the web

2. Vocabulary portfolios– from these corpora

 

Vocab list

Concordance

Word sketch

Vocab portfolio

CourseMoodle

Lecture slides example

Finland cohort

• 74 students at undergraduate level• Academic reading course• Business major UG, mixed year levels• CEFR B2-C1• Wrote reflective vocabulary reports• Constructed corpora by collecting texts from

their subject areas• Also created vocabulary portfolios

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Examples of reflective vocabulary reports

‘This function shows me different meanings of the word by giving me example sentences. I learnt that I can use the word profit in the meaning of advantage or good obtained from something. It can also be used in the meaning of money gained in business for instance: The resulting value is profit before tax.’ (Student 1) [our emphasis]

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‘Concordances shows me that one word can be connected to different meanings. The word turnover for example can be used in various meanings. It can mean company’s sales or the changes among employees.’ (Student 2)

‘Word Sketches give me a summary of word usage, showing which other words commonly go with the keyword, and in what grammatical relation they stand to it. For example I learnt that the word profit as object can be used in a sentence like you can make a profit from services. It can be used with preposition for example in the sentence like he sold a car at a profit.’ (Student 1)

Examples of Vocabulary Portfolio (Student 1)

01.05.2023 Vaasan yliopisto 25

(Student 2)

01.05.2023 Vaasan yliopisto 26

Student Feedback• ‘It’s useful to find the right words

to use when writing because sometimes I don’t know the best way to express what I want to say in my sentences.’

• ‘This is a very useful tool to improve own knowledge of vocabulary. In my case, it shows many words that have been used in the news and magazines.’

• ‘Using corpora is effortless and fun way to learn vocabulary!’

• Creating a specialized corpus could be useful when it comes to researching a particular subject or learning a subject in English.

• It is useful because of the different results which are much more relevant than searching on a much more general English corpus.

• I thought that the Sketch Engine was useful software not only for my English study but also for AFIB study

• In addition, the process of create my own corpora was very enjoyable and makes me sense of accomplishment.

Some differences• (From reflective reports)• Awareness of collocations• Grammar patterns• Exploratory approach • For example I learnt that the

word profit as object can be used in a sentence like you can make a profit from services. It can be used with preposition for example in the sentence like he sold a car at a profit. (Student 1)

• (From survey)• Still favour vocab quizzes,

list-based learning• I like to remember words

in a sentence. I think making word portfolio is good […] If it is used as a resource and read it again and again, it can be very useful. (Student 9)

Next steps

• Quantitative comparative study – Measure and compare effectiveness of our approach– Compare improvement of specialist vocabulary knowledge

• Investigate continuing use by students– "Ongoing use also indicates substantial commitment to the

personal corpus" (Charles, 2014: 39)

Conclusion and Summary

• A discovery-based approach• Promote learner-centredness and task ownership • Raise learner awareness of relationship:

• Integrate language and transferable skills

• “Using corpora in the classroom is FUN!”

exploration in language learning learner progress

ReferencesBoulton, A. (2008). Bringing corpora to the masses: free and easy tools for language learning. In N. Kübler (Ed.), Corpora, Language, Teaching, and Resources: From Theory to Practice Bern: Peter Lang. Charles, M. (2012). Proper vocabulary and juicy collocations: EAP students evaluate do-it-yourself corpus-building. English for Specific Purposes, 31, 93-102.Charles, M. (2014). Getting the corpus habit: EAP students’ long-term use of personal corpora. English for Specific Purposes, 35, 30-40. Kilgarriff, A., Husak, M., McAdam, K., Rundell, M. & Rychlý, P. (2008). GDEX: Automatically finding good dictionary examples in a corpus. In Proceedings of the 11th EURALEX International Congress, Barcelona, CataloniaLee, D., & Swales, J. (2006). A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctoral students: Moving from available specialized corpora to self-compiled corpora. English for Specific Purposes, 25(1), 56-75.Mcenery, T., Xiao, R. & Tono, Y. (2006) Corpus-Based Language Studies: An Advanced resource book. London: Routledge Tyne, H. (2009). Corpus oraux par et pour l'apprenant [Spoken corpora by and for the learner]. In A. Boulton (Ed.), Des documents authentiques oraux aux corpus: Questions d’apprentissage en didactique des langues (pp. 91-111). Nancy, France: Mélanges CRAPEL. Zanettin, F. (2002) DIY Corpora: The WWW and the Translator. In Maia, B., Haller, J., & Urlrych, M. (eds.) Training the Language Services Provider for the New Millennium. Porto: Facultade de Letras, Universidade do Porto, 239-248.396396

Links

• https://www.sketchengine.co.uk/

• http://bootcat.sslmit.unibo.it/• • http://

www.slideshare.net/SimonSmith29/summer-sch-glossaries

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ0abSIJSn0