Watch this video about how to use COCA as a reference tool in ESL writing
Background
for developing “Word Search Strategies Using COCA” lesson
Word-choice problems, the most frequent type of errors in ESL 115
(Principles of Academic Writing) class that I am teaching, are often difficult
for ESL students to self-correct, which is why they are often “treated” with
direct feedback from teachers. However, giving direct feedback for individual
students’ idiosyncratic word-choice errors requires significant amount of time and
energy on the teacher’s part. Moreover, such direct feedback is less effective
in bringing long-term improvement than indirect feedback. I wanted to help
students self-check the appropriateness of their own word choices when problems
are noticed either by themselves or by others by using a free online corpus
concordancing program called Corpus of
Contemporary American English (COCA). Many ESL students rely on bilingual
dictionaries or thesauruses when searching for the “right words”, or the better
words, which often results in collocation or register problems. Many empirical
studies have already shown that learners’ direct corpora consultation in L2
writing courses can be of great help in this regard as long as it is assisted
properly with teachers’ guidance. Specifically, by using Wildcard, Collocation,
Key-Word-in-Context (KWIC), Chart (Genre), and Synonym search functions in
COCA, students can solve and prevent various word choice problems: word form
errors (e.g. wrong spelling, part of speech, etc.), style errors (using
informal words), idiomatic errors (using wrong articles or prepositions for
phrasal verbs), collocation errors. In terms of integrating this lesson to the
existing curriculum, I taught this lesson at the end of the “Writing Process
(Diagnostic Essay)” unit, where students learn basic skills for pre-writing,
paragraph structures, writing introductions and conclusions, revising, and
proofreading. In other words, this lesson was taught as one of the proofreading
strategies lessons along with other mini grammar lessons.
Description
of “Word Search Strategies Using COCA” lesson
The Word Search Strategies Using COCA” lesson were divided into
two 50-minute class periods. The first part (day) of the lesson was created to
diagnose and raise students’ awareness of common sources of word choice
problems as well as to help them realize the importance of considering various
aspects of vocabulary (part of speech, register, spelling, collocation, meaning
in context, frequency, and synonymy) It was also aimed at encouraging students
to share word search strategies that they commonly use when writing an academic
assignment. Based on this raised awareness of common word choice problems and
strategies to solve/prevent them, the second part (day) of the lesson was
created to teach using corpus consultation as one of the reference tools for
word choice problems. Since Google and dictionaries are the most widely used word
search tools for most ESL students, the training was focused on showing how the
search functions in COCA and its sister website Word and Phrase. Info can give
more reliable and helpful search results for academic writing. The aim of the
lesson, however, was not to encourage students to stop using Google or
dictionaries, but to show them how COCA can complement using Google or
dictionaries only for reference tools. Also, in order not to make them learn
COCA as an end itself but as a “problem-solving” tool, I used word choice
problem examples from the diagnostic quiz that students took in the first day
of the lesson and encouraged students to think of as many solutions as possible
before I showing them relevant search functions of COCA.
After the lesson, in order to test how much they gained from
learning various word search strategies, I asked the students to hand in “word
choice homework”, where students had to identify three word choice problems in
their diagnostic essays and correct those problems by using Google, http://www.wordandphrase.info/frequencyList.asp or http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/. They
were also asked to provide screenshot images for these three searches as
evidence. If they wanted to, they could use the word choice problems that I had
already pointed out (but not corrected) in my feedback to their essays.
However, the fact that they had to devise their own search strategies for their
own different kinds of word choice problems made this homework “their” work. Overall,
the majority of the students could get successful search results and corrected
their errors accurately. However, there were also many students who showed less
successful work for the following reasons: failing to recognize the right type
of word choice error which led them to devise a wrong search string, failing to
devise the most effective search strategies even after establishing the right
search string, failing to interpret the search results to correct the error in
the right way, etc. Given that only one day of search strategy training session
was provided and that not the entire 50 minute lesson was devoted to teaching
corpus consultation skills, this moderate success in students’ performance is
not surprising. In the literature review on corpus consultation in L2 writing
that I conducted while teaching this lesson, all researchers recommend that a
gradual, guided training with “apprenticeship” approach is the key for
successful integration of corpus investigation in L2 writing classroom. Therefore,
having a longer period of learner training session for corpus consultation
strategies seems necessary in order to gain more successful effect for this
lesson. Although I could not afford any more class time for holding further
training sessions, I was pleased to find out that many students actually went
on to use COCA for other word choice problems in other writing
assignments.
As for the
impact of teaching this lesson on my development as an instructor, there were
several benefits that I gained. First of all, I realized how difficult it is to
create a strategy training module that makes use of the class time to the
maximum. One of the biggest challenges I faced when creating and implementing
this lesson was “time” – fitting this lesson into an already tight course
syllabus. Since the suggested ESL 115 course syllabus that I have to follow
does not leave much room for spending much time on teaching “proofreading
strategies”, I had to think of the most effective way to deliver this lesson,
which led me to 1) analyze the most frequent types of word choice problems in
their essays and focus on those problems only, 2) use the common search
strategies that students are already familiar with as a starting point, and 3)
assign individual corpus consultation work as homework and give individual
feedback outside of class. Secondly, I learned that knowing effective word
search strategies myself and teaching them are very different. Even though I
could devise and carry out many advanced searches on my own for my own writing
assignments, it was hard for me to come up with justifications for why certain
search strategy works for a certain problem and explain the complicated search
process in a very simple term for learners who are less fluent in using
linguistic technology and English. Finally, the positive and rewarding feedback
I received from the learners made me realize that despite numerous challenges
expected, it is always worth “trying it out” when it comes to
technology-enhanced teaching. Teachers, including myself, are often reluctant
to trying new technology for fear that it may fail and we may lose confidence
and authority if things go out of control (as all technologies often do).
However, this is not a good excuse for not introducing the technology at all
because we never know how much “just introducing it” can contribute to
learning: from my experience, learners, who have much more imagination and
creativity than teachers, can go “so much further” at exploring technology than
we initially expect.
