�“How is it done?” A qualitative analysis of using corpus-based materials to teach L2 writing
Anh Dang, Hui Wang, Dr. Nina Conrad & Dr. Shelley Staples
University of Arizona
Acknowledgments
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Background and Motivation
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Background and Motivation
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Purpose of the Study
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What is
Corpus and Repository of Writing (Crow)?
Crow (the Corpus & Repository of Writing) is a large, online collection of university-level student drafts & instructor materials from Foundations Writing Courses at the University of Arizona, Purdue University, & Northern Arizona University.
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Context of the Study:
First-year Composition Course for L2 writers
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Participants: Background
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Instructor code | How long have you been teaching second language writing? | How long have you been teaching the course that you implemented the corpus-based materials? | Have you taken any classes in which corpus linguistics was discussed? | Have you used corpora in your teaching before participating in this study? | Have you used corpora for other purposes (your own learning, etc.)? |
8 | Less than a year | Less than a year | Yes | Yes | Yes |
9 | Less than a year | Less than a year | Yes | Yes | Yes |
11 | Less than a year | Less than a year | Yes | No | Yes |
12 | 5 years or more | 3-4 years | No | No | Yes |
Data Collection
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Corpus-based materials (examples)
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Design
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Initial Data Analysis
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TPACK Framework
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Crosthwaite et al., 2021; Farr & O’Keefe, 2019; Ma et al., 2021, 2022; Meunier, 2019; Schmidt, 2022
Our Coding Path
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Results Overview
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How students take on certain aspects of the materials
Mode of implementation during Covid time
The format and timeline of the materials
How technology and content can both influence and push against each other
Corpus features were highlighted as affordances
The needs for materials to have more scaffolding, examples and connections to major assignment and the curriculum
Instructors were able to make changes to the materials, provided more scaffolding and made connections to major assignments where they saw fit
Students’ engagement with the materials and their understanding of the purpose of the materials over time
Ready-made corpus-based materials were helpful in the process of implementation
Results Overview
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The needs for materials to have more scaffolding, examples and connections to major assignment and the curriculum
Instructors were able to make changes to the materials, provided more scaffolding and made connections to major assignments where they saw fit
Students’ engagement with the materials and their understanding of the purpose of the materials over time
Ready-made corpus-based materials were helpful in the process of implementation
Result: Pedagogical Knowledge (PK)
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“Questions can be streamlined a little bit more for “The Genre Analysis as a Genre”. Students have to focus on certain parts and don't seem to be understanding the bigger picture.”
“Maybe we need to provide more scaffolding for these materials since we don’t have that built in. Tense and transitions: students not clear of what to do. More unsure. We need to have more scaffolding.”
Result: Pedagogical Knowledge (PK)
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“I appreciate that in one of our focus group meetings, the study team explained the rationale behind providing data related to the phrase "for example" in the provided materials. Well, Goal 2 for English 107 focuses on students supporting their ideas with different types of evidence. So it was easy to connect these materials, this data, to my students and their progress, what we had practiced in class, which aligned with target SLOs [student learning outcomes].”
“I think that students don't make the connection between their own writing and what they see in the corpus. Perhaps, making it clearer in the instructions that, for example "This is a transition (for example) that's used often in writing genre analysis, so please take notice and try to apply it, if appropriate, to your own writing".
Result: Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)
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“For the first project, I used the activity on tense to teach synchronously. I asked students: What we use a simple present for? Why we use this tense?; plus questions about grammatically functions. After going through the quiz, I asked in detail about tenses and how to use different tenses.”
I chose to teach the activity “showing vs telling” in synchronous meeting (normally teaches that in in-person classes), with the incorporation of poetry. All the students took quiz together as a class (answering questions then pasting into the quiz format on D2L). I also chose to skip some questions that students can do on their own, since I would normally assign certain things (e.g., write your own scene) as homework.
Result: Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK)
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“First student reflection pulled up: asked students what activity they found most useful, one student said they found all of the activities very helpful because they didn’t understand the conventions of the genre beforehand so they all were really helpful. It’s awesome cause little things are clicking.”
“One reflection the students talked about how they paid more attention to language, especially when looking at Genre Analysis for their paper. A lot of activities are for language use so that was very helpful for the student in the genre that they chose. They did a really good job with the Genre Analysis and that’s probably why.”
Result: Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK)
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“I think it was easy because it was already embedded into the PDC.”
“It was nice that the materials were provided. For me, the main challenge was to clear out some of the other activities so students wouldn't have too much work for any one due date. ”
“Well, I am mostly using the PDC without many changes
so it was quite smooth for me to incorporate these.”
Implications: Researcher’s perspective
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Implications: Teacher’s perspective
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Thank you!
Questions?
For more information about the project, please contact
Anh Dang: anhdang@arizona.edu
Hui Wang:hwang0524@arizona.edu
Nina Conrad: ninac@arizona.edu
Shelley Staples: slstaples@arizona.
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