Concordance Summary

Reinhardt (2010): Summary

This is a paper that reviews the theoretical debate behind the pedagogical applications of concordance such as the use of online corpora in L2 teaching with a mind to promote a wider spread use of such corpora. The first issue the paper tackles is some of the criticism directed at corpus use, especially in regard to the theoretical underpinnings of grammar learning or acquisition. At the core of the debate was weather or not statistical data such as what concordance typically uncovers is truly applicable to actual language learning. Some famous linguists such as Chomsky (1957) who where challenging the behaviorist model of grammar learning were promoting ideas of universal grammar or grammar construction theory which were processes that depended less on brute association and more on creation of subconscious rules in the learners mind. As a result the study of corpora was somewhat disdained for a variety of reasons of varying strengths. For example, one criticism was that the scope of a corpus is biased (weak). Another example is that native speaker language use is a unrealistic goal generally speaking, hence the L1 corpus is redundant or limited to students of the highest levels. (medium) Or an argument is that such conscious focused study is unnecessary if grammar is more effectively acquired rather than learned. (strong) Yet despite these arguments Reinhardt points out the value of such information, such as the notion that language is actually not as strictly rules based as it might appear. For example, we can see this with lexical chunks or phraseology. We can see the degree to which words are attracted to one another: a strong attraction is idiomatic while a weak attraction is open. The lines between grammar and vocabulary start to blur to the point where terms like lexicogrammar start making sense. It is here in this space that a corpus starts to show promise as a tool for learning. The second issue is to what extent can such data be leveraged in an L2 classroom. The idea that students can become autonomous researchers in charge of their own learning is one way this tool could have a powerful effect. Or even the idea of creating a corpus of learner data could bring about a much higher awareness of how each student uses language. Of course the tools seem to have a steep learning curve and a certain messiness that makes these tools hard to implement. The third issue is how to bypass these weakness and it is suggested that such tools be a bigger part of teacher training or SLA or simply be more widely used in teaching material or curricula. In fact Conrad (2000) thinks all these methods should be integrated as they are still very compatible with communicative and constructionist approaches to pedagogy.

Perez-Paredes et al (2011): Summary

This paper seeks to quantitatively investigate the claims that other researchers have made about the use of corpora. In particular, they want to showcase the new technology that has made their methodology more empirical than the indirect methods used previously. The research question they sought to answer is to do with whether or not instruction on the use of corpora would make a big difference in completing tasks that would benefit from the use of such a corpora. And how such instruction would affect students online behavior.

They set up 2 groups of university EFL learners: a control group and an experimental group. Each group were given identical tasks but the experimental groups received instructions on how to use a corpus. Both groups were allowed to use the internet as a resource to help complete the tasks and in both cases a plug-in called “fiddler” was used to track students activities including what sites where visited and input typed.

The results didn't show any particular benefit for using using corpus to complete the tasks as both groups had a similar completion rate. The most positive way they could spin this was that using he corpus didn't negatively affect output so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Along these lines it seems likely that Parez-Paredes et al decided to present their information in terms of the efficiency of their instructions in terms of how well students were able to use the corpus. (Not exactly a riveting or revealing topic.) They came to the conclusion that their instructions did indeed positively affect students use of the corpus, but it seems to me that this is simply an exploratory research for the purpose of showcasing the technical recording tools that are now available to researchers.

Compare and Contrast

I found Reinhardt (2010) to be a fascinating treatment of the theory, while Perez-Paredes et al (2011) presented research information that though in some ways useful was also rather disappointing in that they were not successful in showing corpora could have a measurable positive impact on learning outcomes. This seems to reinforce some of the criticism noted in Reinhardt. So even though both papers take a positive attitude towards this technology in neither case is it really clear that such positivity is justified.

In my opinion, in having some acquaintance in using corpora, I would say that the sites I've seen are very clunky and unintuitive. Most student would have a difficult time using such resource as is is both tedious and complex, requiring a lot of instruction and a task that couldn't be done more efficiently some other way. Two of students in Perez-Parendes et al's study (2011) were able to complete the tasks without any use of the corpus at all. Even the students who did use the corpus used it much less often than other websites. Google comes to mind as in many ways this search engine employs similar statistical matching with an considerably more convenient access to relevant information. (At least for the information students where looking for.)

I would say that this technology is probably better used by teachers and material designers at this point though with a more refined interface it could become a tool as useful as a dictionary for students. Or perhaps the functions of such a tool could be more completely integrated into an online dictionary. In some cases the functions already overlap with lists of common idioms under entries. Therefore, it wouldn't be unreasonable for a dictionary to include a list of strong collations, or even the opposite, words that never collate perhaps as way to help learners avoid common mistakes.

Clarification Question

I would like to know what exactly is the difference between concordance and corpora. I couldn't figure it out contextually.

Application Question

The research presented didn't give a detailed account of how the corpus was used to resolve the learning tasks at hand. So I want to know exactly what information the students are able to get from the corpora and how that information applied directly to resolving a task.

References

Pascual Perez-Paredes, Maria Sanchez-Tornel, Jose Maria Alacaraz & Pilar Aguado Jimenez (2001):

Tracking learners’ actual uses of corpora: guided vs non guided corpus consultation, Computer Assisted Language Learning, 24:3, 233-253

Reinhardt Jonathon (2010): The Potential of Corpus-Informed L2 Pedagogy, Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2010

Choamsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton

Conrad, Susan. 2000. Will corpus revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21^st century? TESOL Quarterly 34,548-560

ICC Mini Lesson Reflection

As I consider our class teaching polterabend, I have observed both positive things and things that may need some tweaking. Because I'm a positive person I'll start with what I think went well. On teacher talk I felt we had a very dynamic cast. With Evalyn and Daniel as my partners, they both brought a very proactive mindset which went a long way in making up for some of the weaknesses in our implementation. I thought Evalyn spoke in a very confident and engaging way while Daniel was as entertaining as usual with very expressive body language. For my part, I thought I stayed focused, and remained cool even though I felt somewhat flustered by the time pressure I was facing when I finally started my set.

In terms of our cultural objective, I think we did quite well. Each of us presented our parts as stages of Moran's cultural learning pretty clearly. The information we presented followed the model predictably. The assigned homework was intended to cover the last stage (Knowing ones self) as you suggested.  In addition as the cultural event we were describing is a fairly specific take on a widespread tradition, there really wasn't much danger of stereotyping.  In fact, the reasons I gave for why Germans practice polterabend are all easy to relate to in a general way. (Well, from a from a western perspective at least.)

That said, there were some problems. In terms of how well we achieved our objective teaching the TLC, I would say that each of us achieved “an objective” rather than “the objective”. Each, of us took a different approach that I thought could be interesting in a real teaching environment. Unfortunately, none of us knew exactly what each other was going to do except in a general way. (In fact, we merged our ppts together just before ICC class) So in that sense I felt that each of us taught a lesson that was somewhat self contained with some unintended overlap. In the end, I think its safe to say that we each achieved a sub objective which may not have built on each other in a way that achieved our terminal objective. For example, neither Daniel nor I reinforced the vocabulary that Evalyn was focusing on. And neither Evalyn nor Daniel presented the exact same variation of the TLC that I did, which would have made a world of difference for the focused practice I had in mind for my pyramid activity. In short, a lack of cohesion may have confused our students. And I saw one comment to that effect in the feedback.

This lack of cohesion also created some difficulties especially for me coming in last. Our pacing definitely put me under pressure. With the TLC, we could have streamlined a lot of what we did to create more time. So that could have been better. And as I mentioned before, each of us almost taught an independent lesson, so overall it was quite unbalanced with a lot of overlap between stages of the lesson. Daniel's role play activity for example probably should have come at the end in the production stage where as I was still getting students to do controlled practice, in my set. But I consider these problems as stemming form a lack of teamwork rather than weakness in our individual teaching pedagogy. No doubt had any of us had the floor for the full 15 minutes, the lessons would have been much better organized. In short, even though we do each have pedagogical weaknesses, I don't think the problems we experienced in our demo reflects them in a entirely accurate way.

Finally, I would like to reflect on how our lesson catered to our student's need. The lesson plan we made was student centered in that we planned a lot of activities for students to participate in. On the other hand it was hard to see that because we had didn't really have time to implement the activities we planned. In my case I was hoping to actually do the pyramid activity rather than just to announce that that we did it. But the intent in our planning was certainly there. In terms of context, I thought that doing the role play was a great way of providing context... but maybe not for the TLC that we planned! The kind of TLC that would be useful at a wedding party is somewhat unrelated to the TLC needed to teach about Polterabend. So if we were doing this lesson in real life I think we would have taught the TLC necessary for this role play in the previous lesson.   

All in all, despite our difficulties I felt my team members did very well.  And would like to thank them for all the hard work they put into this lesson.  If you're reading this team.  Well done!

Class Journal: Week 14

There have been a few twists and turns as I consider my career in ELT. I will say that in my 10 years here the trajectory has generally been up. I started down south in Cheonan and pretty much got fired from my first job after 3 or so months. At the time my employers found me another place to work so that was fine. Though, I never did find out the reason why they let me go. Then I came to Suwon where I worked in various hangwans for about three years. Through this time I went with the flow. I had no ambitions about career advancement or anything like that. I was just soaking up the experience and learning about life. After I got married, the thought of my career became much more salient. So that was a major turning point in my professional life. Using my wife's contacts I got a job in a high school and then later in Hyupsung university. It was unusual how easily everything fell into my lap. I think in Korea having the inside running goes a long way to further your career. It's a lesson I took to heart. This is why I am deliberate in how I build my social network with my Korean colleagues and associates near and far.

So that's the “what” but I think that “why” is a very interesting question? Why be an EFL teacher at all. I don't know what to say but perhaps this saying is applicable. “Some are born great and others have greatness thrust upon them!” Now for the record, I'm not letting my ego run rampant. I simply think that sometimes through coincidence, fate, destiny or whatever, we find ourselves in the unlikely situations in our lives. And that certainly describes the reason for me becoming an EFL teacher as I originally came to Korea simply to get away from my life in NZ which at the time I thought was not going anywhere quickly. So the value that guided my original decision was “if you want a different life make a different choice.” After coming here I was lucky to fall in with pretty good people, Korean and foreign, I don't really recall ever being in a situation that I would constitute a serious conflict of values... except for being married but I'm not going open that can of worms!

In my teaching situation now, I have things pretty good. Every contract I've had has been better than the last. But I am worried that I've come to a point where there is a glass ceiling over my career trajectory. That is one reason, I'm doing this course. However, to be frank, I work with both Masters holders and Phd holders and get paid more than them. (Being the first foreign teacher in a university has it's perks I guess) This troubles me because even if I gain a qualification there is a one size fits all mentality here that actually marginalize people who are very qualified. As teacher who wants to improve his practice and become qualified at the same time there doesn't seem to be a path forward beyond here. Yes, I may get into a better university at some point but then what? Becoming a tenured professor seems to be off the beaten track. There are no procedures for us in that regard in my current university but who knows it may well be possible if you know the right people. If I think the best form of advocacy is to be a precedent. Once the door opens for person then it will happen for others much more frequently. So I would take that approach.

Class Journal: Week 13

This week is the last week of teaching.  I'm not sure who is more relieved me or my students!  But considering how things were last week I was able to keep things very light in terms of work load.  (My  policy of assigning grammar as homework pretty much allowed me to keep ahead of the schedule.  For the first time I can remember I'm not rushing through the last unit before the final test)

All my classes ended early as we finished off the last unit so students were able to concentrate for a shorter time which I think contributed to a better quality of classroom life.  There was also not much to talk about this week as I've been so busy with other things I didn't bother trying any different with my students this time around.

Class Journal: Week 12

If you have ever heard the song Zombie by the Cranberries you would think that the song was written for my classes this week.  One of the lines of the song goes like this, "What's in your head?"  That's pretty much is the question going through my head this week as I consider my students.
So how can I explain this vegetative behavior?  At first, I though that it might have something to do with how I was teaching.  (I'll be frank, even though I'm learning a lot, I don't feel like I've had time to prepare my classes properly.)  But as the week limped on it was the same story in all my classes, and I know for a fact that there is no realistic scenario in which I could possibly suck that bad.
So I'm staring to consider some other possibilities.  Is it a general pessimism that students have coming up to the end of the semester?  Are my students under time pressure to cough up assignments?  (I feel them on that.) Or is it simply, the disappointing realization that university life is basically more of the same.  That is the initial excitement over coming to a new place has faded into boredom stemming from the fact that the teaching culture in university is just as banal as in high school... minus "baton based motivation" techniques.  (BBM, yes I just coined that.  You got to site me every time you use that now.)
These students came into class with their affective filters well up.  And I'm starting to realize that it is not enough to avoid interaction that raises a student's affective filters, (because I cannot count on anyone one the university to follow my philosophy) but I have to have a way to find a way to proactively lower that filter every time students come to class.  I shouldn't have to do that, but that is the reality that I face so I'm thinking about how to tackle that problem.

Class Journal: Week 10

This week, I read the readings focused on vocabulary and as it happened, this week's lesson had some good vocabulary exercises.  So I wanted to pay more attention than usual to how students dealt with the new vocab.  As a second objective I also wanted to stop repeating myself as I explained things in class.  (I was reviewing my module 2 assignment class videos and transcripts and I noticed that I keep explaining without first seeing if my initial instructions are understood.  I now believe that students find this more confusing because they have to find meaning in a barrage of words.  It's also probably the reason why some of my students don't listen and just memorize procedures.)

The vocabulary to be introduced were nouns depicting sports and fitness activities.  So the burden of learning these words were fairly low.  The meanings were all direct correlations to my students L1 lexicon.  And dictionaries were not required at all as they were all pretty easy to act out.  The only challenges where related to the verbs they collocate with.  But thankfully, in this case the verbs matched logically (though the L1 versions of the verbs grouped the sports and activities under differing subsets.)  Once I wrote the rule the students pretty much guessed the right verb for random activities I threw out there that weren't in their books.  So in the words of President George W., "Mission accomplished... heh heh heh"

In terms of my secondary goal.  I caught myself slipping into my old habits on a couple of occasions but I found it easier to stop my self once I adjusted my mindset.  Usually, I have a lot of enthusiasm about explaining stuff but this week I just imagined that I didn't give a shit and seemed to work like magic!  Habit flushed!

Class Journal: Week 9, Post-testitis and MIC

This week my students seem to be suffering post-testitis. Attendance was down, and the students who did show up looked like they wished they hadn't. It happens every year, so my goal for this lesson was just to nurse students back into the flow of study in a low key way. I tried to keep activities predictable based on what we have done in the past without introducing new procedures or tasks that would require students to lower their affective filter in order to function; with only one exception.  So I didn't try to push the envelope this week, as students are simply not game.

However, I was very surprised at the performance of my class 7 and 8 who are my Friday group. I got a lot of participation in terms of students volunteering questions and engaging in pair work. I think I'm starting to reap the rewards of the new approach I've been employing this semester. Student are really becoming accustomed to working together and it's taking much less effort now in order to get them moving. I quite pleased with that.

That said, I also noticed something that I haven't noticed before. That is, a lot of my instructions didn't seem to get through when I tried some variations on way I set up some of the production tasks. I was looking for that this week and I found it. The way I execute a task usually follows the same pattern week in and week out and students know this. It never occurred to me before, but yesterday I realized that the fact my students seem to follow my instructions may have less to do with understanding my input and more to do with remembering my procedures. It was an eye opener as I had just assumed they knew what I was talking about because they did what I was expecting them to do. This was clearly evident in one task I asked students to do this week that involved complex instructions. Instead of explaining the instructions like I usually do I asked students to tell me the instructions for the task. They had a hard time comprehending what I wanted them to do, I guess because it was something they didn't expect at all. It didn't follow from any of my usual procedures.

All in all, I think I've got to prepare my MIC techniques for new tasks in advance. I didn't think I needed to this week and got caught flat footed.