Pedagogical models of concordance use: correlations between concordance user preferences

ABSTRACT

One of the most promising avenues of research in computer-assisted language learning is the potential for language learners to make use of language corpora. However, using a corpus requires use of a corpus tool as an interface, typically a concordancer. How such a tool can be made most accessible to learners is an important issue. Specifically, there have been suggestions that language learners should not be following corpus linguistic patterns of concordance use when using concordancers . As such, it is important to examine the extent to which there are different prototypical orientations to concordance use, orientations that can provide models of use for learners to follow. This paper reports a study that provides empirical evidence of correlations between different classifications of concordance user and concordancing preferences. It derives factor scores from a factor analysis of 181 concordance users and uses a series of MANOVA tests to identify statistically significant differences between these scores for different classifications of the respondents. The main dimensions of these differences are then explored through discriminant function analysis. The analyses reveal correlations between different levels of three of the four criteria users were classified by: frequency of concordance use, language of concordance use and field of concordance use. The results suggest two main models of concordance use marked by different concordancing preferences: analysis type concordance use and reference type concordance use.

KEYWORDS:

• Affordances
• CALL
• concordancing
• corpus tools
• data-driven learning

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments, everyone who contributed their data to the survey, my supervisors, Averil Coxhead and Anna Siyanova-Chanturia, and everyone who helped me pilot and/or distribute the survey: Balint Koller, Ben Swale, Brenda Reese, Christopher Tribble, Corrine Seals, Edith Paillat, Emily Greenbank, Mark Davies, Mark Toomer, Michael Barlow, Mickey Vale, Paul Baker, Quentin Allan, Rachel Peacock, Tony McEnery, and Tom Cobb.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oliver James Ballance

Oliver Ballance is an ESP teacher and researcher working on Victoria University of Wellington's English Language Training for Officials programme. His research interests include English for specific purposes, computer-assisted language learning and corpus linguistics.