Classroom concordancing and English academic lecture comprehension: an implication of data-driven learning

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate if following data-driven learning (DDL) to raise the learners’ awareness of discourse organizers through concordancing improves their comprehension of English academic lectures. To address this issue, the current study adopted a quasi-experimental (comparison group, pretest-posttest) design. 96 English-major university students, divided into comparison and intervention groups, took part in the study. Next, the students’ awareness of importance markers, as discourse organizers, in authentic English academic lectures was raised. This involved nine one-hour sessions of explicit instruction on such expressions for the students in the comparison group. On the other hand, raising the intervention group students’ awareness of such expressions involved working with a concordancer as a DDL approach with the help of a teacher. Drawing on an English academic lecture comprehension test, a self-assessment survey, and a free-response survey, the findings of the study showed that following DDL to raise the learners’ awareness of discourse organizers through concordancing with the help of the teacher improves their comprehension of authentic English academic lectures significantly, but not from the learners’ perspective. The study has pedagogical implications for language teaching, learning, and materials development.

Keywords:

• Awareness raising
• concordancer
• data-driven learning
• discourse organizers
• English academic lecture comprehension

Acknowledgments

The researchers gratefully acknowledge financial support from Kosar University of Bojnord. The author, Javad Zare, was supported by Kosar University of Bojnord with the grant number 9912111714. We would also like to express our special thanks and gratitude to the teachers and the students who participated in this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Javad Zare

Javad Zare is an assistant professor of applied linguistics at Kosar University of Bojnord, Iran. His research areas of interest include discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, pragmatics, EAP, and computer assisted language learning. His most recent publications have appeared in Computer Assisted Language Learning, Current Psychology, Lingua, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Discourse Processes, Text & Talk, and Iberica.

Sedigheh Karimpour

Sedigheh Karimpour holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and is currently working as an assistant professor in Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Her areas of interests include second language teacher education, English for specific purposes and discourse analysis. Her papers have appeared in the Journal of Asia T EFL, Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies, etc.

Khadijeh Aqajani Delavar

Khadijeh Aqajani Delavar is a PhD candidate of Applied linguistics at Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran. Her current research interests include Conversation Analysis (CA), Learner Beliefs, Teacher Identity, Teacher Agency, Action Research and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and computer assisted language learning.