A systematic review of the uses and spread of corpora and data-driven learning in CALL research during 2011–2015

Abstract

This research uses the theoretical framework of CALL normalisation developed by Bax (2003) and Chambers and Bax (2006) to offer a systematic review (Gough et al., 2012) of the uses and spread of data-driven learning (DDL) and corpora in language learning and teaching across five major CALL-related journals during the 2011–2015 period. DDL research represented 4.2% of all published papers on CALL during this time frame. The main focus of research was found to be the use of concordancing and collocations when developing university students’ writing skills. Contrary to previous research, access to technology was not identified as an impeding factor for normalisation. Syllabus integration and a lack of contribution from language teachers other than researchers emerged as threats to the normalisation of corpora use. Further theorisation is needed if DDL and corpora are to expand their influence on mainstream second language education.

Keywords:

• DDL
• corpora
• language education
• language learning
• language teaching
• normalisation
• CALL
• systematic review

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments on this paper. Special thanks to Lindsay Duffy, Geraldine Mark and Anne O'Keeffe for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Direct uses entail learners and teachers consulting corpora while indirect uses encompass corpus findings used by material writers, lexicographers and teachers preparing their own activities (DDL or otherwise) using insights from corpus linguistics.

2 Although all five journals publish CALL and CALL-related research, their scope is not necessarily limited to or constrained by CALL research exclusively.

3 URL: https://www.sketchengine.eu/wp-content/uploads/ske-statistics.pdf

4 Despite mentioning the term, knowledge is not discussed in Section 7.2 of Chambers & Bax (2006).

5 According to O’Sullivan (2007: 277), these skills are predicting, observing, noticing, thinking, reasoning, analysing, interpreting, reflecting, exploring, making inferences (inductively or deductively), focusing, guessing, comparing, differentiating, theorising, hypothesising, and verifying.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pascual Pérez-Paredes

Pascual Pérez-Paredes is a lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. His research interests include CALL, learner language variation, corpora in language education and corpus-assisted discourse analysis. He is currently an editorial board member of ReCALL and Register Studies. He has published in journals such as ReCALL, CALL, Language, Learning & Technology, System, Journal of Pragmatics and English for Specific Purposes.