AN ANALYSIS OF VERB-NOUN COMBINATIONS IN HIGH FREQUENCY VERBS IN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS OF TURKISH ELT STUDENTS: THE CASE OF “MAKE” and “DO”

The present study aims to reveal the use of high-frequency verbs “make” and “do” when they occur in a verb+noun combination in the argumentative essays of Turkish learners of English. In this context, the present study investigated the grammatical and semantic patterns and erroneous productions in the learner corpus. The investigation made use of a learner corpus and LOCNESS as the reference native corpus for comparison purposes. The findings showed that there were some similarities and dissimilarities among two corpora in terms of grammatical and semantic properties. Based on the findings of the current study and previous studies, the present study shared theoretical and practical implications particularly for language teaching settings.   Keywords: Word combinations, High-frequency words, Collocations, Corpu

Error Analysis: a case study with intermediate learners of English

Error Analysis emerged following the traces of Contrastive linguistics, which has been a recurrent approach for research on Second Language Learning in the last century. Errors had been considered a negative response to language acquisition until the development of Error Analysis in the 60s. This perspective would state that there is a contrastive side in second language learning, and innovatively suggest that committing errors does not mean a failure in the learning process, but that it is a positive indicator of the natural steps of language learning. By using Error Analysis approach, the present study aimed at examining a collected corpus of 25 intermediate level essays written in English by students at the University of the Basque Country. The analysis centred on identifying and labelling all lexical and grammatical error occurrences, and determining whether the errors found had an L1 influence or not. The results showed, first, that in the majority of the cases the source of the error was the L2 itself, although, apparently, L1 played a significant role in many cases too, as other studies have previously stated on research with Spanish as L1. Secondly, grammatical errors seemed to occur more frequently than lexical ones, being especially recurrent those related to syntax and verb morphology. Among lexical errors, distortions were the most common errors found in the essays. The analysis of the findings resulted in the suggestion of several didactic implications, which are designed for the improvement of second language learning and teaching. These implications include giving importance to teaching specifically lexis, grammar and chunks; highlighting error feedback, self-edition and needs analysis; and finally taking into consideration gravity of errors and the impact that word processors may have in the process of writing. To conclude, some limitations of the study have been outlined, in order to give guidance on how future research could improve the current research area

Towards a collocation writing assistant for learners of Spanish

This paper describes the process followed in creating a tool aimed at helping learners produce collocations in Spanish. First we present the Diccionario de colocaciones del español (DiCE), an online collocation dictionary, which represents the first stage of this process. The following section focuses on the potential user of a collocation learning tool: we examine the usability problems DiCE presents in this respect, and explore the actual learner needs through a learner corpus study of collocation errors. Next, we review how collocation production problems of English language learners can be solved using a variety of electronic tools devised for that language. Finally, taking all the above into account, we present a new tool aimed at assisting learners of Spanish in writing texts, with particular attention being paid to the use of collocations in this language

Systems Combination for Grammatical Error Correction

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

High school writing teacher feedback on word choice errors

This study scrutinizes the range and types of feedback given for word choice errors occurring in the English Taiwan Learner Corpus (ETLC), which contains Taiwanese high school students’ English writings and the corrective feedback provided by L2 writing teachers. All instances of word choice error tags (n = 1,439) were extracted from the ETLC for analyses. Results showed L2 writing teachers provided indirect feedback more often than direct feedback, requiring students to self-correct without guidance. Furthermore, many errors tagged as word choice were grammar errors, further questioning L2 writing teachers’ understanding of word choice errors and competence to correct such errors. This study highlights the importance of raising students’ awareness to targeted lexis prior to completing L2 writing tasks. We also argue that there are benefits for L2 writing teachers to provide focused and direct word choice error feedback after the completion of such tasks

AN INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS' EXPERIENCES WITH A WEB-BASED, DATA-DRIVEN WRITING ASSISTANCE ENVIRONMENT FOR IMPROVING KOREAN EFL WRITERS' ACCURACY WITH ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has played an increasingly important role in writing instruction and research. While research has been conducted on English as a second language (ESL) learners and the benefits of using web-based writing assistance programs in writing instruction, insufficient research has been done on English as a foreign language (EFL) students. This study is an empirical investigation of students' experiences with a web-based, data-driven writing assistance environment (e4writing) designed by the researcher to help Korean EFL writers with their grammar and vocabulary. This study investigated Korean university students' perceived difficulties with English grammar and vocabulary as they wrote in English. It also explored their perceptions of e4writing as used in a writing course to enhance English grammar and vocabulary. This study investigated 12 participants' perceptions and "academic profiles" (learning styles, confidence, motivation, and other factors) when they were enrolled in a 16-week course called Teaching Methods for English Composition. To gain a more specific and personal view, the study also included detailed case studies of four of the study participants. The major sources of data for the analyses include interviews, reflective journals, questionnaires, samples of the students' writing before and after their use of e4writing and the researcher's reflective notes. The study revealed that most of the students had difficulty with grammar and vocabulary in English writing. They positively perceived e4writing, as it provided individualized help on their problems with grammar and lexis. Overall, the students showed improvement in accuracy from the pretest to the posttest, and observations suggested that e4writing was probably related to this improvement; however, strong claims about e4writing as a cause of improvement cannot be made without a control group. The students felt e4writing was more beneficial for improving grammatical accuracy than for vocabulary accuracy. The students recommended that some features of e4writing be written in Korean to help students understand grammar and vocabulary explanations

Critical Literacy and Second Language Learning in the Mainstream Classroom: An Elusive Nexus?

Critical Literacy (CL) is now a core component of Queensland secondary school English programs. These programs are delivered to a significant number of students from Non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) whose linguistic and cultural resources are diverse and not necessarily representative of mainstream high school cultural capital (Bourdieu 1990). In response to the current emphasis on CL, it is vital for English as a Second Language (ESL) educators to identify the points of contention as well as the possibilities for promoting critical engagement with texts with adolescent ESL learners and to seek to create pedagogy that reflects the critical needs and capacities of these learners. This paper outlines the version of CL in secondary schools as theorised by a number of Australian researchers; discusses the relevance and importance of CL to NESB learners and finally raises a number of issues that need resolving if such learners are to be provided with a well-rounded literacy education amid contemporary Australian social relations and textual practice

Critical Literacy and Second Language Learning in the Mainstream Classroom: An Elusive Nexus?

Critical Literacy (CL) is now a core component of Queensland secondary school English programs. These programs are delivered to a significant number of students from Non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) whose linguistic and cultural resources are diverse and not necessarily representative of mainstream high school cultural capital (Bourdieu 1990). In response to the current emphasis on CL, it is vital for English as a Second Language (ESL) educators to identify the points of contention as well as the possibilities for promoting critical engagement with texts with adolescent ESL learners and to seek to create pedagogy that reflects the critical needs and capacities of these learners. This paper outlines the version of CL in secondary schools as theorised by a number of Australian researchers; discusses the relevance and importance of CL to NESB learners and finally raises a number of issues that need resolving if such learners are to be provided with a well-rounded literacy education amid contemporary Australian social relations and textual practice

Corpus-Based Websites to Promote Learner Autonomy in Correcting Writing Collocation Errors

The recent yet powerful emergence of E-learning and using online resources in learning EFL (English as a Foreign Language) has helped promote learner autonomy in language acquisition including self-correcting their mistakes. This pilot study despite conducted on a modest sample of 25 second year students majoring in Business English at Hanoi Foreign Trade University is an initial attempt to investigate the feasibility of using corpus-based websites to promote learner autonomy in correcting collocation errors in EFL writing. The data is collected using a pre-questionnaire and a post-interview aiming to find out the participants’ change in belief and attitude toward learner autonomy in collocation errors in writing, the extent of their success in using the corpus-based websites to self-correct the errors and the change in their confidence in self-correcting the errors using the websites. The findings show that a significant majority of students have shifted their belief and attitude toward a more autonomous mode of learning, enjoyed a fair success of using the websites to self-correct the errors and become more confident. The study also yields an implication that a face-to-face training of how to use these online tools is vital to the later confidence and success of the learner