Grammatical description and corpus evidence : supposing, assuming, considering

The use of large corpora provides abundant evidence of the actual usage of grammatical structures and function words and reveals the language behaviour of native speakers. One of the principles of corpus linguistics is that meaning is contextual: we can only identify the meaning of items by investigating the contexts in which they occur. In this paper I use data from a large corpus of English to describe the usage of three grammar words: supposing (that), assuming (that), considering (that). By analysing the regularities in the context of use of these grammar words I attempt to describe their function in discourse and to reveal what one must know in order to use and understand these words correctly. The results show that supposing (that), assuming (that) and considering (that.) convey different implications concerning the factuality of the clauses where they occur

An analysis of the citation practices of undergraduate Spanish students

One basic skill of academic writers is to be able to locate their claims within a disciplinary framework. However, undergraduate students find it difficult to integrate sources into their own writing successfully, which often results in inappropriate textual borrowing and poor referencing. The aim of the research reported here was to identify problematic or inappropriate use of sources in texts produced by undergraduate Spanish students and examine the reasons for these unacceptable citation practices. For this purpose, I analyzed a learner corpus consisting of 35 literature reviews written by students of an EAP subject in the third year of a Bachelor's Degree in English Studies. The results suggest that their inappropriate use of sources arises mainly from three factors: (i) an unawareness of the dialogic nature of academic texts and of the functions of citation in these texts; (ii) low linguistic level and low level of academic literacy regarding the procedures involved in paraphrasing and synthesizing; (iii) lack of familiarity with the language of citations

The construction of novelty in computer science papers

Novelty is a concept of great importance in the writing of a research paper, given that the author has to persuade the audience of the news value of the reported research, which makes it worth publishing. In this paper I use a corpus of computer science papers to investigate how novelty is created in this discipline. I analyse how the author uses evaluation and lexical cohesion to integrate his/her research into the existing knowledge structure of the field. Evaluation in computer science papers is closely associated with the Problem-Solution pattern which structures most of the papers: authors claim that the technology they introduce is the best solution to a problem that they have previously identified. Lexical cohesion highlights the novelty of the research by establishing a semantic relation of contrast between the fragment of text reporting previous research in the field and that reporting the authors' own research

Nuevas necesidades, nuevos géneros: el artículo de aplicación en el campo de la informática

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The webquest as a learning tool in the clil classroom: a proposal for a biology and geology course

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are present in every individual's life and have been seen as beneficial tools in education, since they facilitate the learning process. This dissertation aims to present a WebQuest as a tool for helping 1st ESO students of the IES Tiempos Modernos in the acquisition of both language and content input in the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classroom. The aforementioned WebQuest has been designed for a Biology and Geology course following the principles of effective learning and the premises of CLIL. The topic chosen is vertebrate animals, what corresponds to unit 6 of the textbook in use. The contents were analysed and a creative and engaging activity was created: students had to design a Zoo of the Rarity to attract tourists to Saragossa in groups. Consequently, this proposal is also based on the guidelines of cooperative learning

Elt materials design from the perspective of English as a lingua franca

Se trata de diseñar materiales desde la perspectiva del Inglés como lengua Franca; entendiendo por lengua franca, la comunicación entre hablantes nativos y no nativos del inglés. Es decir, el uso del inglés como lengua de uso entre gente que no comparte una misma lengua materna. El diseño de materiales esta basado en situaciones de contexto real que se dan en la vida diaria;por ejemplo: role-plays, problem-solving, etc

The use of online dictionaries in second language learning (L2): teaching dictionary skills for advanced students.

This dissertation deals with the advantages and tools supplied by new technologies nowadays. More specifically, the study analyses the use of online dictionaries for the learning and the study of new languages (L2). It reports the results of a research on how advanced language learners use online dictionaries and to what extent they take advantage of all the resources those provide. The data was collected through questionnaires given to 3rd and 4th grade students of the degree in English Studies at the University of Zaragoza. The results revealed how they use online dictionaries and what they think about them, they showed that advanced students still underuse online dictionaries for pronunciation, phonetic and grammatical tasks, although online dictionaries provide a wide range of tools for helping learners in all kind of tasks such as reading or writing. Most of them only use them for translating a word or finding its meaning. For these reasons I proposed a dictionary workshop involving different skills for making students aware of the different possibilities online dictionaries provide

Pragmatic strategies used amongst Erasmus students in ELF interactions: a qualitative study.

Este trabajo de fin de grado explora las estrategias comunicativas usadas por hablantes de inglés como lingua franca (ELF) durante su periodo de Erasmus en relación a el propósito de cada estartegia. Este ensayo comienza con una descripción del término ELF basada en teorías anteriores sobre este tema, incluyendo la investigación sobre las estrategias pragmáticas. El corpus usado para el análisis consiste en un conjunto de diez interacciones entre estudiantes Erasmus grabadas. En este ensayo, las estrategias se dividirán en tres categorías dependiendo de su función comunicativa: estrategias que se usan para reparar un problema comunicativo, estrategias que se usan para evitar un malentendido, y estrategias que se usa para construir relaciones de solidaridad y identdad. El análisis de datos demuestra como los usuarios de ELF se comunican de manera muy coperativa y usan estrategias pragmáticas, combinándolas para conseguir sus propósitos comunicativos.<br /

Project Work as a Tool to Develop Intercultural Competence from an ELF Perspective in Secondary Education

The main purpose of this dissertation is to design and evaluate materials from an English as Lingua Franca perspective to teach English in secondary education. Firstly, the dissertation introduces the definition and main characteristics of English as Lingua Franca, paying special attention to the development of the intercultural competence and the intercultural communicative competence. The methodology selected to teach English is one practice of the Communicative Language Teaching Approach, the project-based learning, so students from 4th year of ESO make an intercultural project investigating and comparing target and home cultures. Finally, after commenting on the assessment of both the students’ projects and the project itself, it can be said that presenting intercultural competence through project work is a good way to introduce this aspect of the communicative competence (democratic value/key competence). At the same time, students experience many of the advantages of the Communicative Language Teaching approach that can be found in the LOE and LOMCE Aragonese Curriculum

Trabajo Fin de Máster

Análisis crítico de la Programación Anual y de la Unidad Didáctica