Student Perception on Data-Driven Learning

Abstract

With the boosting of information technologies, language instructors and subject teachers have been provided with new opportunities in designing teaching materials and methods. Electronic corpora and available software solutions also provide easier access to professional material, both for teachers and their students. We, therefore, sought to explore the possibilities to utilize contemporary corpus linguistics methods in teaching technical vocabulary. Specifically, we conducted research with Marine Engineering students at the Faculty of Maritime Studies Kotor, University of Montenegro, during one academic semester. The method applied was the so-called Data-Driven Learning (DDL), which anticipates the student’s exposure to authentic professional material. In our specific case, it included an electronic corpus comprised of marine engineering instruction books on main engines made available to the students through the distance-learning Moodle platform. By the end of the experimental semester of teaching/learning technical vocabulary through homework assignments related to marine engineering instruction books and manuals, we conducted a semi-structured interview with the students in order to provide their feedback, impressions and suggestions. The obtained and processed data show their positive responses to corpus linguistics methods, especially towards professional material they will need to rely on during their future careers. The DDL method also proved to promote the students’ autonomy and help in overcoming differences in learning strategies, which recommends it as a solid foundation for the life-learning process of the seafarers-to-be.