The Efficacy of Corpus-based Pedagogical Techniques for Academic Writing

Abstract

The utility of corpora as a writing tool has not yet been concretely established due to the emphasis of qualitative methods for data collection and the utilization of designs requiring a great deal of independent learning. The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate corpus-based pedagogical techniques for writing that systematically guide student inquiry. This quasi-experimental study employed a switching-replications design with two classrooms of Korean high and middle school English teachers (N = 21). In the first phase of treatment, only participants of the experimental group were asked to check each noun using the corpus. In the second phase of treatment, the experimental and control groups were swapped and the procedure was repeated. Comparison of scores after each phase revealed no significant differences between the experimental and control groups. Although follow-up surveys revealed that most participants were able to recognize the potential of the corpus, the participants were unable to provide tangible examples of advantages. Overall, results suggest that a more highly scaffolded framework of training, which guides data collection and the development of a hypothesis, is needed to transition the learner into the role of an independent researcher.