HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES --------------- NGUYEN HOANG HANH AN USING CORPUS AS A SELF-CORRECTION TOOL IN EFL WRITING MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University THUA THIEN HUE, 2021 HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ----------------- NGUYEN HOANG HANH AN USING CORPUS AS A SELF-CORRECTION TOOL IN EFL WRITING MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: DR. NGUYEN VU QUYNH NHU THUA THIEN HUE, 2021 ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ --------------- NGUYEN HOANG HANH AN SỬ DỤNG KHỐI NGỮ LIỆU NHƯ MỘT CÔNG CỤ TỰ SỬA LỖI TRONG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. NGUYEN VU QUYNH NHU THUA THIEN HUE, 2021 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Signed: Nguyen Hoang Hanh An Date: 08/11/2021 i ABSTRACT In recent years, the advent of corpus has shed some light on improving the quality and sustainability of sentence-level error correction in second language (L2) writing, as its nature and functions seemed to benefit L2 writers (Johns, 1991). This study was carried out with the aim of introducing corpus as a supplementary tool to develop EFL students‘ writing competence, focusing on students‘ experience in writing self-revision with the help of corpus, types of errors that students are able to self-rectify with the support of corpus, and students‘ attitudes towards using corpus to correct mistakes independently. The instruments chosen for the study were Corpus of Contemporary English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC) for their multifunctional features and large freely accessible databases. 10 undergraduate students of the English Department at Hue University of Foreign Languages, including third- year and fourth-year students, were trained in the basic functions of the two corpora.
They were required to write six essays on specific topics and independently correct their errors through corpus research. An analysis of error correction was employed as the quantitative approach, while a learning log and interviews were used as qualitative research methods to allow students to reflect on their experiences and attitudes towards the use of corpus as a self- correction tool in writing. The results revealed that there is a substantial difference in the use of corpus for revising different types of errors: word choice, preposition, and word order were quite easy to identify and could be corrected quickly, whereas grammar, spelling, and register are considered difficult error types to be corrected with the assistance of corpus. The findings from the study also showed that in spite of some drawbacks of corpus, the majority of participants still expressed positive attitudes towards the use of corpus as a self error- correction instrument to help them improve their writing skills as well as their writing confidence.
ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This Master of Arts thesis has been a challenging and rewarding experience to me, as its theme is related to corpus, a new concept that I just have exposed to recently. This work would not have been completed without the assistance and guidance of many people. First and foremost, I would like to thank and appreciate my thesis supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Vu Quynh Nhu, for her unreserved guidance on this thesis.
Thank you for spending hours reading my thesis and offering insightful feedback. Her kindness, patience, enthusiasm and encouragement helped me overcome the obstacles of doing the research. It was fortunate that I had an opportunity to work with her, without whom, the completion of the Master of Arts thesis would not have been possible. I am deeply grateful to 10 participants from the Faculty of English at Hue University of Foreign Languages, Hue University for spending their precious time and cooperation when conducting the research.
My thesis would indeed be far from being completed without them. I also wanted to extend my sincere thanks to my colleagues Vu Khanh, Nha Quan, Ai Thu, Thao Trinh, and my friends My Ngoc, Nhu Thuy, and Tra My for providing assistance, inspiration and motivation. Their endless support has been the greatest source of positivity and confidence for me throughout my MA journey. Lastly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family.
My parents and my elder sister were always by my side and offered me unconditional love, encouragement and assistance through the process of researching and writing this thesis. I would have been unable to overcome all the obstacles and fulfill my dream without their support. I also express deep thanks to my boyfriend, who saved me from the IT problems and continuously supported me with his tender loving care. Hue, November 9, 2021 iii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Total number of errors in six categories in essays Table 4.2 Total number of corrections in six categories in essays Table 4.3 Number of errors and corrections in six categories from Week 1 to Week 6 Table 4.4 The comparison of CERF levels of essays in Week 1 and Week 6 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 Participants‘ majors Figure 3.2 Participants‘ self-evaluation of writing skills Figure 3.3 Participants‘ self-evaluation of computer skills Figure 4.1 Types of errors that could be easily corrected with corpus Figure 4.2 Types of errors that could be difficult to be corrected with corpus Figure 4.3 Features and Functions of corpus that are helpful for students in essay self-revision v List of Abbreviations Abbreviation Meaning AE American English BE British English BNC British National Corpus COCA Corpus of Contemporary American English CEFR The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages DDL Data-driven learning EFL English as Foreign language HUFL Hue University of Foreign Languages KWIC Key Word In Context L2 Second language/ Target language vi Table of Contents STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP .i LIST OF TABLES .iv LIST OF FIGURES.
v List of Abbreviations .vi Chapter 1: Introduction .1 Rationale of the Study .2 Aims of the study .3 Significance of the Study .4 Scope of the Study and Limitations. 5 Chapter 2: Literature Review .1 Definition of Corpus .1 An Overview of COCA .2 An Overview of BNC .2 Data-driven learning (DDL) .1 What is DDL? .2 The Effectiveness of DDL in Foreign Language Acquisition .3 Writing skill and Self-correction in Writing .2 Self-correction in Writing .4 Corpus as a Self-correction Tool in Writing .5 The application of Corpus in the Use of Error-correction Tool.1 Benefits of Corpus in the Use of Error-correction Tool .2 Limitations of Corpus in the Use of Error-correction Tool .6 Learners‘ Attitudes towards the Use of Corpus on Writing Self-correction .3 Data Collection and Analysis. 34 Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion .1 Types of Errors that could be Corrected with the Use of Corpus .1 Types of Errors that could be Easy to Correct with the Use of Corpus .2 Types of Errors that could be Difficult to Correct with the Use of corpus.2 Students‘ Experience on the Use of Corpus in Error Self-correction in Essays .1 Improvement in Error-correction .2 Advantages of Corpus in Error Self-correction .3 Disadvantages of Corpus in Error Self-correction .3 Students‘ Attitudes towards the Use of Corpus in Error Self-correction in EFL Writing .1 Summary of Findings .1 Students‘ Improvement in the Error Correction .2 Types of Errors that could be Corrected with the Use of Corpus .3 Students‘ Experience on the Use of Corpus .4 Students‘ Attitudes towards Corpus .3 Limitations of the Study.4 Recommendation for Future Research. 76 APPENDICIES APPENDIX 1 APPENDIX 2 APPENDIX 3 APPENDIX 4 APPENDIX 5 ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Rationale of the Study The importance of English is essential to every aspect and interaction in the daily lives of people living in Vietnam.
Being fluent in English is now considered one of the key skills needed to become successful in Vietnam, a reason why many people rush to take English classes day or night with the hope of acquiring some knowledge of English that would increase their opportunities to get a good job or to gain a promotion. The ability to produce effective English has grown essential for academic success in many countries. Of all the language skills, writing is considered the most difficult skill that EFL learners are expected to acquire. This is in line with Richard‘s idea (2002), who stated ―writing is the most difficult skill for second language learner to master of putting together strings of grammatically of correct sentences‖.
One of the key reasons is that beyond strategies needed for learning, writing requires a high proficiency of the target language. Kern (2000) claimed, ―knowing how to write a ‘summary‘ or ‗analysis‘ in Mandarin or Spanish does not necessarily mean that students will be able to do these things in English.‖ As a result, any appropriate instruction must take into consideration the influence from various educational, social, and cultural experiences that students have in their native language. Advanced learners have great difficulty with native-like collocation and idiomaticity. Kim (2009) stated that even when advanced students make few or no grammatical errors in their writing, ―their work can still sound non-native-like or unnatural, due to the differences in frequency with which a certain linguistic structure is used or to unknown conventions of the particular genre in which they are writing‖ (p.
Hence, students and teachers need comprehensive and authentic language materials to provide information beyond what they find in textbooks or reference books. 1 The use of authentic materials in foreign languages has been considered important to language teaching and widely applied in language classrooms. There are a wide range of advantages of using authentic source materials used in the teaching community including the richness that authentic texts provide in terms of cultural and linguistic content, the ability to select materials that are relevant, suitable, and interesting for specific groups of learners, and the motivational aspects of learning (Mishan, 2004). Moreover, in the boom era of modern technology and information, computers and the Internet have had fundamental impact on every aspect of human life, especially education.
The combination of technology and education has resulted in numerous benefits to instructors and students with increased engagement and excitement during the process of teaching and learning. Given relatively easy access to a large amount of authentic language samples, educators have recently taken advantage of technology to enhance the quality of pedagogy, and secure better understanding of foreign languages. They are able to make use of various cultural products in different media, consisting of newspapers, magazines, TV, books, and the Internet. There is also a growing interest in using corpus for educational purposes.
A corpus is defined as a database collection of authentic instances of language use from a wide variety of sources (Yoon & Hirvela, 2004). Biber et al. (1998) simply defined corpus as ―a large and principled collection of natural texts, which is compiled so that it is representative of the language in general, a dialect, or other subset of the language‖ (p. According to Kim (2009), for EFL students and teachers, the use of a searchable data corpus offers an excellent resource to check whether their words are appropriate or acceptable.
As it is considered one of the most convenient ways to meet the requirement of an authentic language database in assisting students to enhance their language proficiency, recent decades have witnessed a growing body of research examining the effectiveness of applying corpus to language learning. 2 With the increased availability of computers in classrooms, students now have more opportunities to access corpus tools freely while writing.