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.