"Corpus-based Materials Implementation in Writing Classrooms: Teachers' Experiences, Perceptions and Training Initiatives"
Dissertation Proposal Title: Corpus-based Materials Implementation in Writing Classrooms: Teachers' Experiences, Perceptions, and Training Initiatives
Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Shelley Staples (Chair), Dr. Jon Reinhardt, Dr. Chris Tardy, Dr. Gail Shuck (Special External Member, Boise State University)
Abstract: Over the last few decades, the tools of corpus linguistics have allowed teachers to engage learners in an examination of language patterns and language use through authentic texts and from there assist learners on appropriate language uses in different contexts, registers and genres (Friginal, 2018; Reppen, 2010). Previous research has shown that corpus-based analysis and data-driven learning, also known as the direct use of corpora in language teaching (DDL; Johns, 1991), can effectively guide students to understand language patterns across texts and grammatical features typically used in different genres (Boulton & Cobb, 2017; Flowerdew, 2005). Many studies (Chang, 2014; Luo, 2016; Tono et al., 2014) testing the effectiveness of DDL materials use a teacher/researcher (or a team of experts) as the creator and deliverer of the materials. Thus, it seems to be that creating and presenting DDL materials have mostly been done by researchers and teachers who already have years of experiences using corpus linguistics in their own practices (Callies, 2019; Chambers, 2019; Leńko-Szymańska, 2014; Mukherjee, 2004; Poole, 2022; Tribble, 2012), yet, the question remains on how DDL can be used more widely and effectively by the majority of teachers, who might not be as well-versed in corpus methodologies.
The goal of this three-article dissertation project is to respond to the issues and gaps in how instructors are involved in the process of receiving training, designing and implementing corpus-based instructional materials in their own teaching contexts, focusing on namely: 1) establishing a systematic review on teachers’ engagement with corpus-based instructions; 2) analyzing teachers’ experiences and perceptions of corpus-based materials implementation in second language writing (SLW) classes; and 3) investigating whether a PLC training model can foster teachers’ development of DDL understanding and implementation in SLW classrooms.
