A Student Corpus Analysis: Implications for Teaching Writing and Evaluating

8/14/2019 A Student Corpus Analysis: Implications for Teaching Writing and Evaluating

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A S T U D E N T C O R P U S A N A L Y S I S :

I M P L I C A T I O N S F O R T E A C H I N G W R I T I N G A N DE V A L U A T I N G L A N G U A G E T E X T B O O K S

Author: Ammar ElMerhbi

Dar Jana Int'l School

Note: This is the school version of the study. A more comprehensive and thorough study

paper with complete references will be published soon for the general practitioners and

researchers.

Abstract

This paper is a result of the analysis of grade 9 ESL/EFLstudent corpus of writing product. The analysis shows that

students lack essential linguistic and writing skills-grammatical and lexical- such as phrasal verbs, collocations, and

lexis. It is therefore strongly recommended to alter language teaching instructions and re-evaluate writing and

grammar textbooks to suit the needs of the students. It is also equally recommended that teaching should be data-

informed (life-long learning) rather than data-driven (training for standardized test, such as test-taking strategiesand tactics).

Introduction

The reason for this computational study is the continuous errors that students commit in their written

communication and the unnatural linguistic flow resulting from errors in syntactic parsing and word choice. The

lack of cohesion and the improper use of cohesive devices in student writing are also erroneous patterns.

Questions such as -What linguistic and writing skills do students lack in order to include in language teaching

instructions? Do(es) the language textbook(s) target those skills that students lack or need in order to surviveacademic writing?- were the impetus to conduct this study.

WHAT IS A CORPUS?

A corpus ( plural corpora) is an annotated body of text, written or spoken (transcribed) of which

linguists and researchers study certain linguistic patterns, whether words, phrases or collocations, to

deduce a rule in language. Many dictionaries are built on linguistic corpora such as Collins Cobuild

Dictionary, which is based on a 100 million word corpus between written and spoken.

WHAT IS STUDENT CORPUS?


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Student corpus is an annotated body of text that is based on student written or spoken product.

Students' writings are collected in one document and annotated ( If the writings are hand-written

then they should be typed into a word processor to analyze). The reason for such a corpus is to

analyze students' errors and look for patterns of errors to inform teaching and enhance instruction to

target those frequent errors.

CONCORDANCE

It is now possible to analyze a corpus in hours or days rather in weeks or years due to technological

advances in computational linguistics. Concordance is a software that looks for patterns in a corpus

and lists them for the researcher to easily locate. It also looks for frequencies of words. The

concordance works on the idea of KWIC ( key word in context) and can also be informed to look for

collocations, pronouns, etc.. This only works when the corpus is annotated for the concordance to

correctly seek the patterns. This usually takes a lot of time. The researcher can also compare a certain

corpus with another to look for matches. For instance, comparing words in student corpus to matchwith SAT word List or Academic Word List ( in the current study). Figure 1 below is a snapshot of a

concordance based on this student corpus.

Figure 1

What the researcher looks for are patterns of a linguistic input. In the case of student corpus, the

researcher looks for patterns of linguistic and writing errors in order to analyze. Concordances can be

also used in classrooms for students to analyze language. This is an innovative method of teaching

grammar, writing, and lexis but that is another story and beyond the scope of this report.

For more on corpus linguistics and concordance visit my blog http://call4teachers.blogspot.com
http://call4teachers.blogspot.com/http://call4teachers.blogspot.com/http://call4teachers.blogspot.com/


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THE STUDY

Students' writing products were collected and typed into a word processor. The result was a student corpus of

1503 words and 10416 tokens which are the repeated words in the corpus( e.g. andis a word that is repeated 297

time so the token number is 297 and the word number is 1). The sample writing products consisted of 20 girls and

20 boys argumentative writing to ensure gender equality since writing differs between males and females. The

student corpus was set up and annotated for conjunctions, connectives, phrases..

The corpus was loaded onto concordance software and analyzed for pattern in writing and linguistic errors. To

know what exactly to look for in student corpus, the author listed features of successful academic writing that

demonstrate a command of standard written English, and these include

Phrasing Effective sentence structure Spelling Punctuation Word choice, demonstrating facility with a range of vocabulary appropriate to the topic Lexical precision and careful use of vocabulary Careful and purposeful use of text "maps" and "signposts", such as discourse and metadiscourse markers

(e.g. Firstthis essay discussxxxandyyythen presents solutions to thezzzproblem).

A guard stance in presenting argumentation and results (e.g. employment of frequent hedges such as modalverbs, adverbs of frequency, or linking verbs)

Rightful use of verb-preposition( verbal phrase), verb-noun, adjective-noun, and adjective- adverbcollocations

Rightful use of conjunctions and connectives and avoiding overuse Word sophistication, including word lengths

Moreover, the student corpus was compared toAWL (Academic word list) and the 5000 SAT word listto know

whether students are using appropriate vocabulary in their writing and if so whether they are using them

purposefully and properly.


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Result and Analysis

WORD LENGTHS AND FREQUENCIES

Word lengths in writing show the level of sophistication of students' word-level knowledge. Figure 2below displays a graph of word lengths and their frequencies in the student texts.

Figure 2

The horizontal axis in the graph above shows the number of letters of a word. The vertical axis shows

the number of words in the student corpus. As one can notice, the highest frequency of words are

those of the three-letter, four-letter, and two-letter words having 22.92%, 21.27%, and 18.37%

respectively of the number of words in the whole corpus. These words include prepositions ( to, on,in, with..), conjunctions ( and, but, or), and linking and auxiliary verbs ( is, will). It is equally clear the

drop of frequency between the four-letter words (21.27%) and the five-letter words (11.5%). The

drop in frequencies continues until the thirteen-letter words (0.11%). The fourteen-letter words

(0.01%) and twenty-one letter words (0.02%) are discarded as these were inserted in the corpus to

serve as annotations and references.

The fact that the word lengths of one, two, three, and four letters make up 66.56% of the whole

students' writing shows that students do not utilize grade-appropriate words in their writings.

Another observation is the overuse of certain words such as to ( 3.418%),you (3.37%),people (1.123

%) and certain conjunctions such as and(2. 851 %) while other connectives are rarely used. Other


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words are also overused, underused, or misused and which will discussed in more details in later

sections.

Vocabulary usage and Word Choice

As mentioned above, the student's writings were measured against the AWL and SAT WORD List and

the following results were observed.

AWL (Academic Word List)

The reason for comparing the corpus with the AWL is that it lists the words that students should

know in high school. The AWL is based also on a corpus of academic writing.

The result of the comparison shows that students used 42 words and 52 tokens of the AWL out of

1503 words of their corpus. This is considered a low frequency usage of the AWL in academic writing.

The words of the AWL used in student writing are listed below with their frequencies :

adapt 2, adjust 1, affect 2, appreciate 1, benefit 1, commit 1, complex 1, contrary 1, convince 1, despite 1,

environment 1, exceed 1, found 3, grade 3, guarantee 1, integral 1, issue 2, legal 1, major 1, mature 1,

normal 1, option 1, percent 1, perspective 1, policy 1, positive 2, principal 1, principle 2, quote 1, recover

1, rely 1, require 1, schedule 1, seek 1, series 2, specific 1, status 1, strategy 1, stress 1

Not only the frequency of the AWL is low ( one or two occurrences in student writing) but also some

were used inappropriately in context. One example is the use of affect where the word effect is

appropriate. Another example is the use of the word principal where principle should be used.

SAT Word List

The corpus was also run against the 5000 SAT WORD List, a list of SAT words that are frequent in SAT

tests and academic writing and high school reading texts. The figures show that students used 9 SAT

words out of the 5000 word list. The tokens are 133 occurrences of the words but only because the

word lying was repeated 107 times. The list of the SAT words used in student writing is presented

below with their frequencies.

Accomplish 1, benefit 1, control 1, curtail 1, despite 1, difference 1, lying 107, opinion 17, positive 2

Again, most of the words were used inappropriately, It is observed that students commit recurring

errors in noun-adjective, and verb-preposition collocations.

The word cloud below shows all the words in student writing. The larger the word in the cloud, the

more frequent it is used. It is noticed how the words people, lying, lie, and life are overused.


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Collocations

Collocations are words that come together as pairs or more. These collocations can be verb-preposition, adjective-

noun, or adverb-adjective. Students should know how to collocate words in their writing in order to avoid

ambiguity. A close analysis of students' writing shows a major deficit in their collocations, especially those of the

AWL and SAT WORD list. This shows that student do not know how to use the vocabulary they acquired

purposefully, precisely and carefully to avoid unnatural writing and ambiguity.

Figure 3 below shows an example of students' usage ofaffectinstead ofeffectand how they collocated erroneously

the wordpositive with affect. It is known that the adjectivepositive collocates with the noun effect( result) and not

affect ( influence mostly used as a verb).

Figure 3

If one compares this with the Cobuild corpus, the result shows thatpositive does not collocate with

affectbut with nouns such as emotions, response, steps, stimulus( collocating with nouns). See figure

4 below for an example.


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Figure 4

Another analysis of the word affectshows that it collocates with pronouns and articles and is used

almost always as a verb. See figure 5 below


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Figure 5

Phrases

Phrases, especially noun and adjective phrases, are also misused and misplaced in the students' writing.

Prepositional phrases also prove again to be misplaced modifying words erroneously.

Verb phrases such as those with modal verbs ( may, could, should) are analyzed. It is obvious that students use

modal verbs erroneously too. They do not know the difference between using mayor can, for example.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING, TEXTBOOK EVALUATION,

AND SUGGESTED WRITING CURRICULUM

Now that one has read the above analysis, one might say So what?The text analysis teamed with

current research review in L2 writing give some insights into L2 writing instruction and inform our

teaching. Textbook evaluation is rendered, writing curriculum is suggested, and implications for

teaching writing are discussed based on the above text analysis and literature review.


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First , there should be a clear distinction between L1 and L2 writing on one hand and process- and

product-centered writing on the other.

Differences between L1 and L2 writing

The differences between LI and L2 writing are so extensive that they can be identified in practically all aspects of

written text and discourse. According to numerous studies of LI and L2 written discourse and text, distinctions

between them extend to:

discourse and rhetorical organization

ideas and content of writing

rhetorical modes (e.g., exposition, narration, and argumentation)

reliance on external knowledge and information

references to sources of knowledge and information

assumptions about the reader's knowledge and expectations (e.g.,

references to assumed common knowledge and familiarity withcertain classical works)

the role of audience in discourse and text production, as well as the

appraisal of the expected discourse and text complexity (e.g.,

reader vs. writer responsible text)

discourse and text cohesion

employment of linguistic and rhetorical features of formal written

text (e.g., fewer/less complex sentences, descriptive adjectives,

passivization, nominalization, lexical variety, and more conjunctions,

conversational amplifiers and emphatics, simple nouns and

verbs)

In addition to numerous studies of the L1 and L2 writing product, other studies have identified fundamental and

substantial differences between approaches to writing and writing processes in L1 and L2. Moreover, A large

number of extensive and detailed studies carried out since 1990 have demonstrated that mere exposure to L2

vocabulary, grammar, discourse, and formal written text is not the most effective means of attaining academic L2

proficiency.

Product- vs. Process-centered Writing

Since the early 1980s, the predominant method of instruction in the teaching of L2 writing has remained focused

on the writing process similar to the pedagogy adopted in L1 writing instruction for native speakers of English.The process-centered instructional methodology for teaching writing focuses on invention, creating

ideas, and discovering the purpose of writing. Within the process-centered paradigm for teaching L2 writing,

student writing is evaluated on the quality of prewriting, writing, and revision. Because the product of writing is

seen as secondary to the writing process, and even inhibitory in the early stages of writing, issues of L2 grammar,

lexis, and errors are to be addressed only as needed in the context of writing, and L2 writers with proficiency

levels higher than beginning are exposed to text and discourse to learn from them and, thus, acquire L2 grammar

and lexis naturally.

On the other hand, outside L2 writing and English composition classes, the evaluations of the quality of NNSs'

(non-native speakers) L2 writing skills by faculty in the disciplines and general education courses as well as

standardized test such as SAT and TWE has continued to focus on the product of writing.


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The skills required for NNS students to succeed in mainstream general education courses, as well as those in the

disciplines, have remained largely unchanged despite the shift in the writing instruction methodology.

Similarly, the assessment of L2 writing skills by ESL professionals on standardized and institutional placement

testing has largely remained focused on the writing product without regard to the writing process. The disparity

between the teaching methods adopted in L2 writing instruction and evaluation criteria of the quality of L2

writing has produced outcomes that are damaging and costly for most ESL/EFL students, who are taughtbrainstorming techniques and invention, prewriting, drafting, and revising skills, whereas their essential

linguistic skills, such as academic vocabulary and formal features of grammar and text, are only sparsely and

inconsistently addressed.

If one scrutinizes the students' writing textbookLanguage Network, an L1 writing textbook, one notices that its

approach is process-centered giving great emphasis on the actual process of freewriting, drafting, redrafting. So

how can a language teacher use an L1 process-oriented writing textbook to teach L2 students who would benefit

from an L2 product-oriented writing instructions?

The result of the analysis and literature review also led to the following four assumptions:

Assumption 1:Unlike Learning to Write in an L1, Learning to Write in an L2 First Requires an

Attainment of Sufficient L2 Linguistic Proficiency

Assumption 2: Writing Pedagogy for NSs with Highly Developed (Native) Language Proficiency,

Which NNSs (By Definition) Do Not Have, Is Not Readily Applicable to L2 Writing Instruction

Assumption 3: Writing Personal Narratives/Opinions ("Telling" What One Already Knows) Is Not

Similar to Producing Academic Writing, Which Requires Obtaining and Transforming Knowledge

Assumption 4: Intensive and Consistent Instruction in L2 Vocabulary and Grammar, as Well as

Discourse Organization, Is Paramount for Academically Bound NNSs

CURRICULUM FOR TEACHING THE LANGUAGE FEATURES OF WRITING

ACCURACY, ACADEMIC TEXT, AND PRACTICAL GOALS

If our NNS students are to succeed in competition for grades and attain their educational objectives, the level of

accuracy in their L2 writing needs at least attempt to approximate that of NS students of similar academic standing.

Research has demonstrated that English-language academic writing is governed by several rigid conventions in its

discourse structure and language features. The fundamental principle of the L2 academic writing curriculum

should center around acceptable and contextually relevant lexical substitutions within a limited range of lexical

and syntactic constructions (i.e., text and sentence chunking and focused instruction in replacement parts for

chunk components).

TEXTUAL FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

The corpus analysis also led to the belief that employment of syntactic, lexical, and discourse features of text and

errors in the uses of these features have an influential effect on the perceived quality of students' text. Although

sentence- and phrase-level errors are often seen in relative rather than absolute terms, the problems in students'

uses of verb tenses, word order, subordinate clauses, passive voice, and impersonal constructions have been found

to obscure the text's meaning. In the view of faculty accuracy in the uses of these and other syntactic and lexical

features is very important and, in most cases, syntactic and lexical errors result in lower assignment grades.

THE NEED FOR EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION IN L2 ACADEMIC TEXT

Much recent research has shown that exposure to daily and classroom interactions, as well as fluency-orientedinstruction, do not represent an effective pedagogical approach to developing syntactic and lexical accuracy. Other


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studies of L2 written text have identified a range of lexical and grammar features that required focused instruction

and concerted effort from both teachers and learners. Among the most urgent are:

Expanding the accessible repertoire of common academic nouns,

verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (e.g., analysis, develop, dramatic, evidently)

Contextual functions and uses of verb tenses in discourse Functions and uses of the passive voice in academic text

Functions ofadverbs in pivoting discourse and information flow

Regularities in phrase and sentence construction

Backgrounding information in subordinate clauses

Textual features of cohesion and coherence in discourse

PREFABRICATED SENTENCESAND LEXICALIZED CHUNKS

Grammar instruction has to take place in tandem with instruction on vocabulary and academic collocations. A

great deal of research carried out on the effectiveness of learning grammar in contextual lexicalized chunks and

sentence stems (i.e., whole sentences and phrases, and recurrent patterned expressions) has shown that these are

fundamental to both L1 and L2 learning and use . Stock grammatical and lexical chunks can become an efficientmeans to expand L2 writers' arsenals particularly when learners are also taught how to substitute discrete

elements appropriately and in practical ways. For example, the fact that the function of noun clauses is similar to

that of simple nouns can be addressed by means of substitutions in patterned expressions common in academic

prose: The experiment/ data/study shows that xxx increases(with yyy)/an increase of xxx/the growth/rise of xxx.

In light of the fact that L2 instruction almost always takes place under great time constraints for many teachers and

learners, it is important to maximize language gains and make learning as efficient as possible. Using

language chunks in instruction and learning is likely to be one of the few available expedient routes to relative L2

accuracy and fluency that leads to production and subsequent automatization. Collocational chunks can consist

of entire memorized sentences or phrases that include from 4 to 10 words, and these can allow learners to create

new constructions to add to their stock of expressions. In this sense, for learners, grammatical constructions

such as commonly occurring sentences, clauses, and phrases can be "viewed as big words" and memorized as

lexicalized stems.

INSTRUCTED L2 GRAMMAR AND NOTICING

Grammar curriculum, even at the intermediate levels of student proficiency, can begin with an examination and

analysis of structures in formal written discourse. Initially, the goal of instruction is to develop learners' awareness

and noticing of common grammatical features. Building on this foundation, the regularities in grammar structures

can be explicitly addressed and practiced in the production of academic writing.

.

For example, at the middle or high school, grammar teaching can focus on constructions typically found inintroductory academic textbooks (e.g., history texts heavily rely on the use of the past tense,

and science and sociology books can be practical in instruction on the present tense and passive voice). At higher

proficiency levels, instruction can also highlight the effects of grammatical features on context, discourse,

and text (e.g., tense uses in generalizations or the important difference between totallyand a great deal). In

addition, the discourse functions of referential and impersonal pronouns, the hedging functions of modal verbs,

and parallel phrase constructions found in abundance in practically all academic prose can be noticed, analyzed,

and practiced. The goal of practice with grammar constructions is to help learners develop productive fluency in

academic writing and, to some degree, automaticity in generating academic prose. Practice activities can include

brief restatements of chapter/section contents, objective summaries, paraphrases, explanations, or using sources

as thesis support in short pieces of writing at lower proficiency levels or longer essays for advanced learners.


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VOCABULARY AND L2 ACADEMIC TEXT

Current researches outline the enormous task entailed in learning the vocabulary needed to produced academictext in an L2. As a point of reference, they explained that a complete dictionary of the English language contains

around 55,000 word families. A word family includes the base form of a word, its inflected forms, and closely

related derived forms (e.g., sing, sings, singing, sang, sung, or cold, colder, coldest, coldly,coldness). A 5-year-old NS

child hasa vocabulary range of 4,000 to 5,000 word families, an average universitystudent 17,000, and a

university graduate around 20,000. According to the researchers' estimates, native speakers add approximately

1,000 word families per year to their vocabulary size. Thus, for ESL learners, the gap between their vocabulary size

and that of NSs is usually very large because learners who have typically dedicated several years to L2 learning

have a vocabulary size of much less than 5,000 words. It is possible, however, as in the case of

educated non-native speakers, to achieve a significant growth in L2 vocabulary with persistent and consistent

effort.

INCIDENTAL LEARNING AND NOTICING

In general terms, two types of vocabulary and grammar learning have been identified in research: explicit

learning, which takes place through focused study, and incidental learning, when new vocabulary and grammar

structures arepicked up from exposure to and experience with language.

However, research has established that learners typically need at least 10 or 12 repeated exposures to a word over

time to learn it well. To further complicate matters, several studies of L2 learners concluded that the long-term

retention of words learned incidentally and through exposure in extensive reading can be particularly low. On the

whole, because L2 learning is determined by a number of complex factors, such as LI literacy and culture, personal

motivation and goals, as well as L1 and L2 similarities, the processes of L2 vocabulary and grammar learning have

not been clearly established. In all likelihood, an effective curriculum for L2 teaching relies on both explicit and

implicit learning and incorporates a balanced amount of focused study and opportunities for exposure to academic

language and text .

There is little doubt that for incidental learning of academic text features to occur, students have to have extensive

exposure to academic reading with repeated uses of words. Extensive reading can be carried out in and out of class,

but an important fact is that students need to be interested in the subject matter to sustain reading the material

that often requires them to work hard, concentrate, and memorize new vocabulary. In the days when most forms

of entertainment rely on visual media, such as TV, videos, and Internet, the number of learners who read for

pleasure has declined. As a result, a majority of readers, especially when they are reading in a L2, read for

information. Hence, to increase learners' motivation in extensive reading, the teacher may need to find out what

types of subject matter can be of particular use or interest to a specific group of students.

For instance, learners who plan to enroll as undergraduates in colleges and universities in English-speakingcountries are required to take courses in the disciplines that range from humanities to the sciences, and their

exposure to useful vocabulary can be flexible.

One of the crucial features of effective learning is noticing words and grammar structures, their uses and meanings,

and contexts in which they occur. To learn different meanings that words and constructions may have in different

contexts, learners need to pay attention to textual features as they read or write (e.g., in written academic text, the

modal verb mayrarely has the meaning of permission as is described in most grammar books, but usually has the

function of a hedging device). The greatest issue with noticing words and features is that, first, learners need to

know what specific text features they should notice and, second, what about these features requires attention.

Therefore, it is the teacher's job to guide learners and point out the important and necessary vocabulary and

grammar constructions and then discuss their uses and meanings in the academic text.


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Noticing forms of words and structures can take place while students listen and read, participate in activities, or

even look for synonyms. To notice uses, meanings, and functions of words and grammar constructions, learners

need to be aware of language as a complex system. For example, they need to be able to identify nouns, verbs,prepositions, and adverbs to notice that sometimes words or parts of words can have different syntactic properties

and, therefore, play different roles in sentences. Noticing and identifying the functions of words and structures is a

slow and laborious process that affects a student's reading speed and takes away some of the enjoyment of reading

because it removes attention from the context/messages to focus it on the component parts.

In many cases, preteaching texts at the appropriate level of difficulty (i.e., providing definitions of words that occur

in the text and explaining the text's purpose) can simplify the learner's tasks particularly when the prereading (or

prelistening) activities are followed by a discussion or another focused activity. In grammar learning, becoming

aware of how structures are used, combined with explicit teaching, can provide an additional benefit because

learners can notice structures that otherwise they may simply miss. When, guided by the teacher, learners are

engaged in conscious noticing and learning, explicit teaching of vocabulary and grammar plays a crucial role. For

instance, carefully selected thematic writing tasks that require learners to employ specific vocabulary items andgrammar structures in text production can lead to increased opportunities to revisit and practice the items learned

or noticed earlier. Learners can be engaged in varied tasks to promote vocabulary gains and retention, and

teachers can employ diverse attention-focusing techniques when designing classroom-teaching activities.

TEACHING L2 WRITERS TO EDIT THEIR TEXT

Editing one's own text and learning to identify mistakes is notoriously difficult even for advanced NNS academic

writers. Causes of errors can be numerous and may be an outcome of first-language transfer, incomplete

understanding of word meanings or syntactic rules, or casual mistakes. In addition, in different lexical and

grammatical contexts, seemingly similar types of errors can have a variety of causes (e.g., a lack of subject-verb

agreement can be an outcome of a writer's inability to identify correctly the subject noun phrase, a misconstrual of

a count for a noncount noun or vice versa or simply omitting the inflection marker -s with either a noun or verb).

Although similar types of errors can have numerous causes, it may not be particularly important to figure them out

simply because causes of learner problems with particular linguistic features can be highly numerous. However,

for academic writers, learning to identify and correct their own errors is essential. In composition and writing

instruction, peer editing is often employed with the stated learning goal of providing student writers a more

realistic audience than only the instructor, developing learners' editing skills, and establishing a social context for

writing. However, peer editing (also called peer response), as a technique for teaching writing, was originally

created for NS students who wrote in their L1 and were more socially and culturally open to the idea of reading

and responding to their classmates' writing than a majority of L2 writers socialized in collectivist cultures, which

place a great deal of emphasis on group harmony and cohesiveness and the importance of saving face.

Self-editing instruction can proceed in stages and be selective. The first step is to raise students' awareness of

ubiquitous and egregious errors and improve noticing skills. Editing exercises can begin with text/papers that are

not students' own and that contain limited and controlled types of errors.

At the outset, it is reasonable and manageable to begin self-editing work on four to six types of errors depending

on their complexity (e.g., countable and uncountable nouns, singular and plural noun choices, repetitious uses of

simple nouns present and past tenses, unmarked tense shifts, and stative verbs.

Error exercises of the first group of errors can be assigned as homework and followed up by an explicit in-class

analysis and discussion, either in small groups or as a whole class. Both research and experience have shown that

explanations of how particular structures can be used in context and typical errors that occur with these structures

may need to be persistent and even repetitive to be effective. Explanations of erroneous structures and their

correct uses contribute to overall instructional input in L2 learning.


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STEPS IN TEACHING SELF-EDITING SKILLS

1. In the first draft of the first assignment, the teacher should correct all errors of the selected types practiced in theexercises.

2. In the second (final) draft, the teacher highlights all remaining errors of these types and corrects many.

3. In the next assignment, the teacher should correct only some errors of these types in the first draft and underline

other errors of these same types, with explicit instructions that the student needs to correct the underlined

structures.

4. In the second (final) draft of the second assignment, the teacher should correct only the most complex

occurrences of these types of errors, and the responsibility for the rest needs to be shifted from the teacher to the

student.

5. It is vital, however, that the first group of error types not be abandoned when editing practice on the second

group of errors begins. Rather, students' awareness of and learning to correct errors of various types has to be

cumulative.

6. When practice exercises on the second group of errors begin, the teacher should not correct the errors from thefirst group (except in rare cases of complex constructions), but underline or highlight them in student writing as

they occur. Teacher corrections should be limited to the second group of error types (see Step 1).

7. When working on the third (or subsequent) assignment, the first group of errors should become fully a student's

responsibility, and the types of errors in editing exercises can be expanded to the next group of four to six types.

8. Again in the first piece of writing that takes place during the work on the second group of errors, the teacher

should correct all occurrences and highlight them in subsequent student writing (see Step 2), and then the cycle is

repeated. Throughout the course, it is very important that the teacher be consistent in correcting,

underlining/highlighting, and shifting the responsibility for editing errors to students. By the end of the course, it is

reasonable to expect students to notice and correct 20 to 40 common types of errors in their own writing- some

examples of the grouped error types, beginning with the most accessible.

The First Group of Error Types

Uncountable nouns (e.g., equipment, information, knowledge)

Irregular plural forms of nouns (focus on academic vocabulary

; e.g., criterion-criteria, phenomenon-phenomena,

medium-media, analysis-analyses, basis-bases, hypothesis-

hypotheses)

Quantifiers (e.g.,few/a few, little/a little), subject noun phrases withquantifiers and verb agreement (e.g., some/many books + plural verb

or some/much information + singular verb)

Subject noun + prepositional phrase and verb agreement (e.g., The

researcher with two assistants investigates ... vs. The researcher and two

assistants investigate0) ...

Compound noun phrases (e.g., a five-credit-hour university composition

course(s), a twenty-five-year-old student(s) vs. the student is

twenty-five years old)


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Subsequent Error Types Group

Word order in noun and adjective clauses (e.g., The authors state that

they know which way the wind is blowing; It is not clear whether the price

will rise; The lab where the research takes place is located in Jeddah}

Also, word order in how- noun clauses (e.g., The scientists described

how they identified the virus; The scale was used to measure how much

the minerals weighed)

Word order with adverbs of manner, time, and indefinite frequency

(e.g., Investors need to make decisions quickly; Usually, car mileage (usually)

depends on the size of its engine)

The placement ofeven and also (e.g., she was even/also elected, (also)

she also/even finished the book, ... was high also/even in the 1990s)

The placement and uses ofenough (e.g., high enough, enough

time/funds, enough of that/them, enough to complete the experiment; optional:

the placement and uses of almost, almost + enough, e.g. almost

+ enough time/funds; almost never, almost the same, almost finished/the

tallest, almost + every [+ noun])

Quantifiers with prepositional phrases (e.g., some/many/most managers

vs. some/many/most of the managers in the accounting department),

mostas an adverb (e.g., the stock price of dot-corns grew the most in 1999}

L2 writers may not be able to identify and correct all errors covered in the instruction no matter how much effort

and time during composition classes is devoted to the task. Teaching learners to edit their writing independently

does not have the goal of making their writing native-like, and it is crucial that both teachers and students set

realistic expectations of noticeable improvement in student writing, but not the elimination of errors. The goal of

the error awareness practice and self-editing training is to enable students to minimize the number and extent of

the most egregious types of errors in their texts. A key to effective and productive teaching of self-editing skills is to

hold students responsible for their errors just as they would be in real coursework.

LNGUAGE TEACHING METHODS: TASK-BASED LEARNING, PPP, AND CLIL

The common method to language teaching , and especially to grammar instructions, in our school is the PPP

though many teachers do not realize that. The PPP stands for Present Practice and Produce. Many language

textbooks follow this method where the teacher presents, the students practice with help of the teacher and

peers, and then they produce the language they practiced. This method works especially with grammar

instructions, but it is a rather teacher-centered one and its main focus is on form and not meaning.

Other innovative methods of teaching language is the task-based learning where students solve nonlinguistic

problems ( such as real world problems) that require them eventually to use linguistic features and skills. The

task-based focuses mainly on meaning and it is the teacher's responsibility to shift at the end of the task from

focus on meaning to focus on form in order to result in lingusitic noticing on part of students. The task-based

learning has its own textbooks or teachers can use their own creativity to design task-based activities. Again,


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teachers should shift the focus on meaning on the outset of the activity to focus on form for this method to result

in linguistic input and intake.

CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning. It refers to teaching subjects such as science, history

and geography to students through a foreign language. This can be by the English teacher using cross-curricular

content or the subject teacher using English as the language of instruction. Both methods result in thesimultaneous learning of content and English. The CLIL methodology is a new and innovative one that is now

gaining momentum around the world.

The CLIL Compendium list CLIL dimensions and focuses as:

1. The Culture Dimension

A. Build intercultural knowledge & understanding B. Develop intercultural communication skills C. Learn about specific neighbouring countries/regions and/or minority groups D. Introduce the wider cultural context

2. The Environment Dimension

A. Prepare forinternationalization B. Access International Certification C. Enhance school profile

3. The Language Dimension

A. Improve overall target language competence B. Develop oral communication skills C. Deepen awareness of both mother tongue and target language D. Develop plurilingual interests and attitudes E. Introduce a target language

4. The Content Dimension

A. Provide opportunities to study content through different perspectives B. Access subject-specific target language terminology C. Prepare for future studies and/or working life

5. The Learning Dimension

A. Complement individual learning strategies B. Diversify methods & forms of classroom practice C. Increase learner motivation

If you want to find out more on CLIL see Macmillan's OneSTopCLIL athttp://onestopclil.comand

http://www.clilcompendium.com/
http://onestopclil.com/http://onestopclil.com/http://onestopclil.com/http://www.clilcompendium.com/http://www.clilcompendium.com/http://www.clilcompendium.com/http://onestopclil.com/


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DATA-INFORMED RATHER THAN DATA-DRIVEN

One point is evident, which is also supported by the result of this study and current researches, that our language

teaching should be data-informed and not data-driven. This is to say that, our language teaching should beinformed by our students' product and analyzed to best suit their linguistic skills rather than based on

standardized tests such as the SAT and TOEFL that drives our language teaching. If teachers want to support

students for life-long learning and college life, they should inform their teachings based on the linguistic skills

that their students are lacking and to set reasonable targets for their students' linguistic outcome.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

As with most studies, this analytical study has some limitations. Some are listed below:

The study is quantitative and not qualitative as it relies solely on statistics and numbers. A morereasonable study would encompass both quantitative and qualitative data. This can be based on class

anecdotes, think-aloud protocols, evaluative forms, and questionnaires.

It is hoped that the study paves the way to more advanced and thorough research on L2 writing. More close inspections into student corpus to include whole paragraph features. Evaluation of writing textbooks can be also conducted on other levels such as textbook evaluation

checklist.

Documents

A Student Corpus Analysis: Implications for Teaching Writing and Evaluating