Running Head: PEDAGOGICAL CONTRIBUTION

A pedagogical contribution: Using corpus technology in an advanced academic reading and

writing classroom
Angela Sharpe
Colorado State University

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Introduction
This pedagogical contribution is the product of an intensive observation in an advanced
academic writing course. This contribution takes into account the objectives of the course, the
expected learning outcomes of the course (see Appendix A), and my observations compiled in an
extended report. The contribution is in the form of a webpage which enables it to be utilized in
any ESL context where presenting learners with authentic language would enhance inductive
learning opportunities. This contribution also demonstrates my familiarity with and ability to use
technology as a resource and tool for selecting, creating, and adapting materials for effective
ESL content teaching as outlined in standard 3.c. of the TESOL/NCATE Standards (2010, p. 52).

Statement of Problem
The content and material presented in this course focused on academic reading and
writing; specifically, the period in which I observed this class, students were introduced to the
target structures of reporting verbs and citation conventions in academic writing. Reporting
verbs present issues for ELLs because they require a firm grasp of the semantic, pragmatic, and
discourse community (i.e., audience) knowledge, while citation conventions represent a very
western practice in academic writing as well as a very western way of thinking about intellectual
property.
During the week of my observation, students were learning techniques for proper citation
and the appropriate language which introduces research support from another source into an
essay. Although the instructor of this course stressed the importance of distinguishing your
authorial stance from that of experts and previous research, it seemed as though students were

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very confused about conventions for citing others research as well as the importance to support
their ideas through other sources. Over the previous several weeks, the students were required to
read articles on a content theme which included this type of language. However, it seemed that
they had a hard time making a connection between what was exemplified in the articles to what
was required in their papers. The text, used in this course, presented students with the five
reporting verbs: show, reveal, indicate, confirm, suggest, and seek, however, there was little
detail to differentiate the semantic and pragmatic meanings and uses of these verbs in academic
writing. In this respect, I feel as though students may benefit from opportunities to meet these
words in context so that they may put into action the strategy of inferring meaning from context.
Therefore, I feel my pedagogical contribution demonstrates a simple method for instructors to
introduce students to both reporting verbs and citation conventions in authentic language.
Specifically, my pedagogical contribution introduces corpora as a tool and resource for
the EFL/ESL classroom, as well as details how a teacher could use the language in a corpus to
exemplify reporting verbs as they are used in authentic language. I describe and give examples
of concordancer software as means to parse specific authentic language. In particular, the
pedagogical contribution reviews how a teacher could pull concordance lines from the carrier
content, in this context, research articles focused on human behavior, in order to model the real
content in authentic language, that is reporting verbs and citation conventions. I propose using
concordance lines as a technique for task-based language teaching. The concordance lines could
also be scaffolded into a number of activities such as a gap filling activity, a graphic organizer, or
as a dictogloss. In this way, this pedagogical contribution is intended to showcase my ability to
use technology as a tool and resource in the ESL classroom, as well as to encourage teachers to
consider the benefits that authentic language can offer academic English learners.

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Theoretical or Methodological Foundation

The technique of intensive reading, can help to focus a learners attention on specific
language. This can be accomplished through a number of language-focused activities, especially
those which include meaning-focused input. Using concordance lines from materials used in
class can help raise consciousness to semantic, pragmatic, and grammatical features of target
language forms and structures, as well as to specific genre features. In this respect, concordance
lines could serve as a source of meaning-focused input that provide learners with the language,
organizational patterns, and genre features to help learners build fluency. These types of
language-focused activities can allow learners to transfer knowledge from the activities to their
own writing. In this way, concordance lines can be used as a means for improving both receptive
and productive knowledge and ability (Nation, 2009).
As an extensive reading activity, concordance lines, which are language-focused, can
help learners to develop proficiency through vocabulary growth. Nation (2009) suggests that
language-focused activities in an extensive reading program can help a learner with vocabulary
by making the learning deliberate and less incidental. An example of an activity, using extensive
reading while building reading and vocabulary skills, could be to have learners skim and scan
academic articles for target words in context. This type of activity could further raise
consciousness on the use of reference language in context, including the surrounding words and
the clauses in which this type of language frequently occurs. Also included in the pedagogical
contribution, are suggested activities from Reppen (2010) which are corpus-based and can be
adapted to include almost any target language or structure.

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Reflection
I take with me from this experience many thoughts on teaching higher level academic
writing to learners. I realize how important it is to teach students the fundamentals of writing so
that they can make connections between different genres of writing and ultimately will be more
successful in their adopted discourse community. In this way, teaching learners the fundamentals
of academic writing should be done both explicitly (i.e., by discussing audience, purpose, genre,
text type) and implicitly (i.e., by giving learners plenty of opportunities to become linguistic
detectives and induce patterns and conventions from authentic examples). Therefore, the
pedagogical contribution, in light of the perceived needs, offers teachers a resource and tool for
integrating authentic language into the classroom, as well as giving their students an opportunity
to use technology for learner-centered and meaning-focused inductive learning.

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References
INTO CSU (2014a). Syllabus for AEAD 8302 Advanced one academic reading/composition.
(Available from INTO Colorado State University, Spruce Hall, 150 Old Main Drive, Fort
Collins, CO 80523).
Nation, I.S.P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL reading and writing. New York: Routledge.
Reppen, R. (2010). Using corpora in the language classroom. New York: Cambridge.
Seal, B. (2012). Academic Encounters Level 4 Student's Book Reading and Writing: Human
Behavior. Cambridge University Press.
TESOL (2010). Standards for the recognition of initial TESOL programs in P-12 ESL teacher
education. Retrieved from: http://www.tesol.org/docs/books/the-revised-tesol-ncate
standards-for-the-recognition-of-initial-tesol-programs-in-p-12-esl-teacher-education
%282010-pdf%29.pdf?sfvrsn=2

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Appendix A
AD302 Advanced Reading & Writing

Goals
The goals of this class are to improve reading comprehension and fluency to an upper-advanced
level and write well-developed academic essays with outside support.
Objectives
In this class, learners will practice:
1. Reading multiple thematically-related academic articles for details and main ideas
2. The reading skills of prediction, skimming, and scanning
3. Writing academic summaries of readings
4. Restating main ideas and details from readings
5. Using contextual and morphological clues to guess meaning of new lexis
6. Reading multiple extensive texts and completing written assignments about them
7. Writing academic essays using accurately paraphrased and cited support from class
readings
8. Writing reference pages following a specific academic style
9. Making and utilizing individual vocabulary study tools to acquire shared vocabulary from
course readings and individual, learner-chosen Academic Word List vocabulary
Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, learners will be able to:
identify and comprehend main ideas in higher-level academic reading materials (as
measured by exams and practiced by objectives 1,2,3,4,5,6)
use vocabulary strategies to infer meaning and use new words correctly (as measured by
exams and practiced by objectives 1,5,6,7)
demonstrate increasing ability to write academic summaries of class reading materials (as
measured by exams and practiced by objectives 1,2,3,4)
demonstrate increasing ability to summarize and paraphrase information from in-class
and out-of-class readings to give support in essays (as measured by essay assignments
and exams and practiced by objectives 1,2,3,4,7)
demonstrate increasing ability to recognize and write all parts of expository and cause
and/or effect essays (as measured by essay assignments and exams and practiced by
objectives 1,4,7,8)
demonstrate an understanding of how and when to cite sources (as measured by essay
assignments and exams and practiced by objectives 1,3,4,7)
(INTO, 2014a)

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