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Corpus
of
Contemporary
American
English
(http://corpus2.byu.edu/coca/), containing about 385 mln words. There are two
extremes in using COCA: Despite the multitude of examples of single frequent words
usage (e.g., the number of tokens in COCA is 2048 for
turbine
and 175604 for
head)
there are no examples of the two-word terms from the specialist field (e.g.
turbine head
which is the difference between the static head and the losses through the installation)
(Almazova & Kogan, 2014). We think that search for collocations based on
part-of-
speech
feature could result in fruitful discussions. Students can experiment with the
syntax of the query. If they are given the task “to find typical collocations of the noun
results
with adjectives and verbs”, the results will differ depending on the query formula.
For example, if the query is a one string expression in
word(s)
slot looking like this
[v*]
[j*] results
, where [v*] stands for any verb and [j*] stands for any adjective preceding
results
in COCA examples they will receive the table with the most frequent
expression FOUND SIMILAR RESULTS (53) on the top. A slight change of the query with
the definite article
the
inserted before an adjective will change the picture dramatically.
The most frequent phrase this time is NARROW THE CURRENT RESULTS (286). If the
query is formed using 2 slots:
word(s)
and
collocates
with
[j*] results
expression in the
former and
[v*]
–
in the latter with a default setting within the range of 4 words on the
left and 4 words on the right they will see a new expression with SET on the top having
the stunning frequency 1483. If the query is constrained by Academic genre only
expressions with set disappear from the list at all, which means that this collocation is
not used in scientific publications.
Further analysis of the verb list will reveal a lot of interesting points about well-known
words. The students can be asked to make up a list of adjectives (from concordance
examples) preceding
results
, which authors prefer to use with that or this verb from the
list. For a different verb, e.g.
yield
and
obtain
the lists will be different. The discussion at
this point can not only be focused on the differences in lists of
adj+results
collocations
but in answering the question: “Which adjectives would you use to describe the results of
the latest laboratory experiment (
satisfactory, useful, valid, certain
, etc), results obtained
by researchers in your field (
similar, conflicting, significant, promising, unexpected,
etc.),
the results you hope to get working on your master thesis (
statistically significant, valid
and reliable, meaningful, unanticipated
, etc.)?” Such gradual introduction of this complex
and comprehensive linguistic resource will hopefully allow students to develop a steady
interest in the resource and the wish to use it in future, meanwhile shaping their
communicative skills through the discussion of their findings.
The above examples of CALL tasks were used in various ESP courses in different
academic groups. Each time our motivation for including them resulted from different
circumstances: lack of communicative tasks in the textbook for Complex Safety students
could be compensated by preparation to playing Stop disasters! computer game and
discussion of the results; complex lexical items in the accounting textbook led us to the
integration of the use-proven word game approach adapted for the digital age; repetitive
student mistakes in collocations of frequent words (
obtain
vs
receive
results) made us
take the challenge of adopting DDL approach.
As a conclusion, we should say our attempt to exemplify alternative approach
principle drawing on our teaching practice in postgraduate groups of linguists and
technically oriented students is valid. Our observation on foreign language learning
process is to be continued, and further examples of the relevant CALL-tasks are to be
found in order to improve higher education teaching methodology aimed at developing
professionally-oriented communication among learners. The latter is, in our opinion, a
significant asset for our graduates to become successful communicators in the future.
-207-
2014 CALL Conference
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be
Knowledge of computer-assisted foreign language learning possibilities will definitely
stimulate postgraduates in their scientific search and improve their career opportunities.
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