ENG24-25 Learner Corpus Research and Language Teaching

Format

The course consists of weekly 2-hour interactive seminar sessions. During these sessions the reading materials are discussed and student presentations about so-called ‘learner corpus case studies’ will be scheduled. One of the sessions is devoted to a hands-on workshop on working with learner corpus tools.

Exam

Paper research proposal 100%

The final assignment for the course is a research propsal (2000 to 3000 words in  length) where a study is proposed based on a solid theoretical background rooted in learner corpus research. Those students who take the course for 6 rather than 5 ECTS may opt to add either a small empirical element to their research proposal or develop teaching materials based on learner corpora.

Presentation

Although the research proposal is the sole mark for this course, the course does also see student presentations where different so-called case studies (that is, research papers reporting empirical work done on the basis of learner corpora relevant for that week’s topic). Although not formally assessed, the presentations are mandatory. Presentations can be done in pairs or by a single student.

Study load

5EC (= 140 hours)

Seminars: 14 hrs

Literature study (approx. 10 pages/hour): 80 hrs

Assignments and presentation: 6 hrs

Term paper: 40 hrs

VU/UvA:

Students who need 6 ECTS may elect to do an extra assignment. This must be determined with your lecturer in week 1. Please see the assessment above for more details as to the type of format that this additional assignment could have.

Literature 

Course readings consist of (open access) papers, most of which are made available through the Moodle environment of the course.