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Richard Nickalls EISU, University of Birmingham r.nickalls@bham.ac.uk

‘The use of an error-tagged learner corpus to investigate L1 Mandarin learners’ English article use interlanguage before and after explicit grammar teaching’. Richard Nickalls EISU, University of Birmingham r.nickalls@bham.ac.uk. Introduction. The /a/Ø. Research questions.

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Richard Nickalls EISU, University of Birmingham r.nickalls@bham.ac.uk

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  1. ‘The use of an error-tagged learner corpus to investigate L1 Mandarin learners’ English article use interlanguage before and after explicit grammar teaching’ Richard Nickalls EISU, University of Birmingham r.nickalls@bham.ac.uk CL2011. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  2. Introduction The/a/Ø Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  3. Research questions • Which articles are most difficult for L2 English learners? • What affects the learners’ use of articles? Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  4. Participants/data • 30 Mandarin speakers in 4 classes during a summer presessional course • 8 high B2 (Upper-Intermediate) • 8 mid range B2 (Upper-Intermediate) • 9 lower end B2 (Upper-Intermediate) • 5 B1 (Intermediate) level students • 5 Teachers Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  5. The data Short essays: week 1, week 8 and week 14 of the 15 week presessional. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  6. Corpora • Total student corpus: 40,100 words • Teacher corpus (n=5): 2,000 words Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  7. Noun phrase extraction by Oliver Mason (UoB). ## For example, The United Kingdom and Poland both belong to EU; however, the consumers are totally different . The_DTUnited_JJKingdom_NN Poland_NP EU_NP the_DTconsumers_NNS Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  8. Manual tagging ## For example, The United Kingdom and Poland both belong to ^EU; however, the consumers are totally different . <5DA> The_DTUnited_JJKingdom_NN <5ZA> Poland_NP <5GADA> EU_NP <2DAv> the_DTconsumers_NNS Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  9. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  10. Findings Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  11. Findings Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  12. Findings Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  13. Findings: the order of difficulty Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  14. An example of how two researchers might tag differently [M_1092372-Group_4-essay_1] ##Some managers use motivation theories. Other managers think the motivation theories are ineffective. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  15. ‘Marked’ use • The companies can evaluate and analyze every different practical opportunity from the market segmentations… [M108634] However, although two researchers always agree on underuse, overuse is more difficult to agree . I say it’s ‘overuse of anaphoric’ – but how do I know? Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  16. Underuse of THE More reliable findings Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  17. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

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  20. Is students’ ‘Target Like Use’ of articles related to their general writing ability? There was a significant (positive) relationship of .47 between the entry test writing grade and Target like use of THE in the 1st essay among the 30 participants. **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  21. Summary of main findings 1. Which articles are most difficult for Chinese L1 learners? 2. What affects the learners’ use of articles? Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  22. References Berry, R. (1991) Re-articulating the article. ELT Journal, 45: (3): 252 259. Bickerton, D. (1981) Roots of language. Repr. 1985.Ann Arbor, Mich.: Karoma. Diez-Bedmar, M.B. and Papp, S. (2008) "The use of the English Article System by Chinese and Spanish learners". In Gilquin, G.;Papp, S. & Diez-Bedmar, M.B. (Eds.) Linking up Contrastive and Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam, Atlanta, Rodipi 147-175. Huebner, T. (1983) Longitudinal analysis of the acquisition of English. Ann Arbor: KaromaPubr. Liu, D. and Gleason, J. (2002) Acqusition of the Article by nonnative speakers of English Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24: (1): 1-26. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  23. Master, P. (1990) Teaching the English Articles as a binary system. Tesol Quarterly, 24: (3): 461-478. Master, P. (1995) "Consciousness raising and article pedagogy ". In Belcher, D. & Braine, G. (Eds.) Academic Writing in a Second Language: Essays on Research and Pedagogy. Norwood, N.J., Ablex Publishing Co. 183-204. Master, P. (1997) The English Article System: Acquisition, Function and Pedagogy. System, 25: (2): 215-232. Quirk, R. and Crystal, D. (1985) A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  24. Q & A Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  25. Summary of main findings 1. Which articles are most difficult for Chinese L1 learners? • The ‘order of difficulty’: unclear – replication difficult!!! • Marked by overuse of the , often through marked use of anaphoric reference • Learners underused generic context definite articles (as previous research suggests) -and this underuse became worse after teaching • Learners underused the definite article in conventional uses, but improved use after explicit grammar teaching Contrarty to (Liu and Gleason ,2002) 2. What affects the learners’ use of articles? • Level of English proficiency • Master (1987; 1990; 1995); Liu and Gleason (2002 • Effective teaching/attention upon articles? • (Master, 1994, 1995) but temporary….just attention? • No…Pica (1983) did not use more Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  26. Appendix Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  27. Misuse of Anaphoric reference (an essay about retailing and loyalty cards) Companies want them to promote $the loyalty. [M_1035310-2_wk14] Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  28. ‘Marked’ use • The companies can evaluate and analyze every different practical opportunity from the market segmentations, then choose target segments . [M108634] Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  29. Bickerton/Huebner’s framework Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  30. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  31. Examples of THE overuse Anaphoric reference: Example. • Misuse • Marked use (overuse compared to L1 teachers) Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  32. Misuse of Anaphoric reference (an essay about retailing and loyalty cards) More specifically, companies could hold a party every year especially for VIP consumers who buy a great deal of products of the companies or some other reward for them to promote $the loyalty . [M_1081815_2_wk14] Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  33. Sometimes not ‘wrong’ but very ‘marked’ when they should be making generalisations • $The firms can focus on the strategic target or use a different targeting strategy to make significant profits from these customers . [M1086343] • $the companies can evaluate and analyze every different practical opportunity from the market segmentations, then choose target segments . [M108634] Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  34. Underuse of A/AN Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  35. Examples Underuse of a/an in Generic [type 1] contexts [M_1040480-4-LE1] ‘Business Dictionary.com, (2010) defines organisational structure as ^ “Formal and informal framework of policies and rules, within which an organization arranges ……’ Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  36. Patterns found through concordancing Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  37. Cataphoric use • Behind these words may lie the notion of the consequences of failure [Teacher_4] • Behind these <6OD> words may lie <2DAi> the notion of <2DAi> the consequences of <4ZA> failure • Anaphoric reference • Immediate reference • Logical • Unique reference Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  38. Cataphoric use • Anaphoric reference • Again, the results are dire. [Teacher_3] • Immediate reference • Logical • Unique reference Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  39. Cataphoric use • Anaphoric reference • Immediate reference • too much fear is never helpful, while the type of organisation and <2DAv> the industrial relations within it……. [Teacher_1] • Logical • Unique reference Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  40. Cataphoric use • Anaphoric reference • Immediate reference • Logical • enough to dissuade all but <2DAii> the most courageous dissenters from refusing to comply [Teacher_3] • Unique reference Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  41. Cataphoric use • Anaphoric reference • Immediate reference • Logical • Unique reference • There are many new fears in the modern world [Teacher_5] Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  42. The conventional use of articles The USA, the UK/ England on the one hand/ in conclusion In the future, in the 20th century Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  43. Bickerton’s ‘semantic framework’ adapted for use by Heubner (1983); Thomas (1989); Goto Butler (2002); Fen-Chuan (2001); Ekiert (2004), Diez-Bedmar & Papp (2008) Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  44. The definite article in Bickerton’s framework Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  45. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  46. Quantitative measure: Target Like Use (TLU) • In order to factor in the inflated scores of accurate use when learners overuse an article. • (Pica, 1983): TLU= number of correct suppliances in obligatory contexts (number of obligatory contexts) + (number of suppliances in non-obligatory contexts)

  47. Corpora • Total student corpus: 40,100 words • Teacher corpus (n=5): 2,000 words • 70 essays in longitudinal research, 78 essays in full 40,100 words corpus. • Essays were 500 (+/- 50 words) words long • 40,100 words included Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  48. 70 essays (not 8 from essay 3 ctl) Richard Nickalls, EISU.

  49. Richard Nickalls, EISU.

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