Work with English corpora as a means of promoting learner autonomy

Abstract

Introduction. Learner autonomy and the ability to determine their own learning paths are becoming the crucial components of graduates' competitiveness. As Russian students at many higher educational institutions are often brought up in a teacher-oriented learning environment, they are often less adept at autonomous learning. Such skills are especially important nowadays as there tend to be fewer hours of classroom learning. This problem is further compounded by mother tongue interference which is as a rule undesired at advanced levels and also by difficulties of understanding and memorizing foreign language material. Therefore, this paper studies how English corpora and independent work may be used to enhance autonomy. The aim of the research was to describe the potential of English corpora - alongside other sources - to teach English as a foreign language, and furthermore, to analyse and determine the effects of this innovative approach on learner autonomy and language proficiency. Methodology and research methods. The research method involved at the pre-experiment stage was an extensive literature review of relevant studies. The basis for designing the abovementioned system of teaching techniques incorporated the methodology of corpus linguistics, systematization, analysis and consolidation of the best practices in this field of linguistics. The main tool of the pedagogical experiment whose aim was exploring the potential of corpus-based tasks to promote learner autonomy was the author's methodology of teaching English to university students. Results and scientific novelty. The author described a number of autonomy forming factors and the pedagogical principles underlying learner autonomy enhancement. A system of corpus-based tasks and activities in conjunction with tasks for intensive and extensive reading and listening for students' independent work was developed. The designed system was implemented in a five-month experiment which took place at the Institute of Foreign Languages, Ural State Pedagogical University (Yekaterinburg). The research findings based on the pre-experiment and post-experiment data comparison suggest that foreign language teaching is more effective with corpus tasks as they promote learner autonomy. The experimental group (n = 13) became better, i.e. more independent, learners, which indicates their enhanced autonomy, and consequently, a higher level of language proficiency was demonstrated. Thus, corpus-driven language learning coupled with traditional forms of independent work contributes to students' motivation and sufficient academic progress. Practical significance. The obtained results may provide valuable insights which could be beneficial for foreign language teachers at any educational level. The findings of the study can be used as a framework for further theoretical and empirical research into the effect of the corpus-based approach as well as other forms of independent and classroom learning on enhancing learner autonomy. Another novel contribution of the paper is using the GloWbE corpus that is still relatively unknown in Russia for designing tasks. © 2018 Russian State Vocational Pedagogical University. All Rights Reserved.