The effects of lexical input on L2 writing: a corpus-informed approach.

Huang, Zeping.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-132).Abstracts in English and Chinese; appendix two in English and Chinese.Acknowledgements --- p.iAbstract --- p.iiiAbstract (Chinese) --- p.vTable Of Contents --- p.viList of Tables --- p.ixList of Figures and Graphs --- p.xChapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1Chapter 1.1. --- Motivation --- p.1Chapter 1.1.2. --- The importance of language use in L2 writing --- p.1Chapter 1.1.2. --- The possibilities of integrating corpora into L2 writing instruction --- p.2Chapter 1.1.3. --- The need for corpus-informed approach --- p.2Chapter 1.2. --- Purpose of this study --- p.4Chapter 1.3. --- Research questions --- p.5Chapter 1.4. --- Overall research methods --- p.5Chapter 1.5. --- Significance of the study --- p.5Chapter 1.6. --- Organization of the thesis --- p.6Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.8Chapter 2.1. --- "Research on corpora and L2 writing...," --- p.8Chapter 2.1.1. --- Studies on corpus use from teachers' perspective --- p.9Chapter 2.1.2. --- Studies on students' direct use of corpus --- p.10Chapter 2.1.3. --- Empirical Studies on corpus and vocabulary learning --- p.17Chapter 2.2. --- Evaluations of the studies under review --- p.19Chapter 2.2.1. --- Evaluation of research on corpus-informed teaching materials development --- p.19Chapter 2.2.2. --- Evaluations of empirical research on students' direct use of corpus --- p.21Chapter 2.3. --- Call for further studies --- p.22Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- METHODOLOGY --- p.24Chapter 3.1. --- Participants --- p.24Chapter 3.2. --- Research Setting --- p.25Chapter 3.3. --- Materials --- p.25Chapter 3.3.1. --- Corpora used --- p.26Chapter 3.3.2. --- Selecting the target words --- p.28Chapter 3.3.3. --- Sifting the concordance lines --- p.29Chapter 3.3.4. --- Formulating the queries --- p.30Chapter 3.4. --- Research design --- p.32Chapter 3.4.1. --- Pretest --- p.33Chapter 3.4.2. --- Immediate posttest --- p.33Chapter 3.4.3. --- Delayed posttest --- p.34Chapter 3.5. --- Procedures --- p.35Chapter 3.6. --- Instruments --- p.37Chapter 3.6.1. --- Questionnaires --- p.37Chapter 3.6.2. --- Learning journals --- p.38Chapter 3.6.3. --- Uptake sheets --- p.38Chapter 3.7. --- Data collection and analysis --- p.38Chapter 3.7.1. --- Holistic scoring --- p.39Chapter 3.7.2. --- Analysis of the use of target words --- p.40Chapter 3.7.3. --- Questionnaire responses --- p.42Chapter 3.8. --- Chapter summary --- p.43Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- RESULTS --- p.44Chapter 4.1. --- Holistic scores --- p.44Chapter 4.2. --- Use of signaling nouns (SNs) --- p.46Chapter 4.2.1. --- Accuracy --- p.46Chapter 4.2.2. --- Complexity --- p.61Chapter 4.2.3. --- Retention of the target patterns --- p.73Chapter 4.3. --- Content Schemata nouns --- p.74Chapter 4.4. --- Evaluation of the concordance exercises --- p.75Chapter 4.4.1. --- Effects on vocabulary learning --- p.75Chapter 4.4.2. --- Effect on L2 writing --- p.78Chapter 4.4.3. --- Difficulties in doing the concordance exercises --- p.80Chapter 4.5. --- Chapter summary --- p.84Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- DISCUSSION --- p.85Chapter 5.1. --- Did the corpus-informed approach improve students' overall writing quality? --- p.85Chapter 5.1.1. --- Cut-off sentences --- p.87Chapter 5.1.2. --- Culture-loaded information in concordance lines --- p.88Chapter 5.2. --- Did the corpus-informed approach improve vocabulary use in students' writing? --- p.90Chapter 5.2.1. --- Interface of lexis and syntax --- p.91Chapter 5.2.2. --- Encouraging usage-based learning --- p.95Chapter 5.2.3. --- Raising learner awareness of collocation and colligation --- p.97Chapter 5.2.4. --- Retention of lexico-grammatical patterns --- p.98Chapter 5.3. --- Did students think that corpus-informed approach helped their writing? --- p.100Chapter 5.4. --- Towards a tentative model of corpus-informed writing instruction --- p.102Chapter 5.4.1. --- Preparing Materials --- p.104Chapter 5.4.2. --- During the exploration of a topic-specific corpus --- p.105Chapter 5.4.3. --- Follow-up activities after exploration of the topic-specific corpus --- p.106Chapter 5.5. --- Chapter summary --- p.108Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- CONCLUSION --- p.109Chapter 6.1. --- Summary of this study --- p.109Chapter 6.1.1. --- Enhancement of lexico-grammatical patterns --- p.109Chapter 6.1.2. --- Enhanced awareness of the importance of collocations --- p.111Chapter 6.1.3. --- Pivotal role of prior grammatical knowledge in corpus-informed learning --- p.111Chapter 6.1.4. --- Insignificant correlation between learning CSNs and ideas development --- p.113Chapter 6.2. --- Pedagogical implications --- p.113Chapter 6.2.1. --- Writing materials development --- p.114Chapter 6.2.2. --- Implementation of corpus-informed activities --- p.115Chapter 6.3. --- Limitations and suggestions --- p.117Chapter 6.3.1. --- A longer experimental time frame --- p.117Chapter 6.3.2. --- More lexical input --- p.118Chapter 6.3.3. --- More comparison groups --- p.118Chapter 6.3.4. --- Different proficiency levels --- p.119Chapter 6.3.5. --- Web-based concordances and more follow-up learning activities --- p.119Chapter 6.3.6. --- Case studies --- p.120Chapter 6.4. --- Closing remarks --- p.120Bibliography --- p.121Appendix One Questionnaire One --- p.133Appendix Two Questionnaire Two --- p.136Appendix Three Learning Journal --- p.139Appendix Four Pre-writing Vocabulary Study --- p.140Appendix Five Pretest Writing Task --- p.153Appendix Six Immediate Posttest Writing Task --- p.154Appendix Seven Delayed Posttest Writing Task --- p.15