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BhamM4 Corp Ling

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Angus's picture

Thanks.

Date: 
Thu, 04/09/2009 - 15
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Mark deBoer's picture

Mod 4

Sorry, I created a post asking what your mod 4 was... Corpus Linguistics? Good luck with that one. If you need any advice, any one to look at a first draft, let me know!

Cheers,

Mark

 

Angus's picture

Paper Topic

Hey - Either of you guys looked at the questions for this module? I'm thinking about CL/09/01 - do a corpus study of 2 - 5 words to show how they're used in similar or different ways. Just now thinking that I might look at 'maybe' and 'perhaps'. A non-native English speaker asked me about the difference recently. The question mentions choosing words that are interesting because of the challenges they present. I'm also thinking of starting the paper with a survey of some EFL students in order to highlight the challenges and subtleties of the words, e.g. asking students to choose between the words in different contexts or sentences.

Phil Brown's picture

Context

Hi Angus,

I did the same question for my Corp Ling paper (Mod 6, TEFL/TESL), which you can read in the Essay Bank if you haven't already. I was just wondering, what's your context (i.e. where you are working)?

Over the years in Japan, I've also noticed that students ask questions and confuse the use of 'perhaps' and 'probably'.  Interestingly, perhaps, recall my myself having the same problem as a child learning English as an L1. There may be a connect, or maybe not.  Which brings me to my second point - the confusion between the use of 'may be' and 'maybe', particularly in writing. Lastly, you might consider 'possibly'.

Just a note, however, the markers are generally more interested in depth rather than breadth of knowledge, analysis, understanding.

Angus's picture

Possibly

Great idea Phil - I thought about including 'possibly' recently. I hadn't considered the distinction between 'may be' and 'maybe', but it's certainly something to keep in mind. It'll at least need to be mentioned briefly to clarify the focus of the study. 'Probably' seems a bit outside the semantic field (as it were) that I'm looking at with 'perhaps', 'maybe' and 'possibly', but may merit a comment of some sort to clarify the study further. Thanks!

I'm teaching university students now.

Phil Brown's picture

Japanese EFL Learner Corpus

Hiya Angus,
Glad to be of some help. If you haven't already, you might find it interesting to look at a learner corpus, too. This isn't necessary to answer the assignment brief, but may well shed further light or lead to new insights.  I used the JEFLL corpus http://jefll.corpuscobo.net/ when I did my assignment since my learners are Japanese. However, in the case of 'probably' and 'maybe' there is no way to know if a misuse occured since they are often syntactically  substitutable for each other. This may therefore be an important point with regards to error recognition and the advantage of teacher familiarity with learners' L1.

 

Angus's picture

Starting up

Hi - just getting started with my studies for Mod 4. Set this group up as a trial for getting and giving focused support that will lead towards completing a solid assignment.

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