4.2 Posttest
4.2.2 Questionnaire results: Learners’ Perceptions
4.2.2.1 Learners’ attitude: DDL Learning Value
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Based on the results of within-group comparison or between-groups, it showed that data-driven learning is a more ideal scaffolding teaching methodology to cultivate EFL learners’ knowledge of vocabulary knowledge of near-synonyms. The present study provides a valid proof in agreement with the fact that “data-driven learning enhanced participants’ second language vocabulary acquisition.”
4.2.2 Questionnaire results: Learners’ Perceptions
The participants were surveyed with the feedback questionnaire at the end of the experimental teaching. Questionnaires were administrated for the purpose of answering the third research question. There are totally 43 participants in the experimental group. However, there were four invalid questionnaires where 10% or more of the items are left blank. There were 39 valid questionnaires returned. Their results will be discussed in the following section. The options SA ‘strongly agree’ and A ‘agree’ belongs to positive attitude, whereas SD ‘strongly disagree’ and D ‘disagree’
refers to negative attitude in this study.
Learners’ attitude can be divided into three factors in this study. The first factor is ‘learners’ attitude toward DDL’ which based on their affective and cognitive reactions. The second factor is ‘what corpus-based instructional activities facilitate language learning’. The third factor wants to know how learners feel toward teachers’
teaching. The data was statistically analyzed and presented in three parts to answer the third research question.
4.2.2.1 Learners’ attitude: DDL Learning Value
Factor 1 is to measure learners’ reactions on their cognitive and affective perceptions toward data-driven learning. The results of the questionnaire were shown in Table 4.5. Question 2,4,5,6,8, and 9 are concerned with the participants’ cognitive
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reactions; Question 1,3,7,10,11,12, and 13 are about the affective reactions.
Items 1 to 13 focused on the participants’ general views towards data-driven learning approach. Most of the participants agreed that they like to learn English by using the computer technology in class (86.7%). Over seventy percent (71.8%) of students agreed that activities through computer technology can help them in English learning. 53.4% of participants felt that using corpus-based paper-printed
concordances to learn vocabulary can enhance their interests. Tribble and Jones (1990) claimed that concordance lines can accelerate learners’ motivation. The source of material for exercise is retrieved from real life spoken or written data rather than contrived by teachers increases motivation, “as it gives learners immediate contact with the target language in use (Tribble & Jones, 1990:36).” However, in this study, although the result in item 3 was positive, some of low achievers disagreed with the fact that data-driven approach increased their motivation. During the interview, the low achievers claimed that they did not have a lot of vocabulary knowledge so that they felt pressured when they did the activity in class. Because of lacking confidence in learning English, the majority of low achievers are passive learners who have low autonomy. The more intrinsic motivated and autonomy a student is, the more they will recognize the relevance and usage of whatever methods, materials, and
approaches a teacher uses to their development as a language learner (Deci & Flaste, 1995; Allen, 2012). Hence, this result was opposed to the Tribble and Jones’s (1990) research.
In addition, in this part of questionnaire of the current study, 87.1% of
participants stated that they will avoid certain errors of vocabulary usage in the future after using the corpora. Concordance lines provide an important corrective to the portrayal of English books, which is sometimes inaccurate (Lewis, 1993; Mindt, 1997;
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Fox, 1998) or based on writer’s intuitions (Tomlinson, 1998). Cognitively speaking, the result revealed that participants can be aware of the importance of using corpus to learn English vocabulary.
Based on the data-driven approach, 53.8% of the participants thought they became more focused in class because they had to focus on observation and analysis of the data. Willis (1998) stated that once participants’ attention has been drawn to the meanings, uses and functions of the target language, learners are more likely to notice and reflect on ‘further occurrences of the language items that have been salient through the concordances (p.73).’ Such positive feedback on data-driven learning value was similar to various researchers such as Koosha & Jafarpour (2006); Alex (2009); Ewa (2011); Serkan (2011) and local studies by Sun &Wang (2003); Chan &
Liou (2005); Yeh, Liou & Li (2007).
Due to the data observation and analysis in each week, 71.8% participants felt using corpus-based paper-printed concordances to learn vocabulary can promote their language awareness and decoding ability. One possible reason is that learners who learn words from manual concordance lines not only know what the basic usages of each word, but also begin to see how naturally occurring English is utilized outside the classroom. Manual concordance lines foster critical awareness and provide an accessible way to analyze and keep track of the language information harnessed through their usage (Allen, 2012). Similarly, Willis’ study (1998) claimed that data-driven learning helps learners recognize the parts playing collocation lexical phrases and realize there is more to language than just vocabulary and grammar.
Kennedy’s study (2003) held the same view. He pointed out that the second vocabulary acquisition process depends on the consciousness raising and learners should be exposed to authentic language materials as much as possible. Fox (1998)
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also asserted that students are encouraged to develop further analytical skills by analyzing data in data-driven learning. In addition, 76.9% participants thought that data- driven learning approach enhanced their memory. It might be because they analyzed and decoded words’ meanings by themselves in class. This is in complete agreement with Cobb (1999) and Boulton’s (2009) results. They claimed that learners learning language through corpus-based concordance lines have better retention than through traditional methodology.
However, only 33.3% of the participants thought corpus-based paper-printed concordance was suitable for them, only 46.2% of the participants thought they can get higher grades in the test and only 33.3% of the learners felt a sense of
achievement learning English vocabulary through data-driven learning approach.
Thomlinson (1998) cautions instructors against assuming all the students are ‘ready and willing’ to learn any particular presentations the teacher demonstrate in class.
Each learner is in charge of their individual classroom experience and thus the teachers “never completely control what the learner does (Tomlinson, 1998:12).”
When college teachers want to use a new approach or activities in classroom, they should be mentally prepared that the learners might react negatively at first because they need time to get accustomed to the new methodology. This result is similar to Willis’ (2003) assertion, he elaborated the idea that some students will never be receptive to the use of concordance lines, or any other approach to presenting the language. He tried to persuade teachers not to be disappointed when facing this situation. What the teachers teach is often not learned and what learners do often wasn’t taught.
Items 11 and 12 were negative statements, in which 76.9% of the learners reported that using data-driven learning to learn English vocabulary was wasting time.
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Almost half of the learners (48.7%) felt anxious when they did the vocabulary exercise in class. In participants’ general feelings, only 35.9% of the learners feel satisfied with the experience of learning English vocabulary in a corpus-based learning environment. The possible reason could be that it was the first time for learners to use this approach because teachers had never used concordance in the classroom. The main problem might be that the teachers have not heard of
concordance lines, so they do not know what they are, or they have heard them but do not properly understand what they are. As the same standpoint in Kilgarriff’s (2009) study, he claimed that “Most English language teachers have not used them, and may not even have heard of them. This is probably true at the university level and certainly true at the high school level (p. 40).”
Overall, learners’ attitude toward the data-driven learning approach showed positive. In affective aspect, they liked to use computer technology to learn English (M=2.87, SD= .73), thinking that computer technology can help them in learning English (M= 2.85, SD= .63). In cognitive aspect, through the data-driven approach, learners considered it not only enhanced their interests (M= 2.56, SD=.75), memory (M=2.95, SD=0.65) and concentration (M= 2.47, SD=0.64) in learning English, but also increased their decoding ability (M= 2.77, SD= 0.63) and help them to avoid certain errors in the future (M=3.05, SD=0.56). However, the minority of the learners thought that they can get high grades through data-driven learning (M= 2.51, SD=.68), having a sense of achievement (M= 2.26, SD=.59) when they learn English
vocabulary through data-driven learning. The anxiety level was reportedly higher (M=2.51, SD=.64) in the data-driven classroom. Besides, seldom of the participants thought data-driven approach was not suitable for them (M= 2.26, SD=.60) and it wasted time (M= 2.87, SD= .8). In general, only 35% of the participants would like to
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take this approach to learn English vocabulary (M= 2.64, SD= .67).
Table 4.5 Results of Learners’ attitude on Data-driven learning Value (N=39) Factor 1: learners’ attitude toward DDL Numabers of participant and frequency of
responses M SD
No. Item Description SA A D SD
1 I like to learn English with the use of computer technology in English class.
13
2 I think activities through computer technology can help me in learning English.
3 I think using corpus-based paper-printed concordances to learn vocabulary can enhance my interest in learning English.
4 avoid certain errors of vocabulary usage in the future.
7 learn English vocabulary through data-driven learning.
6 Through data-driven learning approach, I think I can get higher grades in the test. learn English vocabulary through data-driven learning approach.
0 13
8 I think using corpus-based paper-printed concordances to learn
vocabulary promotes my language awareness and decoding ability。
3
9 I think vocabulary exercises through corpus-based paper-printed concordance
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enhance my memory for English vocabulary.
10 I think learning vocabulary with the use of corpus-based paper-printed
concordance is suitable for me.
0 13
11 I think using corpus-based
paper-printed concordances to learn vocabulary in English class waste time.
7
12 I feel anxious when I learn vocabulary through data-driven learning approach.
2
13 In general, I feel satisfied with the experience of learning English vocabulary in a corpus-based learning environment. In that, I like the way