Discourse Versus Corpus Analysis in Materials Design: A Case Study

Page No.: 
9
Writer(s): 
Michael Guest, University of Miyazaki

 

In this paper I argue that a discourse analysis approach may be preferable when applying corpus data to the development of teaching materials. This argument is based on a combination of my research and subsequent classroom experience. Having initially taken a corpus analysis (CA) approach to nursing English speech data collected from 3 Asia-based hospitals, and applying some of the findings directly to nursing English classroom materials, I noted that student responses to these initial corpus-based materials were not positive. Subsequently, the materials were drastically revised using a discourse-analysis (DA) approach, that is, by first establishing and utilizing wider categories of discourse to provide meaningful frames for the content applied to the materials. The resultant student response to the revised materials was much more positive. This experience suggests that when applying authentic data for the purpose of developing EFL classroom materials, a DA-based approach may be more effective.

本論文は、教材開発にコーパスデータを応用した場合に、ディスコース分析が適当か否かについて論じたものである。論文著者の研究およびその後の授業体験に基づいて議論を進める。看護英語領域データとして、アジア圏の3箇所から収集した会話データをコーパス分析し、そこから得た知見をそのまま看護英語教育への応用を試みた。しかし、コーパスを基本とした教材に学生は肯定的な反応を見せなかったため、ディスコース分析アプローチを用いて大幅に教材を変更したところ、学生のモチベーション並びに成績の両方で劇的な改善が見られた。

 
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