Ola Hashad

Abstract

The use of electronic corpora in recent years has been widely spreading among language educators, yet they are still at their initial stages of exploring key issues relating to this approach. One way to integrate corpora in language courses is through concordances, which Baker, Hardie, and McEnery (2006) define as “a list of all the occurrences of a particular search term in a corpus, presented within the context in which they occur, usually a few words to the left and right of search term” (p.42). Despite opposing and supporting arguments on the adaptation, there is a lack of evaluative research examining sufficiency and compliancy of learning through corpus-based activities, especially from intermediate students’ perspectives. In this respect, the study is divided into two parts. The first part is divided into two segments which on the one hand intends to introduce Arabic foreign language (AFL) learners to corpus analysis using arabiCorpus concordancer -this is expected to raise their awareness of how the language functions as well as enhance their spirit of inquiry- while on the other hand, the study also uses a quantitative-oriented approach to measure the effect of utilizing arabiCorpus concordancer on students’ usage and retention of Arabic discourse connectives (ADCs)in comparison to conventional learning techniques. In order to achieve successful results for this study, a repeated-measures design is utilized to collect numeric data using pre and post-writings analysis. The results of these analyses are given via a non-parametric Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test. The second part of the study aims at inspecting AFL learners’ perceptions and attitudes toward learning through arabiCorpus concordancer, throughout a qualitative-oriented approach that uses two instruments, a focus group and a Likert scale questionnaire. The results of the present study revealed that in a first instance both teaching techniques were successful, yet on another note the concordance surpassed the conventional in both usage and retention, on the short term. Furthermore, on the long term the usage and retention of both conventional and concordance techniques were similar. It was observed that the concordance technique had slightly excelled at that point. Finally, participants’ reported that they would continue to use arabiCorpus concordances, yet under certain restrictions.

Department

Applied Linguistics Department

Degree Name

MA in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language

Graduation Date

6-1-2015

Submission Date

May 2015

First Advisor

Aboelseoud, Dalal

Committee Member 1

Abdou, Ashraf

Committee Member 2

Soliman, Iman

Extent

150 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Library of Congress Subject Heading 1

Arabic language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers.

Library of Congress Subject Heading 2

Corpora (Linguistics)

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Approval has been obtained for this item

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