Foreign language text revision

within a top-down and

bottom-up framework.

Taking keywords in context

as a starting-point
for language observation.

Eva Schaeffer-Lacroix

University of Paris 3 &

Lycée du Parc de Vilgénis, Massy (France)
 CONTENT OF THE TALK
 Theoretical background
 Choice of resources and tools

 Research questions

 Research setting

 Task set

 Writing process and proposed activities

 How French learners of German talk about concordances

and what they do with them
 Case study: Olivia

 Results
2
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

 Writing, an intertextual activity

(Bronckart (1997: 111)

 Idea of proliferation
The language offers a lot of ways to say something. It could
be useful to give learners access to a large choice of possible
variations.
(Culioli (2002: 143)

 Information retrieval, a cognitive activity

The large quantity of information must be reduced if you
want to exploit it for a specific task. 3
(Chanquoy, Tricot et Sweller (2007: 35)
CHOICE OF RESOURCES AND TOOLS
Why use genre-based corpora as writing aids?
 They offer meaningful contexts.

 They offer a certain choice of formulations in

similar contexts.
(Three home-made small genre corpora)

Why use concordancers?

 Concordancers help to reduce the text quantity,
depending on specific revision needs.
(Text-Concordancer (v2); Sketch Engine; AntConc)
4
WHAT IS A CORPUS?

portal

tool data bank service

dictionary data
translator corpus archive
base
document
document A document C
B
text B1 text B2 text B3

Corpus model inspired by DeReKo (Deutsches ReferenzKorpus)

IDS (Institut für Deutsche Sprache) Mannheim 5
WHAT DOES A CONCORDANCER DO?
Es hat uns außerordentlich gefallen ; wirklich schön gemacht
hat unserer Familie sehr gefallen .
uns hat es sehr gefallen , vor allem das Verkleiden
Mir hat die Musik gefallen (Charlotte, 6 Jahre).
Mir gefällt das Museum wirklich gut

Keyword "gefallen" [like], combined with the query "pronoun".

Sketch Engine’s Concordancer (Kilgarriff et al., nd).
BootCat corpus “Guestbook"

Other concordancers:
AntConc (Anthony), 2007)
Lexico3 (Fleury, Lamalle, Martinez & Salem, 2003)
Text-Concordancer (v2) (Cobb, nd)
6
SKETCH ENGINE (KILGARRIFF & CO.)

7
TEXT CONCORDANCER V2 (COBB)

8
 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What happens if you ask 14-15 year old French
learners of German (level A2/B1) to exploit
concordance lines based on genre corpora during text
revision sessions?

 How do learners talk about concordance lines?

 What do they do with keywords in context?

 What effects on the revision methods can be observed?

 What effects on the learners’ texts can be observed?

 What learning outcomes can be obtained?

9
EXPECTED RESULTS
 Taking concordance line keywords as a starting
point can lead to new reading and writing habits.
This method fosters the capacity for information
selection.

 If learners exploit concordance lines as

intertexts, they are able to write texts which
resemble expert texts sufficiently.

 Genre-based corpora complete (or even replace)

the teacher’s information about the quality of the
learners’ texts. This fosters the learners’ 10
autonomy.
RESEARCH AT WANDA LANDOWSKA HIGH SCHOOL
Participants:
16 French speaking students
Age: 14-15
German as a foreign language
4th year of L2

Writing projects:
o Filmkritik - Film reviews
o Projekt Prospekt
Three German texts resembling those published on tourism websites
33 sessions (regular German class)
o Brieffreunde.org – Pen pal ads

Resources, tools and machines:

Three small home-made corpora
Text concordancer (V2) and Sketch Engine 11
Computer room with Internet access (16 computers)
Classroom with 1 computer linked to a beamer
PEDAGOGICAL BACKGROUND
Top
down

Knowledge of genre, discours, and linguistic

features

Pedagogical tasks: three tourism texts

External data (genre corpora, concordance lines file) Bottom

up

Inspired by Norman & Rumelhart, 1975

12
 PROJEKT PROSPEKT - TASK SET

1. Visiting information 3. Online guestbook comment

2. Guided tour for young people

13
WRITING PROCESS
(HAYES & FLOWER, 1980)

 Planning
Recognize the rhetorical structure of the text genre.
Identify typical chunks.

 Formulate
Write the first draft.
Integrate identified rhetorical parts and chunks.

14
WRITING PROCESS
 Review
The teacher highlights the text parts which
need revision.
She gives hints how to review the text (mainly
information about useful search words).
She encourages the student to find a solution by
comparing the draft to expert texts.

 Edit
The layout was under the responsibility of the
technology teacher. The students were 15

encouraged to print a tourism leaflet.

NEW READING DIRECTIONS

Erwachsene: 5,00 €€KINDER (ab 3 Jahre): 3,50 €

Speziell für KINDER: Spielplatz

Behinderte / KLEINKINDER: ebenerdig, aber Naturwege

Visiting information corpus 16

 READING FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM
Vicky (Film review project)

To review: *Klarinette Spielerin. Result: Klarinettenspielerin.

ein Pflichtfilm für jeden der KLARINETTE spielt.

und sich in den Klang der KLARINETTE verliebt.
Nun spielt sie KLARINETTE, entwickelt Talent und bricht aus.
bin ich durch diesen Film zum KLARINETTE spielen gekommen
ihre Tante in Berlin die auch KLARINETTE spielt, lernt selbst das Spielen
Augenblicke anrührende KLARINETTEN-MUSIK
Ich mag KLARINETTENMUSIK sehr
Wer Fan von dem KLARINETTISTEN Giora Feidman ist

17
 OLIVIA’S VISITING INFORMATION

Playmobil Funpark , ist 25.12 , 01.01, 01.05 geschlossen. (geschlossen)

24.12 und 31.12 , Schlieβung von 16.00 . (Schließung)

Montags 22 , 23 , 24 marz 2008 (März)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The teacher’s comment:

Olivia,
review the highlighted parts with the help of concordance lines. You
will find keywords (in brackets) which you can use for your queries.
Observe what is written on the left and at right side of these keywords.
Copy the text parts which suit your text.
18
OLIVIA RESISTS
Logbook, March 17th
Olivia doesn’t see why she should use concordance lines
when writing in German. The concordance seems to
discourage her ("That’s too time consuming"). She would
prefer to do queries with search engines or by consulting
leisure park homepages. She told me that she found it
difficult to formulate things like "counter closed at x
o’clock". Indeed, which keyword could I advise her in this
case?

19
"VISITING INFORMATION" CORPUS
Öffnungszeiten
Sommer (März bis Oktober) 9 – 18:30 Uhr (letzter Einlaß 18 Uhr)
[Opening times
Summer (March to October) 9am – 6:30pm (last entry at 6pm)]

Öffnungszeiten
Kasse täglich von 9 Uhr bis mindestens 17 Uhr (…).
Besucher können so lange bleiben, wie sie möchten, und auch später
kommen, das Eingangstor steht nach Kassenschluss offen.
[Opening Times
Counter open daily from 9am to at least 5pm (…).
Visitors can stay as long as they wish and even come later,
the gate remains open after the counter is closed.]
20
TOP DOWN MEETS BOTTOM UP
Logbook, May 6th
This morning, I bumped into Olivia. She told me that she had
just spent some days in Germany and that she had discovered a
variant for the word "Öffnungszeiten" [opening times]: she had
spotted the formulation "geöffnet von…" [open from…], and she
wanted to know if it is possible to say that in the "Visiting
information" part. I am happy to see that Olivia linked what she
encountered in the classroom to what she observed outside of it.

Film review project

Diesmal haben alle 2* Rezensenten Recht!,
24/01/08 von Olivia und Géraldine

Original title: 21
Diesmal haben alle 5* Rezensenten Recht!, 26. Juni 2006
OLIVIA’S TROUBLE WITH THE REVISION METHOD

E-Mail posted April 16th by Olivia

Je crois , je dis bien je crois , que ça commence à
être ça ... peut etre que par miracle , j' ai même
tout bon .... Je m' attaque quand même au
second sujet !! Courage !!!!!!!!! à Jeudi !!!

[I believe, yes, I said "I believe", that I am

beginning to get it… perhaps, through a miracle,
the whole text is okay…. I am going to face up to
the second task!! Courage !!!!!!!!! See you on
Thursday!!!]

22
 OLIVIA’S TROUBLE WITH THE DATE
ESL : Alors qu'est-ce que tu peux faire
pour trouver une date là ?
OLIVIA : Mais je cherche par le mois.
ESL : Oui, voilà, c'est une bonne idée.
OLIVIA : Il y a ein Mai, ein Mai.
(rit).
ESL : Erster Mai. Tu vois comment ils
font ?
OLIVIA : Il mettent le jour et le mois.
ESL : Voilà, copie-le (…).
ESL : Ce n’est pas encore conforme. La
date c'était quoi ? Tu mets 22 virgule.
OLIVIA : C'est pas une date, c'est les…
plusieurs jours différents.
ESL : Ah… oui mais c'est le 22, 23 – il
faut un point chaque fois pour dire que
c'est une date, tu vois.
OLIVIA : Ah bon.
ESL: How could you manage to find a date
here?
OLIVIA: I am looking for a month.
ESL: Yes, good idea.
OLIVIA: They write "one May, one May."
(laughter).
ESL: Erster Mai [First of May]. Can you
see how they put it?
OLIVIA: They put the day and the month.
ESL: Yes, copy that.
ESL: That’s not right yet. How was the
date? You put 22 comma.
OLIVIA: That’s not a date, that is…
several different days.
ESL: Well…, yes but that’s the 22nd , the
23rd – you need a dot to say that it is a
date, you see.
OLIVIA: Oh really ? 23
CONCORDANCE OUTPUT PRESENTATION
Text Concordancer V2

Sketch Engine

24
GENRE CHARACTERISTICS OF GUIDED TOURS

Moves Discourse Linguistic Keywords or

intention characteristics punctuation
marks
Title Address the reader Infinitive forms
Imperative forms !
Interrogative ?
Eye-catching Address the reader Pronouns (2nd pers.) du, wir, uns…
item Interrogative ?
Imperative forms !

Description of werden +
the activities present ; future ; infinitive
Tell what will be imperfect
done/what was
done in the past/ passive voice ; werden + past
what is planned, participle
possible or allowed impersonal pronoun man
during the visit. 25
OLIVIA’S GUIDED TOUR (V1)

Hallo !! Komm in *der Playmobil Funpark

!!! Was kannst du machen ??? Du kannst
viel lachen, deine playmobil *herzustellen !
Du kannst ein *Riese playmobil *zu
*besuchen ... Du kannst die *Häre , die
*Kleide , die Schuhe *zu wählen!!! Komm
schnell !!! Erwarten *dir *uns !!

26
MOVE CONFORMITY OF OLIVIA’S GUIDED TOUR

Guided tours Online guestbook comment

features features

oTitle; o Personal details

o eye-catching item  o Say hello
o description of the activity  o Negative points
o visiting information o Positive points
o. o Suggestion for improvement
o, o Say good bye
o! o ...
o !!!
o ???
o :)
27
o
DISCOURSE FEATURES OF GUIDED TOURS
Items containing exclamation Imperative Reference to Strong
marks (learner corpus "Guided form a discourse emotional
tours") partner load
(pronouns,
routines)

Zeichne deinen Manga! x

Du hast Gelegenheit, deine Figuren zu
zeichnen, deine Story zu schreiben und x
dein Manga zu verwirklichen! (Chloé) x?

Komm in den Playmobil FunPark! x

Du kannst viel lachen, deine Playmobil x
anfertigen! x
Komm schnell!! (Olivia) x

Hallo Kinder!!! (Léa) x x?

Total learner corpus: 23 "!" 10 6 7
/963 words = 2.38%
Total reference corpus: 10 "!" 3 4 3 28
/3364 words = 0.29%
OLIVIA’S GUESTBOOK Underlined – co-present parts;
Red – modified elements within co-present parts;
COMMENT
Yellow – errors. .

29
THE TEACHER’S REMARKS
Olivia, tu as utilisé plusieurs formules qui se
trouvent aussi dans le corpus ou les concordances
auxquels tu avais accès lors du devoir sur table. Tu
as su rajouter ou enlever des mots de façon souvent
judicieuse. Certaines formules méritent d'être mieux
intégrées dans ton texte.

[Olivia, you have used several formulations which

exist also in the corpus or in the concordance lines to
which you had access during the test. You have
managed well to complete the co-present parts by
adding or deleting words as necessary. Some of the
corpus formulations need better integration in your
text.]
30
CO-PRESENT ELEMENTS

Elements appearing in the guestbook Average

reference corpus as well as in the learner number of
corpus co-present
elements
(text unit =
100 words)
Simple words 3,82
Short chunks 4,42
Long chunks (separated by punctuation marks) 2,57
Non-modified elements 7,21
Successfully modified elements 2,07
Non-acceptable modified elements 1,57
Total number of co-present chunks 6,99
Total number of co-present words 29,35 31

Average number of words in the learners’ comments 105,85

 TEXT LENGTH OF THE THREE TASKS
Jean

Georges

Janine

Chloé
Visiting information
Fernand

Christine Guided tour

Léa
Guestbook comment
Simon
Total
Alexa

Camille

Vicky

Géraldine

Olivia

Average number of words

32
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
 THE LEARNERS’ TASK PREFERENCES
Guided tour Guestbook comment
Léa I learnt how to give my opinion in
German about a museum I had
visited.
Vicky We could write what we thought
because we let "real" people speak
 more direct style.
Camille We had to invent a lot which
allowed us to choose freely
what to write. Even if I found
it difficult in the beginning (I
was too attached to French), I
think that we learnt the most
things with this text.
Olivia That was more interesting,
amusing and constructive.
33

Bottom up oriented Top down oriented

LEARNER COMMENTS ABOUT CONCORDANCING
Become aware of Formulation aid Reduced cognitive
linguistic and discourse load
norms
Olivia Less information to sort
through than within a
dictionary
Géraldine See differences between Dictionary consultation
German and French syntax. is "too long, too
Understand how the meaning complicated".
is created in German.
Alexa Find the German word order.
Vicky Become aware of the Be able to "express
difference between norms what you think".
which exist for written and
for oral German.
Vicky Have a means to check if
what you have written
corresponds to existing
norms.
Chloé Understand that there are More "natural" style;
things which can be said in less writing errors.
French, but not in the same
way in German.
Camille Discover its own errors. Identify and use 34
"ready-made
formulations".
 INTERTEXTUAL WRITING PROCESS

Guestbook concordance Camille’s guestbook Modifications

lines (reference corpus) comment (V4)

Wir würden uns FREUEN wenn Meine Familie *mit mir Search word:
Sie uns auch künftig treu bleiben. würden uns *Freuen wenn Sie capital letters >
ein Vesper geben könnten. small letters

Ich FINDE alles total interessant. Aber wir haben alles total Co-present
interessant gefunden! chunk completed
by a conjunction.
Modified number
and modified
time.

35
NEW GUIDANCE STYLE

Strong interventions

Moderate interventions

Brieffreunde.org:
Weak interventions writing pen pal ads

Projekt Prospekt:
Number of text annotations
three tourism texts

0 100 200 300 400 500 600

Number of text Moderate Strong

Weak interventions
annotations interventions interventions
Brieffreunde.org 164 21,95 24,52 47,56 36
Projekt Prospekt 525,8 15,44 23,76 60,79
 DANKE FÜR IHRE AUFMERKSAMKEIT!

evalacroix@free.fr
http://didaktik.hautetfort.com

Mein besonderer Dank geht an Alex Boulton (Universität

Nancy), der mein Manuskript korrekturgelesen hat. 37
 REFERENCES
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38
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