Intuition

Teachers’ Intuition about Language: A Corpus Study

Bob AshcroftWaseda UniversityJALT 2010 International Conference, NagoyaSaturday 20th November

Can you really trust your intuition?

A Difficult Question

What’s the difference between actuallyand in fact?

Overview

Intuition & TeachingResearchResultsRecommendationsQuestions

1.2.3.4.5.

Our Role as Teachers

Prescribers of “correct” language

Students see ambiguity / hesitation as incompetence (Owen 1996)

Native speakers best judge of what can and cannot be said (Hunston and Laviosa 2001).

Intuition at the heart of traditional linguistic analysis (Stubbs 1996).

The Problem

Intuition is unreliable (Sinclair 1991, Owen 1995, Stubbs 1996, Meijs 1996, McEnery et al 2006)

Intuition is unsuitable for teaching materials development (Biber et al 1994, Kennedy 1998, Gilmore: 2004 , O'Keefe et al 2007)

Which of a semantically related pair of items to use is the most common student question to teachers (Tsui 2005)

Such decisions are complex (Sinclair 1991, Partington 1998)

Research

What impromptu information do teachers give? How accurate are these intuitive accounts? How comprehensive are they?

How useful are they for students? Comparison of corpus data + teachers’ intuition

Surveying Teachers’ Intuition e-mail

35 EFL German/Japanese university teachers

Teachers were asked to explain differences between actually and in fact as they might in class Consulting only their intuition

Corpus Analysis

Word-based analysis

KWIC Concordance and frequency data

Bank of English

Birmingham University

Over 450 million words

Organising the Intuition DataLinguistic Feature

Examples of what teachers said

Actually is used to give additional information.

Linguistic Feature


Function Actually is used to give additional information.

Linguistic Feature


Function Actually is used to give additional information.

Frequency Actually is more common than in fact.

Register Actually is more casual than in fact.

Use with Statistics

In fact is used with statistics.

Sentence Position

In fact occurs at the start of a sentence.

Overview of Intuition Data

LinguisticFeature

Frequency of Linguistic Points Made

in fact actually

Function 14 18

Frequency 9 11

Register 14 14

Use with statistics 1 0

Sentence position 1 1

39 44

Function

Teachers' Intuition

More direct, starker contrast is provided by using in fact. Actually has a meaning of opposing, refusing or correcting what someone has said.

Highlighting Contrast

Function

Corpus Data

These methods claim to work with feelings but actually do not.Pfeiffer's is not, in fact, a perfect face; her mouth is asymmetrical and the upper lip bee-stung.

Highlighting Contrast

Function

in fact actually

highlighting contrast highlighting contrast

in fact actually


Teachers’ Intuition

Corpus Data

in fact actually


giving additional information


not used with bad news introducing bad news

introducing unexpected news

introducing unexpected news

indicating the presentin fact actually




not used with bad news

introducing bad news

giving factual information

giving factual information

expressing incredulity

General Frequency


in fact actuallyFreq. Per million Freq. Per million

2118 3834

Corpus Data

Some teachers said that in fact was generally less common than actually.

Written / Spoken Frequency


Written / Spokenin fact actually

Freq. Per million Freq. Per million

Spoken Corpora 973 2593

Written Corpora 1145 1241

In fact, is rarely used by myself or my friends in everyday conversation . Maybe I would use in fact more often in written English than spoken.

Corpus Data

Register


Written / Spokenin fact actually

Freq. Per million Freq. Per million

Spoken Corpora 973 2593

Written Corpora 1145 1241

Some teachers said that actually is more casual, and that in fact is more formal.

Corpus Data

Use with Statistics


Use with a Statistic

in fact actually% of sample concordances % of sample concordances

7 0

One teacher said that in fact is often used with statistics.

Corpus Data

Sentence Position


Sentence Head Position

in fact actually% %

56 2

One teacher said that in fact is more likely to be found at the beginning of a sentence than actually.

Corpus Data

Intuition about sentence position seems accurate, but…

Teachers did not mention the likelihood of occurrence.

Teachers did not mention a connection between sentence head position and function.

48 of the 56 sample concordances with in fact at the sentence head were instances of expanding ideas.

Intuition lacks the detail offered by the corpus.

Grammatical Patterns

None of the respondents in the survey talked about grammatical patterns.

Grammatical Patterns in the Corpus

few + n + ACTUALLY + v

Few Americans actually thought Mr. Bush won the debate.

be +adj +to +ACTUALLY +v

Can you imagine being able to actually read Pushkin in Russian?

without +ACTUALLY + v-ingThe Chancellor can mention this without actually doing anything about it.

Results

Linguistic Feature Intuition / Corpus Match

Function high

Frequencygeneral high

detailed -

Register high

Collocationgeneral high

specific -

Sentence position high

Grammatical patterns -

Conclusions

Teachers‘ intuitive accounts are mostly accurate.

Teachers are concerned mostly with the function of words.

Teachers restrict explanations to the limits of their intuition. Students are missing out on information for detailed frequencies and grammatical patterning.

Recommendations

Teachers should use intuition to describe:

Different uses and senses of words

Collocational tendencies with sets of items

Typical sentence positioning of words

Register

General comparative frequencies

Recommendations

Teachers should avoid using intuition to describe:

Relative frequencies of various functions or patterns associated with an item

Grammatical patterns

Instead, corpus-driven approaches could be used:

DDL (Data Driven Learning)

Compensating for Intuition

Data-Driven Learning (DDL)

In DDL classes, students need not rely on teachers for intuitive language description because they are asked to draw their own conclusions about language patterns based on corpus data .

(Johns 1991).

A Way Forward

Teacher Development• Linguistic areas suitable for intuitive explanation

• Corpus-driven teaching methods

Learner Training• Linguistic areas available to teachers‘ intuition

• How to use corpus data

Access to Corpora• Wider availability of associated technology

• Investment from educational institutions

Thanks for Listening!!

Bob AshcroftWaseda University

[email protected]

Intuition

Technology

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