Data-Driven Learning for English Language Beginners: An Empirically-Grounded and Evidence-Based Investigation

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K02878
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: Niigata University
• Principal Investigator: Hadley Gregory 新潟大学, 人文社会科学系, 教授 (70311008)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): ハドリー 浩美 新潟大学, 教育・学生支援機構, 准教授 (60534732)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: Corpus Linguistics / Data-Driven Learning / Extensive Reading

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project used English books for beginners, known as 'Graded Readers', to create an corpus so that Data Driven Learning (DDL) could be used to enhance the vocabulary and grammar of beginning students, as well as improve their reading speeds within an Extensive Reading (ER) program. Multiple cycles of testing discovered that, in terms of lexicogrammatical proficiency, overall no statistical difference between the experimental and control groups could be found. However, the experimental groups significantly improved more than the control group in terms of reading speed and total words read.

Free Research Field

Corpus Linguistics

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

This project has established the ways that beginning students of Extensive Reading can improve through DDL. We have discovered procedures that will help teachers to successfully use this approach in their classrooms, and we have contributed to improvement of English education in Japan.