Formulaic Sequences in Academic English Writing: A Resource for Students and Teachers

2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K13143
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: APPEL RANDY 早稲田大学, グローバルエデュケーションセンター, 講師(任期付) (10802043)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: academic writing / L2 English / formulaic sequences / proficiency differences

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

The research project has been progressing as planned without any serious delays. After collecting the data, all essays were manually reviewed to ensure there were no serious problems related to formatting issues, missing characters, or deleted portions. This was done to help ensure the reliability of the subsequent evaluations using these essays.

After collecting and cleaning the data, grading criteria for the evaluation of essays was developed and trialed. Next, a research assistant was hired to help perform an initial review of a small sample of essays to see how well the grading rubric worked. This led to several minor modifications before finalizing the evaluation criteria. After finalizing the evaluation criteria, hiring of essay evaluators was initiated and training sessions were organized. After training sessions, the hired evaluators were asked to begin evaluating their assigned essays.

Essay rating took place over the course of several sessions so that rating consistency could also be assessed. All essays were graded by at least two raters. However, additional raters were assigned as needed (e.g., in cases of discrepancy in the grade the first two raters gave any essay). Finally, after all essays had been given a final score based on the ratings each had received, analysis was able to begin. The current stage is data analysis and I am now testing various procedures to sort the essays and best identify the relevant formulaic sequences that distinguish high and low rated essays.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

I believe things are progressing as expected and I am on schedule for the timely completion of this project.

I have faced no major setbacks. After completing the most time consuming stage (i.e., data collection and assessment) I have now started the initial stages of data analysis and should begin writing up my results with the next few months.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

Future work on this project involves analyzing the full collection of evaluated essays for proficiency level differences related to the use of formulaic sequences. I plan to experiment with various methods of sorting the data into distinct proficiency groups in order to test different methods of extracting the most salient formulaic sequences exclusively associated with high-level writing. After testing various methods of sorting the data and extracting relevant sequences, I will begin writing up these results for publication. The finalized list of formulaic sequences associated with high-level writing can then be incorporated into teaching materials to help lower level students quickly improve their L2 English academic writing ability.

Causes of Carryover

Some teachers that were initially hired to evaluate essays were found to be inconsistent in their ratings and somewhat unreliable. As a result, these teachers were given a smaller selection of essays than originally planned and I did some of the rating myself which slightly lowered costs. In addition, I was unable to purchase some items due to COVID-19 related availability issues. Over the coming year, I hope to purchase necessary articles and equipment that will help me complete my research. Additionally, although I had planned on attending overseas conferences to present early findings, these conferences have largely been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, I will be able to use a larger portion of my funding for article costs.