Vocabulary learning through data-driven learning in the context of Spanish as a foreign language
Abstract
An increasing number of studies have shown the potential associations between corpus work and second language acquisition and teaching. Some research, for example, has tried to explore and demonstrate the effect of Data-driven Learning (DDL, Johns 1991) in the context of foreign language learning. Up till now, however, empirical studies in this respect, especially quantitative studies have been limited, especially with respect to foreign languages other than English. Therefore, the objective of the present study is twofold: first, to argue whether there is a statistically significant difference between the DDL approach to vocabulary learning and more traditional methods (e.g., dictionary approach) in the context of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL); second, to gauge students’ attitude towards DDL activities. With this end in view, a quasi-experimental longitudinal design was used to compare two groups of Chinese students of Spanish (experimental group, N = 16; control group, N = 16). The result of the immediate post-test indicated that DDL was more effective than the traditional method in learning Spanish vocabulary (t(30) = 6.191, p < .001, d = 2.19). In the delayed post-test, the result also revealed that the DDL group outperformed the other group (t(30) = 2.600, p = .014, d = 0.92). Furthermore, a questionnaire assessment collected from the experimental group corroborated the positive results of the said tests, showing that the respondents generally favored DDL and adopted a positive attitude towards its future application to Spanish learning. This study provides a sound base for DDL in the area of second language acquisition and teaching, notably in the area of SFL; at the same time, it raises some caveats and suggests future work in this research line.
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