The Use of Specialized Corpora as Supply Reference of Collocations for Teaching Reflective Writing in Academic English

Abstract

Corpora have been regarded as useful sources for English language teaching. As various studies are devoted to the use of corpus in teaching grammar and vocabulary, more research is needed to ascertain how learners could benefit from the use of corpus-based data in improving their writing skills, their reflective writing efficiency, in particular. In the present study, conducted at one of the leading international universities in Uzbekistan, Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT), data on 43 students’ experiences, opinions, and expectations as well as 100 original reflective essays have been analyzed using different corpora to examine whether corpus-based data could serve the ground for material design or not and whether it can indeed function as a source of hypotheses regarding language teaching. The accumulated data along with the designed materials outline the scope for follow-up research into the effectiveness of the corpus-based approach in teaching reflective writing. Relying on students’ responses and readiness to attend workshops on corpora-based learning, the implementation of the designed materials seems plausible and heralds fruitful results.