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The Effect of Corpus-Based Writing Practices on EFL Learners’ Lexical Diversity and Lexical Sophistication

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Blended Learning : Lessons Learned and Ways Forward (ICBL 2023)

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Abstract

Corpus-based Language Learning brings many pedagogical benefits to EFL learners. Since learners’ written texts are always predominated with simple and repetitive words and vocabulary knowledge is closely related to corpus use, this article applies Versatext in writing instructions and explores its effects on students’ lexical diversity (LD) and lexical sophistication (LS) in their essays. Sixty-eight Chinese senior high school students participated in this experiment. The experimental group (n = 33) was asked to finish writing tasks with Versatext, while the control group (n = 35) wrote on the same topics alone. Two tests (i.e. pretest and posttest) and specific lexical analysis are used to test students’ improvement. Then a questionnaire survey was conducted to explore students’ perceptions. The results revealed that Versatext certainly has a significant effect on students’ lexical diversity and sophistication in writing. Participants show positive perceptions of it.

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Hu, K., Deng, Y. (2023). The Effect of Corpus-Based Writing Practices on EFL Learners’ Lexical Diversity and Lexical Sophistication. In: Li, C., Cheung, S.K.S., Wang, F.L., Lu, A., Kwok, L.F. (eds) Blended Learning : Lessons Learned and Ways Forward . ICBL 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13978. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35731-2_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35731-2_9

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