A Corpus-based ESP Approach to Medical Research Article Reading : A Pilot Extension Study with Japanese Undergraduate Students

イガク　ロンブン　ニ　オケル　ゲンゴテキ　トクチョウ　ノ　コーパス　ケンキュウ　キョウイク　オウヨウ　ニ　ツイテ　ノ　ココロミ　ノ　エンチョウ　ケントウ

アサノ, モトコ

Asano, Motoko

Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka University

オオサカダイガク　ダイガクイン　ゲンゴブンカ　ケンキュウカ

This paper describes an extension study for the preliminary assessments of pedagogical implications of a corpus-based ESP approach to medical research article reading in classrooms of Japanese medicalcollege students. Over the course of lectures spanning four to five hours on two different days with one to three weeks in between, a total of 222 second-and third-year students were involved in activities in which mini-corpora were compiled, and the rhetorical structure of the abstract and introduction sections of research articles from the New England Journal of Medicine were determined by finding non-thematic linguistic clues or hint expressions.Before and after the course, a questionnaire was administered preliminarily to examine whether or not the course had helped the students to alleviate the burdens of reading textbooks in English. The students' written comments were also invited on a voluntary basis. The statistical analysis using Welch’s paired t-test revealed that the degree of‘difficulty’in reading textbooks in English decreased significantly (p≤0.00234); however, the effect size was as small as 0.260. The move analysis of the students’written comments showed that th e‘ burdens or anxiety/dissatisfaction’comments tended to be provided together with ‘achievements or findings', indicating that the students tended to soften their negative comments by combining them with positive ones. The observation revealed that quantitative, multivariate analyses may not be suitable for a small amount of written comments and might need to be used in combination with qualitative examinations. The results of this study suggested that the number of learning items should be reduced and the amount of explicit explanations about corpus tools as well as moves should be increased in the classroom in the future.