ELLTA Projects

  • For information on projects in the area of language assessment see here

  • Addressing the needs of international students with academic writing difficulties: Pilot Project 2010/11

This is a pilot phase of a long-term research-and-development project to investigate the needs of international students with academic writing difficulties. The pilot project has two strands:

Strand 1 focuses on international first year undergraduates in the departments of Law and Statistics, some of whom are undertaking dedicated English language classes run by the Centre for Applied Linguistics. The strand comprises a detailed evaluation of their learning through this in-sessional support, and analysis of a corpus of their assessed academic writing with a view to understanding the specific nature of their writing difficulties in their disciplinary writing tasks.

Strand 2 focuses on students who have undertaken the pre-sessional programme in August/September 2010 and examines the predictive validity of their IELTS (TOEFL or equivalent) scores. The aim is to explore what relationships, if any, there may be between students' language entry scores, their writing performance and assessment during the pre-sessional course, and their subsequent writing progress in their academic courses of study. The report can be accessed here.

This pilot project is funded internally by the Centre for Applied Linguistics and the International Office, while the dedicated English language courses are funded by the departments of Law and Statistics. Project team members are Ema Ushioda, Sue Wharton (PAD), Claudia Harsch, with contributions from Seongsook Choi and Tilly Harrison, and research assistance provided by Darío Banegas. The project thus integrates the work of both ELLTA and PAD research groups.

This survey research project (December 2010 - April 2011), commissioned by The British Council, aims to provide copy for a Directory of UK ELT Research, 2009-2010 by May 2011, as well as data for uploading to the British Council's TeachingEnglish website. The project builds on previous work carried out for the period 2005-2008 (see below). Richard Smith, with Seongsook Choi, Stuart Reid and Gosia Sky. Guardian Weekly article (8 February 2011) related to the project here.

As part of the overall Warwick ELT Archive enhancement programme, this project aimed to systematically increase the stock of knowledge relating to UK-supported ELT projects undertaken in different parts of the world since the 1950s. This was done by building an archive of reports and other documents and by constructing an inventory/chronology, and a bibliography, on this basis. Coordinated by Richard Smith, assisted by Shelagh Rixon, Sian Alsop and Sheila Verrier.

This project delivered a report with the above title to the British Council at the end of July 2009, as well as a database for uploading to the British Council Teaching English website as a searchable resource. The published report contained an introduction by Shelagh Rixon and Richard Smith and a listing of research projects and papers. Seongsook Choi and Duncan Hunter were also involved as team members.

  • Key Concepts in The Early Communicative Movement

Duncan Hunter (PhD project, associated with The Warwick ELT Archive). This project attempts to identify the key concepts that emerged during the early communicative period, by combining corpus analysis with a more “traditional” historical examination of articles in the ELT Journal. Using journal articles from the Lee (1973 to 1981) and Rossner (1981 to 1986) editorial periods as a kind of “corpus”, it has been possible to identify a set of key terms, which appear to reflect something of the nature of the thematic changes that took place in the discourse of the journal. These key terms have been examined using two distinct, but related procedures. Firstly, they have been investigated using corpus procedures, such as negative keyword, concordance and collocational analysis. The discussions and arguments surrounding these terms have then been studied by following their appearance in “key” articles, where the senses and implications of the emerging terms are discussed in detail. The project has become, increasingly, an investigation not only of the period the journal articles might partially reflect, but also the changing priorities and aspirations of the ELT Journal itself. Duration: 2005-2008/2009.

  • Teaching English in Large Classes (TELC) Project / Network

Fauzia Shamim (Karachi University, Pakistan) and Richard Smith, with Shelagh Rixon, Harry Kuchah (Ministry of Basic Education, Cameroon), Rama Mathew (University of Delhi, India), Nigussie Negash (Ethiopia), Zakia Sarwar (SPELT, Pakistan) and Wang Qiang (Beijing Normal University, China). Aims: To share and disseminate good practice relating to teaching in large classes / teaching in otherwise 'under-resourced' or 'difficult' circumstances; To theorize from such practice with a view to identifying common principles; To promote further exploratory practice and research in such circumstances. Draft project description here.

  • Developing an Archive and Histories of Learner Autonomy (DAHLA)

Richard Smith. Aim: To develop records of learner autonomy oriented practice in diverse contexts over the last thirty-five years. Website: www.warwick.ac.uk/go/dahla

  •  Enhancement of the Warwick ELT Archive

Richard Smith. £10,000 granted by the A.S. Hornby Educational Trust (Oct. 2005-September 2007). See www.warwick.ac.uk/go/elt_archive for further details.