V ARIACIONES LINGÜÍSTICAS TRANSCULTURALES

This section focuses on the three main participants, Cecilia, Simone, and Lorraine. In addition, there is a final subsection that addresses indirect participants: each participant’s students, and the teachers’ colleagues who played a role in the study.

The three principal participants, Cecilia, Simone, and Lorraine, were selected based on their experience as university writing teachers (see Table 4) and on their willingness to

participate in the study. They regularly attend conferences, participate in professional

development, and travel extensively for work, primarily to provide guidance to in-service and pre-service teachers. Two of the teachers, Cecilia and Simone, teach a range of courses in the IEP, including structure and composition courses, while the other teacher, Lorraine, teaches Freshman Composition and graduate level writing courses in the university’s ESL program. All three, based on their experience and their professional development, could be considered highly experienced teachers, which serves the purposes of the study well because, according to Borg (2006), they are more likely than novice teachers to i) see the various components of teaching as integrated, ii) understand the possibility of in-service learning, and iii) make connections clearly between knowledge and practice. Their considerable experience as classroom teachers was a key factor in selecting them as participants in the study. In addition to having extensive experience as writing teachers, the teachers are all comfortable using technology in the classroom and in daily life, and have varied experience with corpus linguistics and corpus tools.

Table 4 - Teachers participating in the study Teacher Formal education in

corpus linguistics

Current class Use of technology

Cecilia One graduate course

on corpus linguistics twelve years earlier

Intermediate IEP structure and composition (academic writing) class

Little use of technology in teaching and some use in her daily life

Simone One audited graduate

course on corpus linguistics six years earlier

Upper-intermediate IEP structure and composition (academic writing) class

Extensive use of technology in teaching and in her daily life

Lorraine No formal training in

corpus linguistics

Graduate level writing class

Limited use of technology in teaching and extensive use in her daily life

3.1.4.1 Cecilia

Cecilia has been teaching English as a second language for more than twenty years in several different programs. With more than six years working in the IEP, she has extensive experience in all levels and skill areas in the program. In addition to her teaching, she has also worked on IEP accreditations, worked overseas as an expert in English language teaching for a year (an English Language Fellow), and has training and experience in business.

Cecilia has had limited formal training in corpus linguistics, having taken one corpus linguistics course in a master’s program fourteen years ago. She has only limited experience with corpus tools in her teaching, and has had no professional development related to corpus

linguistics since she began teaching in the IEP. The course that she taught that was the focus of the present study was an academically-focused intermediate (Level 3) structure and composition course.

3.1.4.2 Simone

Simone has been teaching English as a second language for over twenty years, all of that time at the same university and most of it in the IEP. She has extensive experience teaching all levels and skill areas in the program. She has also held numerous administrative roles, such as assessment director and supervisor for graduate teaching assistants. She worked in North Africa in the Peace Corps and as an expert in English language teaching for a year (a Fulbright scholar), served as a legal expert on applied linguistics, and has worked on various language-related projects, including the development of award-winning content-based EAP curriculum.

Simone had no graduate or undergraduate training in corpus linguistics. However, with a colleague she audited one master’s level corpus linguistics course about seven years ago. She has some experience with corpus tools in her teaching and has informally taught other instructors,

both at her institution and at other institutions, regarding specific classroom strategies and tools. Simone has also presented numerous times at conferences on a range of topics, including teacher education, classroom strategies, and her own use of technology and online corpus tools in her classes. The course that she taught which was the focus of the present study was an

academically-focused upper-intermediate (Level 4) structure and composition course.

3.1.4.3 Lorraine

Lorraine has been teaching English as a second language for close to twenty years. She has worked in both IEPs and ESL programs at several institutions, both as a teacher and director. In her current ESL program, she has extensive experience teaching all levels and skill areas. She has also held numerous administrative roles, such as director of the program and liaison to other university departments. She has worked with graduate and undergraduate students on their individual writing projects, served overseas as an English Language Specialist, and worked on numerous language-related projects, including the transitioning of the department's IEP from a general ESL program to a more focused EAP program.

Lorraine has no graduate or undergraduate training in corpus linguistics. She has limited experience with corpus tools in her teaching. She has presented numerous times at regional, national and international conferences on a range of topics, including L2 writing, teacher education, classroom strategies, and teacher supervision. Her course that was the focus of the present study was a graduate level writing class for master’s and doctoral students from across the university.

3.1.4.4 Indirect participants

There are several other groups that played a secondary role in the study but were nonetheless participants. One group of indirect participants is each teacher’s set of students.

They are described in Chapter 5 (Subsection 5.2.2), Chapter 6 (Subsection 6.2.2), and Chapter 7 (Subsection 7.2.2), respectively.

The three participating teachers’ colleagues are the second group of indirect participants in the study, and they are discussed in each teacher’s respective results chapter. In Cecilia’s class, she had a student from a master’s level Practicum class who observed throughout the semester and also participated in classroom activities, occasionally teaching short portions of the class. This practicum student, Maxine, played a collaborative role during the class period,

providing assistance and acting as a sounding board for Cecilia in their meetings outside of class. More information about Maxine is included in Section 5.2.4 in Chapter 5. A collaborative

participant for Simone was Nancy, the teacher who taught another section of the Level 4 structure/composition class. More information about the role that Nancy played is included in Section 6.3.2 in Chapter 6.

Finally, as the corpus working sessions were collaborative endeavors in which each teacher and I worked together to identify and address each teacher’s self-identified needs, my own role is important to address, and is discussed in greater detail below in Section 3.4. Because the main participants- Cecilia, Simone and Lorraine- all operate within a vibrant

teaching/learning environment, the impact of their students’ and colleagues’ roles in their day-to- day decision-making should be noted.