Language Learning through Database Searching

1. Language Learning through Database Searching Karen Bordonaro LOEX of the West 2010: Crossing Borders, Expanding Frontiers Calgary, Alberta June 11, 2010

2. Crossing Borders

3. Borders • Geographical: Canada – United States • Disciplinary: Librarianship - TESL • Pedagogical: Learning how to search effectively – Learning how to improve English vocabulary

4. Question • Is library database searching a language learning activity?

5. Why is this important? • International students are a growing presence on our campuses. • Libraries cross borders: information seeking and language learning can take place simultaneously

6. My role in this study • As principal investigator - but - • I knew these students as their liaison librarian: 15 students from the M.Ed. International Student Program, 7 students from the M.A. TESL Bridging Program) • Participants were all graduate students

7. Interview question • How do you decide what words in English to enter into a database when you are looking for journal articles?

8. Finding more vocabulary • Do you rely on your own knowledge of English vocabulary? • How would you rate your own knowledge of English vocabulary? (excellent – good – fair – poor) • Do you use a dictionary? • Do you use a thesaurus? • Do you ask your classmates for help? • Do you ask your professor for help? • Do you use your textbook to find appropriate vocabulary words? • Do you use other readings to find appropriate vocabulary words? • When a search is not successful, how do you think of other words to try? • How do you increase your own vocabulary of English in general?

9. Keeping track of vocabulary • Do you keep track of what vocabulary you have used for searches? • Do you write down the words or memorize them? • Do you print out search results so you know what words you used to find them? • Do you use any other vocabulary strategies?

10. Library Strategies • Do you use the ERIC Thesaurus to find better subject headings? • Do you look at the other subject headings in a record? • Do you use library database options like “find related articles”? • Do you ask librarians or library assistants for help? • Do you use any other library strategies to find better words to search on?

11. Sources of initial searching vocabulary • Self-knowledge • Instructor • listening during a lecture • talking to the instructor one-on-one) • Course material • textbook • course readings • Do not begin with a list of synonyms in mind

12. Rating their own language proficiency • “fair” but not “excellent” • Seemed to consider their knowledge of specialized terminology in Applied Linguistics and Education to be advanced

13. If initial search terms don’t work • Vocabulary strategies used • Library strategies used

14. Vocabulary strategies • Dictionary or thesaurus used • Guessing words in context (GWIC) • Noticing strategies (salience, frequency) • Memorization • Repetition • Marking unknown words • Making lists • Asking peers • Visualization • Referring to readings and lecture notes • Trying different parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective)

15. Library strategies • Using references • Citation chasing • Looking at TOC (tables of contents) • Asking librarian for help • Truncation and wild card searches • Searching for known authors • Field searching • Broadening and narrowing searches • Using descriptors • Reading abstracts • Looking at currency • Browsing shelves

16. Were the library strategies seen as language learning? • Initially seen as library strategies by most participants • Upon further consideration, then seen as a language learning process also by all participants • Why the difference in initial opinions? • Conscious vs. unconscious learning • Meta-cognition • Participants who initially saw both library searching and language learning taking place simultaneously were better able to verbalize their learning

17. “The process of researching some words is like a language activity, helping myself to find the right word. And my best definition is to find something. I can learn some words from this process. Different words, different meanings. And in the different contexts, different meanings. It is interesting for me.”

18. Our role • Promoting awareness of conscious language learning as a way to get better search results • How? • state directly to them that library database searching relies mainly on the computerized retrieval of word appearances • Make them aware that word frequency and word placement in a particular field (i.e. in the subject heading field) often account for the reason searches result in particular hits • ask international students inductively why they think they got certain search results from particular words or phrases • ask them if they know other synonyms they can try

19. Language advantages of international students • their formal linguistic knowledge of the English language is already explicit • they are more consciously aware of regular and irregular patterns in English • they cannot generally rely on the sense that something “just sounds right” • they need to fit new language patterns into pre-existing patterns that have to be consciously learned

20. Current library searching • Not real “natural language searching” • Not generally building semantic bridges between synonyms • Typos often still matter – garbage in, garbage out

21. Adding meta-cognition to library instruction • Ask international students directly “Why do you think you got these results?” • Deliberately make typing mistakes • Show different results for different synonyms • Ask them explicitly how they think of words to type in for a search? • Give them suggestions for finding more potential search terms

22. For more information Bordonaro, K. (2010). Is library database searching a language learning activity? College & Research Libraries, forthcoming May 2010.

23. Contact information Karen Bordonaro, M.A., M.L.S., Ed.M., Ph.D. Instruction Coordinator/ Liaison Librarian: Applied Linguistics, Modern Languages James A. Gibson Library Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1 Tel: 905-688-5550 ext. 4423 kbordonaro@brocku.ca