A True Longitudinal Corpus Study of the Lexical Competence of L2 English Major Students: Determining the Effectiveness of the Writing Track

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Published: Jan 31, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.70730/NGQY4466
Keywords:
Learner corpora, Longitudinal study, Lexical competence, L2 writing course effectiveness

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Jiraporn Dhanarattigannon
Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand
Tirote Thongnuan
Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand
Pong-ampai Kongcharoen
Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

This true longitudinal study explored the lexical development of L2 university English major students in Thailand using two learner corpora. This study analyzed the natural learners’ English language writing assignments from two writing courses and tracked their lexical development over a relatively long period (three years with five batches of students). The data included four academic writing assignments for the first learner corpus and a research project for the second corpus. The two corpora comprised 619 pieces of writing with 462,842 tokens in total. The results from the VocabProfile program show that the students used academic words at a high level in their research project, revealing that they tended to develop their lexical competence after being exposed to more advanced English reading sources. The findings also suggest the effectiveness of the course management of the B.A. Program in English, which helps students improve their lexical competence to achieve the requirements for high-quality journals.

Article Details

How to Cite
Dhanarattigannon, J., Thongnuan, T., & Kongcharoen, P.- ampai. (2025). A True Longitudinal Corpus Study of the Lexical Competence of L2 English Major Students: Determining the Effectiveness of the Writing Track . LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, 18(1), 352–375. https://doi.org/10.70730/NGQY4466
Issue
Vol. 18 No. 1 (2025): LEARN Journal (January - June)
Section
Research Articles
Author Biographies

Jiraporn Dhanarattigannon, Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand

An assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. Her areas of interest include EFL writing (process-based approach), Extensive Reading, self-assessment, online language learning and teaching, and corpus-based research. She can be reached at jiraporndh2000@yahoo.com.

Tirote Thongnuan, Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand

A lecturer of English in the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. His areas of interest are corpus linguistics and corpus-based research, discourse analysis, English syntax and grammar, and translation studies. He can be reached at tirote.t@ku.th

Pong-ampai Kongcharoen, Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand

An assistant professor of English in the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. She also holds a position as EFL-IS (English as a Foreign Language Interest Section) Past Chair at the TESOL International Association. Her research interest lies in corpus linguistics, semantics, discourse analysis, vocabulary learning and teaching, and second language acquisition. She can be reached at pongampai.k@ku.th.

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