From Concordancing to Searching: Documenting Learners’ Experiences of a Corpus and Data-Driven Learning

Since the inception of data-driven learning, concordance software has been a tool of choice. With the advent of high-speed search engines, however, it is timely to assess the pedagogical potential of these tools. This paper documents three students’ use of Google Custom Search Engine (CSE), using a screen tracking program and search history, or query logs. The search engine is compared with a concordancer in terms of system effectiveness, learners’ attitudes and voluntary use, and their continued use of the tools, the use without mandated tasks, and the use beyond the given course. The results found the students used CSE effectively as a self-help tool and evinced a positive attitude. According to the query log, they used it without being prompted and continued to use it the following semester. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that corpus-informed pedagogy makes a more active use of customizable search engines that allow highly relevant search results to be retrieved and thereby effectively address learners’ writing needs.