Language Learning Applications of two Automatic Help Tools to Write Academic Texts: arText and Estilector

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26378/rnlael1735555

Keywords:

Academic Writing, Automatic Help Tools, Academic Spanish L1, Academic Spanish L2, Corrective Feedback

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the contributions of automatic help tools (AHTs) to the conscious learning of academic writing (AW) in university contexts, considering three diversity factors: the differences between learning AW in L1 or L2, previous experience with corrective feedback and the particularities of the different AHTs. Specifically, we compare the features of two AHTs (arText and Estilector), test them by reviewing a corpus of academic articles, and explore how their usefulness is perceived by a group of 24 informants. The theoretical framework is studies about AW and the use of AHTs. Our methodology is mainly qualitative, and the research instruments are a template to analyze AHTs and a questionnaire to gather the opinions of the participants. The results show the usefulness of both HAAs, their specific features and the confirmation that they are still poorly known.

Author Biographies

Susana Pastor Cesteros, Universitat d'Alacant

Professor of Linguistics at the University of Alicante (UA), specialising in Applied Linguistics and Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE). Director of the AcqUA research group (Acquisition of additional languages) since 2008. She has been president of ASELE (2008-2016) and director of the journal ELUA (2009-2011). She has supervised thirteen doctoral theses related to ELE. Her most recent publications include the monograph Español académico como LE/L2. Destrezas, competencias y movilidad universitaria (Routledge, 2022) and the co-direction, together with I. Santos Gargallo, of Metodología de la investigación en la enseñanza-aprendizaje del español L2 / LE (Arco/Libros, 2022).

Mar Cruz Piñol, Universitat de Barcelona

Professor at the University of Barcelona (Faculty of Philology and Communication). Since 1994 she has been studying the possibilities offered by technologies for teaching EL2. In this line, she is the author, among other publications, of Enseñar español en la era de Internet (Octaedro 2002) and Lingüística de corpus y enseñanza del español como 2/L (Arco/Libros 2012, 2017). In recent years, the evolution of technologies, together with her experience in research training, has led her to edit the collective volume e-Research y español LE/L2 (Routledge 2021) and to found the journal TEISEL.

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Published

2023-12-18

How to Cite

Pastor Cesteros, S., & Cruz Piñol, M. (2023). Language Learning Applications of two Automatic Help Tools to Write Academic Texts: arText and Estilector. Nebrija Journal of Applied Linguistics to Language Teaching, 17(35). https://doi.org/10.26378/rnlael1735555

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 35 (2023): i35

Section

Thematic section "Computer Learners Corpora..."

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Susana Pastor Cesteros, Mar Cruz Piñol

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