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Part of
Critical Reflections on Data in Second Language Acquisition
Edited by Aarnes Gudmestad and Amanda Edmonds
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 51] 2018
► pp. 149–170

Chapter 6
The potential of publicly shared longitudinal learner corpora in SLA research

| University of South Florida
| University of South Florida

Most second language acquisition (SLA) researchers would agree that longitudinal data can potentially yield the most valuable insights into second-language development, yet few longitudinal studies exist. It is also rare to find longitudinal studies with data collected beyond the one year mark. In this chapter we argue for the need to adopt more longitudinal research agendas in SLA and the potential of publicly shared learner corpora to help broaden the impact of the data collected. We use as an example work from the longitudinal project, LANGSNAP, which now includes a new set of data collected in 2016, thus expanding the project to 5 years and adding a new research question, that of the long-term evolution of foreign-language proficiency.

Keywords: second language acquisition, longitudinal research, learner corpus research, Spanish as a second language, French as a second language, foreign-language attrition, study abroad
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Literature review
    • Longitudinal research in SLA
    • The potential of publicly shared longitudinal learner corpora
  • LANGSNAP and LANGSNAP 3.0
    • Considerations for mitigating participant attrition
    • Considerations for study design: Using the same instruments or different ones?
    • Considerations for data collection
    • Considerations for data preparation: What to annotate for a publicly shared learner corpus?
  • Looking ahead to the future and LANGSNAP 6.0
  • Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 10 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.51.07tra
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