Dr Kevin Gerigk
Research Associate: Corpus LinguistProfile
My doctoral thesis looked into active listenership in EFL listening tasks. I am using a corpus pragmatics approach to the analysis of active listenership in conversations.
More specifically, my PhD research investigated the level of authenticity of listening texts by looking into the representation of active and good listenership realised through the use of a variety of types of response tokens and speaker contributions to the conversation. Using an analytical-descriptive framework, especially conceived for this type of annotation, Quan and Qual methods are combined to investigate the use of response tokens and add-on/completion routines in dependence on specific conversational contexts. This will allow me to analyse how turn-management and listenership are represented in listening tasks in EFL materials.
Furthermore, I am interested in research involving corpus methods in language teaching (EFL, EAP, ESP). I am particularly interested in developing approaches to operationalise DDL in the English L2 classroom. This translates into the design of teacher materials and lesson planning in teacher education.
Besides my interest in research, I have also been a language teacher at different institutions around the world for more than twelve years. I have taught in various settings spanning from general adult education to Higher Education (PG level).
I am a member of BAAL and ISLE.
Research Overview
My research interests include Corpus Linguistics, diachronic language change, the influence of popculture on spoken English, spoken Grammar, spoken English, Second Language Acquisition (especially motivation and affective filters), ELT (EFL&ESL) materials development and evaluation, data-driven learning.
Career Details
I have been a language teacher/tutor for more than eight years now. Whilst, in my early career, I was mostly involved in planning and convening English courses for adult education centres in Germany (Volkshochschule), more recently my careers has been focussed on A-Level (Abitur) and uni entry preparation courses as an online teacher, mostly in Germany.
I am an invited lecturer at a university in Chile, where I teach on the UG module Introduction to Corpus Linguistics, for the degree programme Translation and Linguistics.
In addition, I have experience working in Higher Education as an EAP tutor for major British universities and as an external MA dissertation supervisor.
Moreover, I have been involved in a number of corpus annotation and coding projects (TLC & spoken BNC2014) as an editorial assistant at LAEL.
In addition, I hold a post as Research Associate at Aston University, Birmingham. I am involved in cross-disciplinary research projects in the department of forensic linguistics.
Furthermore, I planned and remotely co-convened a module on Corpus Lingusitics for Translation Students at a major university in Santiago de Chile this year.
Recently, I have taken on the role as mentor in the Methods NorthWest mentorship programme. The programme is designed to help students from the social sciences to use a corpus linguistics approach in their research. As such, I advise and mentor my student on how to approach their data using corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis.
Current Research
I am working on a project to establish a general service list of conversational English using a corpus-driven approach.
In addition to this, I am working on a joint research project with colleagues from overseas on the perception and usefulness of corpus-assisted language teaching in ESP.
My latest research is a collaborative project on learner English and on developing DDL materials in tertiary educational settings in LatAm.