国内近十年外语教育研究中的技术工具使用情况分析

An Analysis of the Use of Tech Tools in Foreign Language Education Research in China in the Past Decade

在指数增长的教育大数据中,挖掘抽象复杂的外语教育规律需要智能技术的支持。文章分析了近十年(2011—2020)国内12种外语类核心期刊上所刊1519篇外语教育研究论文中的技术工具使用情况。研究结果表明:(1)尽管整体上外语教育研究方面的发文量有所下降,但其中使用技术工具开展的研究数量呈波动上升趋势;(2)外语教育研究中技术工具使用呈现多样性和综合性,以及以统计分析技术工具为主导的特点,且越来越多的研究综合使用两种及以上的技术工具;(3)大学英语、语料库、基于二语习得理论的外语教育研究、英语写作是技术工具使用的热点领域。

In recent years,with the explosive growth of data,foreign language education research is stepping into the paradigm of educational data mining. Foreign language researchers in China have gradually broken through the limitations of traditional speculative research methods,and have begun to carry out foreign language education research with the help of computer tech tools,and have achieved fruitful research results. Therefore,it is of great significance for future scholars to understand the use of tech tools in foreign language education research. In order to provide more reference for the researchers in the field of foreign language education,this study aims to answer the following three questions:( 1)What is the general situation of tech tool use in foreign language education research in China in the past decade( 2011-2020) ?( 2) What are the characteristics of tech tool use?( 3) What are the hot areas of tech tool use?With China National Knowledge Infrastructure( CNKI) as the database,this study retrieved 1,519 papers published in the past decade in 12 domestic foreign language core journals,which focused on the theme of foreign language education research using tech tools. These papers were analyzed with CiteSpace. The results showed that the total number of foreign language education researches in China has experienced a steady increase and then a gradual decrease,while the proportion of literature on foreign language education research using tech tools has shown a fluctuating growth trend. The use of tech tools in foreign language education research was featured by diversity,comprehensiveness and dominance of statistical analysis tech tools,and more and more studies integrated two or more tech tools in use. Based on the keyword cooccurrence analysis and citation frequency analysis in CiteSpace,it could be found that the hot areas of the tech tool use in foreign language education research in China were mainly focused on "college English","corpus ","foreign language education research based on second language acquisition theory","English writing",and so on. Although the application of tech tools in foreign language education research in China has made some progress in the past decade, there are still some shortcomings which deserve our reflection. First,the use of tech tools is not wide. In foreign language education research,tech tools are mostly used in writing teaching,vocabulary teaching,oral teaching and other aspects,but little research is done on the cultivation of learners ’listening skills,teachers ’ professional development and curriculum objectives,and evaluation. Second,the level of tech tool use is not high. Many researchers have mastered how to use tech tools to analyze and process research data,yet short in understanding the theories and principles of Tech Tools analysis and processing. Third,data interpretation is not strong. In the application of tech tools to foreign language education research,most of the data analysis only stays at the superficial descriptive level, without touching upon the deep-level laws of foreign language teaching.