A small-scale corpus study on Advising in Language Learning and Rapport-building Discourse Functions

1. Analyzing Discursive
Elements inAdvising:AWay
of Establishing Rapport
- Building Rapport through Reflective Dialogue
- Analyzing Rapport-building Discourse Functions

2. Introduction
Background of the Study
Purpose of the Study
Research Questions
Significance of the Study

3. Background of theStudy
 Studies related to learner autonomy are entitled to provide a deeper link for the inner
processes of the learner to provide a better understanding of learning.According to Little
(1995), learner autonomy is extensively supported by learning strategies and learner
training as well as pedagogical dialogue which could be defined by learning through
interdependence.
 Benson (2011) summarized the studies carried out on learner autonomy with respect to
originality. Benson (2011) found that autonomy has extensively been studied from a
sociocultural perspective, technological advances and teachers’ perspective.
 Benson(2011) puts advising in language learning under the term teacher autonomy and
states that a language advisor is responsible for guiding the language learner to make
informed decisions about their own learning progress without making those decisions on
behalf of them.

4. Advising in
Language
Learning
Advising in Language Learning (ALL) is assistance
provided by a language specialist to the learner in the way
of becoming an autonomous language learner. It is a
structured and intentional process laying on some ground
rules with a theoretical basis (Kato & Mynard, 2016).
Advising in language learning (ALL) is a process in which a
language advisor and a learner are engaged in a reflective
dialogue to determine learning issues, after which the
learner produces a plan with the help of the advisor and
implements the learning plan to reach their learning goal
(Kato & Mynard, 2016).

5. Advising in Language Learning (ALL)
Advising in Language Learning aims to help learners transform into reflective,
aware, and effective individuals by enhancing their ability to explore their learning
beliefs, identify their language goals and needs, develop their independent study
skills, and manage their affective issues (Kato & Mynard, 2016).
In this respect, the language instructors who have a desire to specialize in advising
need to re-evaluate their existing beliefs and practices about language learning and
transform into LearningAdvisors (LAs) by engaging in intentionally structured
reflective dialogues with learners.

6. Intentional
Reflective
Dialogue
Intentional Reflective Dialogue (IRD): It is the process of promoting
learner autonomy through intentional one-to-one dialogue with the
help of linguistic strategies and features to reflect and deeper think on
the possible learner, and with a focus of learner differences such as
motivation, belief, values, and lifestyles.
The idea of creating a structured dialogue framework is based on
preventing the possibility of fossilization and stagnation that may
occur over time due to characteristic features or underlying
assumptions of advisors (Kato, 2012).

7. BasicAdvising
Strategies
Repeating, Mirroring, Restating, Summarizing
The aim of Basic Advising Strategies
1. To listen carefully to the learner
2. To clarify what learner is working on
3. To check understanding of how the learner is feeling & thinking
4. To make sure the learner feels s/he is listened to
5. To express empathy
6. To stop yourself from giving advice, focusing on what is said
7. To help learner to unravel the key concerns
8. To promote deeper reflection

8. BasicAdvising
Strategies
Giving Positive Feedback, Empathizing, Complimenting
The aim of Basic Advising Strategies
1. To give learners thinking time
2. To let learners know that you are there for them
3. To let learners reflect deeply on a powerful moment
Other Basic Advising Strategies: Linking(Metaviewing),
Using Metaphors, Using Powerful Questions, Intuiting,
Challenging, Confronting, Sharing, Accountability, Silence

9. Purpose of the study
 This study inquires the bond between the learner and the advisor created by
building rapport, which can be operationalized based on the concepts of
acceptance, empathy and approval, value-sharing, connecting and co-creation
(Kato, 2012).
 Another purpose of the current study is to provide more useful feedback to
language advisors with their advising sessions through which they could help
advisees build their own learner autonomy by raising awareness, self-reflecting
and taking the responsibility of their own learning.

10. ResearchQuestions
1. How do language
advisors (LAs) build
rapport with their
learners during advising
sessions?
2.What rapport building
strategies are applied
during the advising
sessions?

11. Significance of
the study
Studies in language advising seek answers for the
nature of advising, its effect on the learner and
teacher by relating language advising to different
concepts such as motivation and anxiety dealing.
However, there are fewer studies looking for the
quality of language used in advising sessions in
terms of achieving its aim of establishing rapport.
In this respect, this study will provide basic
information regarding the use of rapport building
discourse functions through analyzing the advising
sessions.

12. Literature Review
Building Rapport inTeacher Education
Building Rapport through Reflective Dialogue
Building Rapport in Online Study Groups
Rapport-building Discourse FunctionsTaxonomy

13. Rapport
Building
Context
Discursive Strategies for Mentoring & Interactional
Dynamics inTeacher Education
Dobrowolska & Balslev (2017) analyzed the two types of
knowledge (epistemic and perceptional, Kessel & Korthagen,
1996) constructed through mentoring in teacher education.
For building rapport, interactional steps are taken between the
interlocutors.These are negotiation, co-construction, change in
positioning, reflectivity spectrum and use of referential systems
and resources such as parallel conversations, eye-contact.

14. Rapport
Building
Context
Professional Development for Learning Advisors: Facilitating
the Intentional Reflective Dialogue
Kato (2012) investigated the effectiveness of structured dialogues
regarding language advisors’ reflections on goals, beliefs, values and
conceptual framework and discrepancies between them.
The results of the content analysis showed that the reflective dialogues
enable advisors to reflect critically and holistically and explore
themselves differently.
The findings also showed that structured reflective dialogues allow
advisors to identify the differences between their beliefs and actual
attitudes.

15. Rapport
Building
Context
Rapport Building in Student GroupWork
Adel (2011) investigated rapport building discourse functions in
online and face-to-face student study groups. Forming two
different corpora (written & spoken) from two sets of materials
and applying corpus-based discourse-analytical functions, Adel
(2011) developed a taxonomy of ‘rapport-building discourse
functions’ containing four major categories, discourse-structuring,
intratextual, face-saving, and bonding units.
As a result of the anaylsis of online (written) and face-to-face
(spoken) student interaction from a different perspective, it was
found that rapport building is likely to have a regular linguistic
pattern, and rapport building language is rather formulaic.

16. Rapport
Building
Adel’s Rapport BuildingTaxonomy
Function Examples from the face-
to-face material
Discourse Structuring Greeting
Closing
ExcusingOneself
Hi there!
Should we call it a day?
I’ll be right back.
Intratextual Referring to in-group
discourse
So, just like someone else
mentioned…
Face-saving Apologizing
MitigatingCriticism
I don’t mean to interrupt.
I just want you to…
Bonding Agreeing
Aligning
Commiserating
Complimenting
SeekingAgreement
Offering Encouragement
Thanking
Responding to thanking
Chatting
Yeah, I agree, yes!
I don’t mind giving you…
I’m kinda confused about…
You guys are brilliant.
You know what I’m saying.
Good observation.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
How are you doing?

17. Methodology
Context & Participants
Data & Instruments
Data Analysis
Reliability

18. Context &
Participants
The study took place in Japan in language advising sessions
following a one-week language advising training.
The study was conducted with 4 Japanese university
students/language advisees and 4 novice advisors/Turkish-English
language teachers.
All Japanese language advisees were female, while only one of the
language advisors were male in the current study.
All students and teachers participated voluntarily in the study, and
their names were kept anonymous.All participants were pseudo-
named for ethical concerns.

19. Data &
Instruments
The advising sessions that took place in Japan were recorded, and
four of these sessions were transcribed by the researcher for the
sake of the current study.
Each session was approximately one-hour long, the content of the
sessions was introducing the advisees and applying the advising
elements, such as summarizing, mirroring and setting goals
practically through the sessions.
The recorded and transcribed sessions were turned into a small-
scale corpus with 12.335 words.
Created corpus was analyzed with UAM 3 Corpus software
qualitatively based on Adel’s Rapport BuildingTaxonomy (2011).
AntConc software was also employed for frequency and KWIC
concordance analytical tools.

20. Data
Analysis
Reliability Issues
Inter-rater Reliability
For interrater reliability 25% of the data (one of the
transcribed sessions) were also analyzed by a fellow
researcher.
This fellow researcher has enough field knowledge as he is
also a language advisor and actively giving advising sessions
for the past 3 years and attended the advising training in
Japan.
Intra-rater Reliability
The researcher analyzed the transcribed data twice within a
three-week interval.

21. Results
GeneralText Statistics
Most FrequentWords
Descriptive Statistics
Qualitative Analysis

22. GeneralText
Statistics
Size & Group Numbers in the face-to-face material
Material
Size of Corpus 12,335 words
Number of speakers 8
Number of Interaction groups 4
Variables AdvisorTeachers Students
Age 28-40 18-22
Gender 3 female 1 male 4 females
Major EnglishTeaching Mixed
Cultural Background Turkish Japanese
English Language Level Proficient Users Intermediate Users

23. Most Frequent
Words
(per 1000 token)

24. Descriptive
Statistics

25. Concordance 1.Sample of ‘yes’ in corpus

26. Concordance 1.Sample of ‘right’ in corpus

27. MainAnalysis
Sample exchange of ‘offering encouragement’
AdvisorTeacher 1: […] Let’s summarize our talk and remember what kind of tools
you have found to study.
Student 1: Article, English articles.
AdvisorTeacher 1: Very nice
Student 1: Instagram
[…]
AdvisorTeacher 1: E-mails
Student 1: On the internet, yeah.
AdvisorTeacher 1: So, you have already found four different tools to study, do
you think it will be useful for your reading studies? How will you organize it?You
said you found four different tools like reading e-mails on the internet, Instagram,
newspaper articles and you also said…
Student 1: Search for Justin Bieber
AdvisorTeacher 1: Yeah, you are right.Would you like to have a plan for how long
will you spend for each of them in a day? How many minutes? Would you like to
plan?What can you do?
Student 1: Maybe I use Instagram before I go to bed.
AdvisorTeacher 1: That’s a great idea. […]

28. MainAnalysis
Sample exchange of ‘complimenting & thanking’
AdvisorTeacher 3: You are welcome to the session.What does your
name mean?
Student 3: Strong and beautiful.
AdvisorTeacher 3: That’s good and it fits you.
Student 3: Thank you.
AdvisorTeacher 3: You could be small, but you are so strong, and
you are very beautiful.
Student 3: Thank you.
[…]

29. MainAnalysis
Sample exchange of ‘excusing & chatting’
Student 4: It is helpful, but it is lack of time, so when I see something, I
can’t see its English.That’s why I memorize the Japanese meaning to
English meaning.This is a very good way for me.This is one thing.And
there is another thing, to memorize grammar or structure.
AdvisorTeacher 4: So, you also improve yourself on how to construct
sentences correctly.
Student 4: Can I bring my material?
AdvisorTeacher 4: Sure.
Student 4: Excuse me.
AdvisorTeacher 4: Is that a marvel bag? Do you like Marvel cartoons?
Student 4: Not really.

30. MainAnalysis
Sample exchange of ‘offering encouragement’
Student 3: Because I want to speak many languages, so it is difficult to
choose which language.And I decided onThai.The reason is maybe
my teacher in high school. His wife can speakThai. My teacher went to
Thailand, he told me aboutThailand many times, so I got interested in
Thailand.
AdvisorTeacher 3: OK, so you developed an interest inThai culture,
and the country and the language through your high school teacher.
Student 3: Yes
AdvisorTeacher 3: This is very nice, isn’t it?
Student 3: Yes, by the time I graduate from this school, I want to be
able to speak more languages like Portuguese and Spanish.
AdvisorTeacher 3: Really?

31. MainAnalysis
Sample exchange of ‘commiserating
[…]
Student 1: When it comes to giving a presentation in front of people, I am
always shaking.
AdvisorTeacher 1: Shaking…
Student 1: Yes, I would say I am little bit awkward. It is awkward for me.
AdvisorTeacher 1: Do not think like that. It is awkward for everybody.You
know whenever I think about a presentation, I always think about I am on the
stage, and I feel awkward first, but then I think about the achievement I will
get, and the satisfaction and I become happy. It is awkward for everybody. Do
not worry about it.
Student 1: Even if it is awkward for me, it is more awkward for the viewers.
AdvisorTeacher 1: Why do you think so?
[…]

32. MainAnalysis
Most frequent rapport type was ‘bonding’ with 595 occurrences making up
95.20% of the corpus. Adel (2011) also stated face-to-face rapport-building
discourse functions are interacted more frequently as a result of multiple
speakers and longer sequences with many extended stretches compared to
written corpus.
Of all 595 occurrences of bonding, ‘agreeing’ was the most frequent sub-type
of bonding with 187 occurrences (29,92%). Backchannels such as ‘yeah, mm,
OK’ are extensively used with a purpose of ‘I’m listening’ , which could build
rapport (Adel, 2011).
‘Seeking agreement, chatting and offering encouragement’ were also
frequent with 116, 107 and 106 occurrences (18,56%, 17,12%, and 16,96%)
respectively. Seeking-agreement sub-category mostly occurred with tag
questions such as ‘right, isn’t it, yes, no; complying with previous studies
(Adel, 2011).
‘The sub-category of complimenting’ was also frequent with 39 occurrences
(6,24%) when compared to other categories and sub-categories.

33. Conclusion
Discussion
Limitation
Further Research
References

34. Discussion
 The present study has offered insights into the effectiveness of reflective
dialogues structured in advising language learning.
 Specifically, this study shed light on rapport-building language used in
advising sessions.
 According to the results of the study, the bond between the language
advisors and advisees were built from the first sessions, and it can be
observed through discursive functions of rapport-building.
 Bonding strategies such as agreeing, seeking agreement, offering
encouragement, complimenting and chatting in the rapport-building
taxonomy are the most frequently employed discursive strategies in
reflective dialogues in advising sessions.

35. Limitations
 The size of corpus was too small to generalize the results of the current
research.
 Since it is mainly a qualitative study, it is not possible to generalize the
results nation-wise or internationally.
 The variety of cultural background of language advisors and language
learners in the study might be limitation for the current study as culture
may play an important role in the exchange of communication (Spencer-
Oatey, 2000).

36. Further
Research
 A replication of the study with more participants and a larger-
scale corpus could be carried out in the future.
 The current study consists of transcribed intentional reflective
dialogues between the novice advisors and language learners. It
was the first session done with a purpose of building rapport. A
further study could be carried out to analyze whether the
following sessions could maintain the rapport built in the first
sessions.
 A further study including both written and spoken materials could
be carried out to compare the establishing & maintaining rapport
building situation in both contexts.
 Studies analyzing discourse functions that threaten rapport can
also be studied in the future.

37. References
Adel, A. (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. John Benjamins.
Adel, A. (2010). Just to give you kind of a map of where we are going:A taxonomy of
metadiscourse in spoken and written academic English. NordicJournal of English Studies, 9(2), 69-
97. https://doi.org/10.35360/njes.218
Benson, P. (2011).What’s new in autonomy? The LanguageTeacher, 35(4). 15-18.
Chrismore,A., Markkanen, R., & Steffensen, M.S. (1993). Metadiscourse in persuasive writing:A
study of texts written by American and Finnish university students. Written Communication, 10(1),
39-71. https://doi.org/ /10.1177/0741088393010001002
Dobrowolska, D., & Balslev, K. (2017) Discursive mentoring strategies and interactional dynamics
in teacher education. Linguistics and Education, 42, 10-20.
Hyland, K. (2005). Stance and engagement:A model of interaction in academic discourse.
DiscourseStudies 7(2), 173-192.
Kato, S. (2012). Professional development for learning advisors: Facilitating the intentional
reflective dialogue. Studies in Self-Access LearningJournal, 3(1), 74-92.

38. References
Kato, S., & Mynard, J. (2016). Reflective Dialogue: Advising in language learning. NewYork, NY:
Routledge.
Kessels, J. P.A. M., & Korthagen, F.A. J. (1996).The relationship between theory and Practice:
Back to classics. American Educational Association, 25(3), 17-22.
Little, D. (1995). Learning as dialogue:The dependence of learner autonomy on teacher
autonomy. System, 23(2), 175-181.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000). Rapport Management: A framework for analysis. In Spencer-Oatey, H.
(Ed.), Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport throughTalk across Genres (11-46), Continuum.
Vande Kopple,W. J. (1985). Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. College Composition
and Communication, 36(1), 82-93.
Vande Kopple,W. J. (2012).The importance of studying metadiscourse. Applied Research in
English, 1(2), 37-44.

39. Thank you.