The LONGDALE (Longitudinal Database of Learner English) project was initiated in January 2008 and aims to build and feed a large truly longitudinal database of learner English containing data from learners from a wide range of mother tongue backgrounds. The same students are followed over a period of at least three years and data collections are organized at least once a year.
The term ‘database' rather than ‘corpus' is used here as our aim is to collect a wide range of data types, from fairly uncontrolled spoken or written data such as argumentative essays, narratives or informal interviews to more guided types in the form of summaries or picture descriptions. We also collect some experimental data such as grammaticality judgement tests.
The database includes comprehensive learner profile information which is gathered during each data collection session. These variables include, inter alia, age, gender, educational background, country, language background, proficiency level. Variables pertaining to the task are also included.
Five international teams have collected data so far and future collections will soon be organized.
Selected references:
de Haan, Pieter / van der Haagen, Monique 2014. A Longitudinal Study of the Syntactic Development of Very Advanced Dutch EFL Writing. In Vandelanotte, Lieven / Davidse, Kristin / Gentens, Caroline / Kimps, Ditte (eds) Recent Advances in Corpus Linguistics Developing and Exploiting Corpora. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 335–349.
Gentil, Guillaume / Meunier, Fanny 2016. A systemic functional linguistic approach to usage-based research and instruction: The case of nominalization in L2 academic writing. In A. Tyler, L. Ortega, M. Uno, & H. I. Park (Eds.), Usage-inspired L2 instruction: Researched pedagogy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 267-289.
Goutéraux, Pascale 2013. Learners of English and Conversational Proficiency. In Granger, Sylviane / Gilquin, Gaëtanelle / Meunier, Fanny (eds) Twenty Years of Learner Corpus Research: Looking Back, Moving Ahead. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 197–210.
Littré, Damien 2015. Combining Experimental Data and Corpus Data: Intermediate French-speaking Learners and the English Present. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 11/1, 89–126.
Meunier, Fanny 2016. Introduction to the LONGDALE Project. In Castello, Erik / Ackerley, Katherine / Coccetta, Francesca (eds) Studies in Learner Corpus Linguistics. Research and Applications for Foreign Language Teaching and Assessment. Berlin: Peter Lang, 123-126.
Meunier, Fanny / Littré, Damien 2013. Tracking Learners’ Progress. Adopting a Dual ‘Corpus Cum Experimental Data’ Approach. The Modern Language Journal 97/1, 61–76.
van Vuuren, Sanne 2013. ‘Information Structural Transfer in Advanced Dutch EFL Writing: A Cross-linguistic Longitudinal Study’, in Aalberse, S. and Auer, A. (eds) Linguistics in the Netherlands 2011, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 173–87.