Computer corpora and the language classroom: on the potential and limitations of computer corpora in language teaching

Abstract

With computer corpora firmly established as research tools in linguistics, their application for language teaching purposes is also increasingly advocated to the extent that corpus-based language teaching has even been praised as the new revolution in language teaching (cf. Sinclair, 2004b). This article takes a more critical view and examines some of the potential as well as the limitations of computer corpora in the language classroom, providing practical examples from the British Component of the International Corpus of English. It is argued that only a balanced view, which takes into account both the strengths and weaknesses of computer corpora for language teaching, can ensure their successful integration into the language classroom. The discussion first focuses on the limitations of corpus data, which are identified as ‘externalized’, as opposed to ‘internalized’ language, lacking contextual, as opposed to co-textual, information. On the other hand, computer corpora provide access to information not easily available from other sources, viz. information on frequency of occurrence in various text types, and co-occurrence patterns, e.g. collocation, colligation, semantic prosody). This information, however, also has to be seen in the light of the more general questions of how representative corpus results are and to what extent they are generalisable. The article concludes with a discussion of pedagogical implications of the use of computer corpora, especially with regard to their application as tools for exploratory/discovery learning and as means for promoting learner autonomy.

Data‐Driven Learning: Taking the Computer Out of the Equation

“…The participation of teachers with no background in DDL is potentially important; Yoon (2008) is virtually alone in empirical DDL studies in that the researcher does not double as the teacher. Certainly, the “role of the teacher is crucial” in DDL (Kaltenböck & Mehlmauer‐Larcher, 2005, p. 79), and the issue of teacher training has received considerable attention in recent years (e.g., Farr, 2008). However, these questions will not be pursued here, as no correlation was detected between the students’ performance and the teacher (cf.…”

Corpora and Language Education

“…In their defence for using a corpus of authentic speech, Campbell et al (ibid.) revisit Widdowson's (2000) objection to corpus data being considered 'real' language as it has been removed from its original habitat and needs to be 'authenticated' to suit the students' own context (see Mishan 2004;Kaltenböck and Mehlmauer-Larcher 2005;Seidlhofer 2003 for a review of this issue). While Campbell et al (ibid.…”

Learning and teaching with corpora: reflections by student teachers

“…Referring to the situation in Germany, Mukherjee (2004) remarks that 'in reality, the influence of applied corpus-linguistic research on the actual practice of language teaching is still relatively limited' (p. 239). Kaltenbo¨ck and Mehlmauer-Larcher (2005) observe that, while there is more progress in tertiary education, 'in secondary education and general ELT classes, however, computer corpora are still conspicuously absent' (p. 66). Braun (2005) concludes that 'corpora, while being the ''buzzword'' in language research departments, are still far from being part of mainstream teaching practice, if not terra incognita altogether' (p. 48).…”