Language teachers with corpora in mind: from starting steps to walking tall

Abstract

Although the use of corpus data in language learning is a steadily growing research area, direct access to corpora by teachers and learners and the use of the data in the classroom are developing slowly. This paper explores how teachers can integrate corpus approaches in their practice. After situating the topic in relation to current research and practice in ICT and language learning, we examine some easily available resources, suggesting how they can provide examples of naturally occurring discourse for use in the language classroom. Beginning with easily available online corpus resources with built-in concordancers which require no prior technical training, we continue by discussing the challenges which more advanced use of corpora presents. This is illustrated by examples from corpora of business communication and casual conversation. We conclude by emphasising that there is considerable scope for both research and dissemination in relation to corpus applications in language learning.

Has Corpus‐Based Instruction Reached a Tipping Point? Practical Applications and Pointers for Teachers

“…As Chambers et al () have observed, “corpus‐informed pedagogy is essentially evidence‐based” (p. 88). The what (i.e., the basic definition of a corpus) and the why (i.e., theoretical support for corpus‐based instruction and its empirically supported and perceived potential benefits) are easy for language teachers to appreciate, but appreciating the how has been relatively slow to develop in directly using corpora in classroom teaching.…”

“…As with most, if not all, key terms in the field, definitions of the term corpus (pl. corpora ) vary and overlap across the fields or subfields of research contexts and are a source of ongoing controversy and debate among researchers (Chambers et al., ). Broadly defined, a corpus refers to a body of naturally occurring language collected to meet certain criteria.…”

“…The once “considerable gap” between research and practice in using corpora in teaching and learning (Huang, , p. 91) may well be narrowing with the advent of rapid technological improvements, suggested by the results of a recent meta‐analysis (Boulton, ). However, although the use of corpus data in language teaching and learning has enjoyed steady growth in the literature (Boulton, ), its direct use by language teachers and learners continues to lag (Chambers, Farr, & O'Riordan, ). From the practitioner's perspective, the idea that corpus linguistics is only for corpus linguists or researchers, and the commonly held misconception that writing or speaking instructors would find the research too complex to benefit from (Reid et al., ), should no longer be accepted without question or action.…”

Spoken Corpora and Corpus-Informed Language Pedagogy: Implications Arising From Research

“…Apart from the studies showing the significance of corpus-informed materials, a number of investigations into the use of language corpora by individual teachers and researchers have been conducted starting from the early 1990s (Chambers et al, 2011). Research in this strand has revealed that integrating language corpora directly into the language activities could be beneficial in many ways ranging from encouraging discovery learning, raising language awareness to boosting facilitated learning (Chambers, 2005;Wichmann, Fligelstone, McEnery, & Knowles, 1997).…”

“…The use of corpora within the field of language education is not a recent application which dates back to 1970s when the early reference corpora such as Brown Corpus of American English and the LOB (Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen) Corpus of British English emerged (Chambers, Farr, & O"Riordan, 2011). Initial steps in including language corpora into language teaching practices were in the form of teaching materials mostly motivated to find out "what language facts of relevance to language learning and teaching can be derived from corpora" (Bernardini, 2004 p.16).…”