USING CORPUS-BASED RESEARCH FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

ENGLISH 510

Hee Sung (Grace) Jun & Kimberly LeVelle

THE IMPORTANCE OF CORPUS-BASED RESEARCH FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERSBy Susan Conrad (1999)

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

Corpus: principled collection of naturally-occurring texts

Corpus Linguistics: the empirical study of language relying on computer-assisted techniques to analyze large, principled databases of naturally occurring language

Concordancers: software programs that display words or simple grammatical terms with their surrounding context

LIMITATIONS OF PREVIOUS CORPUS-BASED WORK FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS

1. Small-scale analyses Small collection of texts compiled by

convenience Looking at all occurrences of a word or reading a

transcript from corpus

2. Focus on lexical or lexico-grammatical analyses Study words alone or words in connection with a

grammatical feature

CHARACTERISTICS OF CORPUS-BASED RESEARCH

1. Use a principled collection of naturally-occurring texts (corpus) Size Diversity

2. Use computers for analyses

3. Both quantitative analyses and functional interpretations of language use

ADVANTAGES OF LARGE-SCALE CORPUS-BASED STUDIES

1. Allow investigation of a variety of factors Frequency Semantic categories Grammatical structures Clausal positions Individual items

2. Easy to investigate social variation register, gender, regional differences

3. Provides both structural description and information about use Intuition concrete support and examples that

reliably represent real language use

Interrelated

WILL CORPUS LINGUISTICS REVOLUTIONIZE GRAMMAR TEACHING IN THE 21ST CENTURY?By Susan Conrad (2000)

CHANGES IN GRAMMAR TEACHING AND RESEARCH AT THE END OF THE 20TH CENTURY

1. Renewed interest in focus on form

2. Computer technology enabled the development of corpus linguistics

THREE REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES IN GRAMMAR TEACHING IN THE 21ST CENTURY PROMPTED BY CORPUS-BASED STUDIES

1. Monolithic descriptions of English grammar register-specific descriptions

2. Integration of teaching of grammar with teaching of vocabulary

3. Structural accuracy appropriate conditions of use

FOUR FACTORS ON WHICH THE FUTURE OF GRAMMAR TEACHING DEPENDS

Introduction of corpus-based research to the right audience including teachers and teachers-in-training

Thoughtful presentation of pedagogical applications of corpus research

New grammar teaching materials that incorporate corpus-based research

Teachers’ willingness to deviate from traditional grammar syllabi and accept the changes

INTEGRATING CORPUS CONSULTATION IN LANGUAGE STUDIESBy Angela Chambers (2005)

TYPES OF CORPUS BASED RESEARCH

TEACHING ABOUT (i.e., teaching about corpora/corpus linguistics)

TEACHING TO EXPLOIT (i.e., teaching students to exploit corpus data)

EXPLOITING TO TEACH (i.e., exploiting corpus resources in order to teach)

METHODOLOGY

Students studying Applied Languages and Applied Languages with Computing

3 week unit on corpora and concordancing

Students design own investigation

Corpora for each language were compiled from journalistic and academic writing sources

FINDINGS

Student reactions to the activity grammar text and corpus together types of text to include in corpus

Discovery learning Learner autonomy

DISADVANTAGES

Not a replacement for grammar book prescriptive vs. descriptive dilemma

Limitations of small corpus Time intensive Learner training (as discussed by Jinrong and

Pan Na) Availability of corpora (esp. in variety of

languages)

USING A CONCORDANCER