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TRANSCRIPT
USING CORPUS-BASED RESEARCH FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING
ENGLISH 510
Hee Sung (Grace) Jun & Kimberly LeVelle
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
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
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)