Abstract
Since its emergence, corpora have made investigating language possible in a precise and objective way. Language practitioners are now equipped with concordancing tools that can check millions of utterances in seconds. These tools have caused a revolution in processing and analyzing a language for different purposes. Teachers now can examine the information in a textbook by referring back to corpus tools, keep track of the target language use, and infer generalizations that are hardly provided by traditional language books. After presenting a theoretical and historical overview of corpora and concordancers, this chapter discusses the role of corpora and concordancing tools in English language teaching (ELT), specifically in vocabulary instruction, and presents four corpus-based activity ideas that the classroom practitioners can easily utilize in their classes.
TopBecause of the many benefits they offer, computers directly affect our teaching and learning experiences. With modern computer technologies, the learning and teaching process has now reached a sustainable level and teaching can now be offered in a fully or semi-digital state. Many habits related to traditional learning are now replaced with modern ones. While computers are now supporting traditional teaching methods inside the classroom, they also allow learners to carry out the self-learning process outside of the school. Today, many modern technologies are used in different focal areas of language. For instance, multimedia-supported software, video sharing sites, podcasts, videocasts or language labs for listening skills; smart books and digital stories for reading; collaborative and auto-feedback-providing writing tools for writing; and virtual reality applications for speaking. Web 2.0 tools for digital assessment and digital portfolios have also started to be used effectively in foreign language teaching. Other technologies such as artificial intelligence, wearable technologies or augmented reality are also being tested to be able to improve language teaching and learning experience (Thorne & May, 2017).
The advancement of computers in terms of capacity and speed has caused a massive improvement in some areas of linguistics. For example, one of the main reasons for the intense interest in Corpus Linguistics (the study of a language which focuses on the linguistic features expressed in its text corpora) in the 1980s can be explained with the progress in computer technologies in those years (Rayson, 2015). Before the introduction of computers with high processing power, it would take years to analyze even a few hundred pages of a book. This progress in Corpus Linguistics began to directly affect not only the research dimension of a foreign language but also the teaching dimension. For example, it contributed to the writing of pedagogical grammars and dictionaries by providing more accurate linguistic examples and enabled the second language researchers to develop a curriculum suitable for individuals who want to learn languages for specific purposes. Today, there are many corpus-based coursebooks produced in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and are actively used by many institutions, such as Touchstone by Cambridge University Press.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Concordancers: A tool or software which allow users to search for words or multiple examples in a specific text or in everyday language.
Frequency Lists: Words or grammatical items listed in a way that it shows how often they occur in a corpus.
British National Corpus: Database of millions of written and spoken language samples from a huge variety of sources available in British English.
Data-Driven Learning: An approach in which learners explore the target language in the same way linguists do.
Corpus Linguistics: The study of a language which focuses on the linguistic features expressed in its text corpora by employing computer-based empirical analyses.
Corpora: Collections of linguistic samples of real life.
Collocation: Two or more words’ tendency to appear next to or near each other (e.g., to save time, to take a risk).