Through the Corpora list
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Windows program Collocate 1.0 is available for download at michaelbarlow.com. The software extracts collocations in various ways (including n-grams) and provides scores based on MI, t-score and Log Likelihood. This version of the software is now free.
If you want to simply check out the functionality of the software, or have misplaced your manual, you can get it from
https://auckland.academia.edu/MichaelBarlow
Lynne Flowerdew
Language learning theories underpinning corpus-based pedagogy
The noticing hypothesis (Schmidt)
Attention consciously drawn
Noticing linked to frequency counts
Implicit vs explicit learning
Constructivist learning
Learners engage in discovery learning
Inductive learning
Cognitive skills, problem solving to understand new data
Widmann et al. 2011: the more possible starting points for exploitation, the more likely for different learners- SACODEYL project.
Sociocultural theory
What about language learning outside the classroom and incidental learning?
Corpus Linguistics for ELT: Research and Practice
Ivor Timmis
From the introduction:
The challenge of fostering a fruitful relationship between corpus linguistics and ELT was clearly set out by Conrad (2000: 556):
Corpus grammarians must strive to reach more audiences that include
teachers and must emphasize concrete pedagogical applications … In fact,
the strongest force for change could be a new generation of ESL teachers who
were introduced to corpus-based research in their training programs [and]
have practiced conducting their own corpus investigations and designing materials based on corpus research.
Indeed, this comment by Conrad encapsulates the main aim of this book: to help move corpus linguistics from what Römer (2012) terms its ‘minority sport’ status in language teaching to a point where the ability to carry out and interpret corpus research is seen as a normal part of an English language teacher’s repertoire.
Familiarity with corpus research and practice should be a standard part of an English language teacher’s toolkit, I would argue, because most people in ELT will at some time have had thoughts like these:
• How many words do my learners need to learn?
• Why is everyone talking about lexical chunks and collocations?
• Do my students really need this grammar point?
• Which words should I use to exemplify this structure?
• Am I teaching my learners language they will need to use when they speak the language?
• Does the grammar explanation in the coursebook really reflect how we use this structure?
• What vocabulary do my English for dentistry students need to get their teeth into?
If you have had questions like these, this book is designed to help you to answer them by consulting corpora and corpus-informed literature. It is also designed to help you to generate and investigate similar questions. It is, however, important to keep corpora in perspective throughout this book.
The argument presented here is that corpora are a resource and a reference source and, as is the case with all resources, pedagogic judgement is vitally important in determining how and when
they are deployed to best effect.
The book does not assume prior knowledge or experience of corpus research; nor does it assume any technical expertise. Technophobes can relax: contemporary corpus interfaces and corpus software are user-friendly and often include tutorial packages. The tasks in this book will help to familiarise readers with publicly available user-friendly corpora such as the British National Corpus hosted at
http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/
The methodological transfer from the CL research area to the applied ring of language learning and teacher underwent no adaptation, and thus learners were presented with the same tools, corpora and analytical tasks as well-trained and professional linguists.
[…]
Reading concordances is, by no means, a trivial task. Sinclair (1991) recommends a complex procedure which involves five distinct stages. Let us review very briefly what they entail. The first stage is
that of initiation. Learners here will look to the left and to the right of the nodes and determine the dominant pattern. Then, learners are prompted to interpret and hypothesize about what it is that these
words have in common. Thirdly, the consolidation stage, where students are to corroborate their hypothesis by looking more closely at variations of their hypotheses. After this, these findings have to be reported and, finally a new round of observations starts. Although typically reduced in language classrooms, this procedure is common in the possibilities scenario and certainly characterises the so-called bottom-up approach (Mishan, 2004: 223). A recent analysis (Kreyer, 2008) deconstructs the idea of corpus competence in different skills, namely, interpreting corpus data, knowledge about corpus design, knowledge about resources in the Internet, some linguistic background, knowledge about how to use concordances and, finally, some corpus linguistics background. This is a positive effort in the
right direction as the author admits the need to create the conditions for the use of corpora in the language classroom or, in other words, the Kreyer recognizes that pedagogic mediation is necessary if we want to turn the corpus into a learning tool. Notwithstanding, the challenges are significant.
Pérez-Paredes, P. (2010). Corpus Linguistics and Language Education in Perspective: Appropriation and the Possibilities Scenario. In T. Harris & M. Moreno Jaén (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics in Language Teaching (pp. 53-73). Peter Lang.
The methodological transfer from the CL research area to the applied ring of language learning and teacher underwent no adaptation, and thus learners were presented with the same tools, corpora and analytical tasks as well-trained and professional linguists.
[…]
Reading concordances is, by no means, a trivial task. Sinclair (1991) recommends a complex procedure which involves five distinct stages. Let us review very briefly what they entail. The first stage is
that of initiation. Learners here will look to the left and to the right of the nodes and determine the dominant pattern. Then, learners are prompted to interpret and hypothesize about what it is that these
words have in common. Thirdly, the consolidation stage, where students are to corroborate their hypothesis by looking more closely at variations of their hypotheses. After this, these findings have to be reported and, finally a new round of observations starts. Although typically reduced in language classrooms, this procedure is common in the possibilities scenario and certainly characterises the so-called bottom-up approach (Mishan, 2004: 223). A recent analysis (Kreyer, 2008) deconstructs the idea of corpus competence in different skills, namely, interpreting corpus data, knowledge about corpus design, knowledge about resources in the Internet, some linguistic background, knowledge about how to use concordances and, finally, some corpus linguistics background. This is a positive effort in the
right direction as the author admits the need to create the conditions for the use of corpora in the language classroom or, in other words, the Kreyer recognizes that pedagogic mediation is necessary if we want to turn the corpus into a learning tool. Notwithstanding, the challenges are significant.
Pérez-Paredes, P. (2010). Corpus Linguistics and Language Education in Perspective: Appropriation and the Possibilities Scenario. In T. Harris & M. Moreno Jaén (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics in Language Teaching (pp. 53-73). Peter Lang.