Reading & discussion

Hello,

I learn that you can benefit from using corpora to create materials customised to your students’ needs that can benefit the whole class and extend learning beyond the limits of ready made materials. That it is useful for both teachers and students to check and confirm adequacy of language use. That it is a great tool for inductive learning, especially to dive into polysemy and divergence-convergence between languages.

Learning vocabulary and use it in all grammar categories possible. (Peak n. V. Adj.)

Help students with prompts of specific language in use to prepare and enhance writing tasks in a focused way.

I don’t know about the hot potatoes tool.

Hi,

I learnt the use of corpus tools to teach language mostly happens at the university level where lecturers enjoy  autonomy in the way they teach their courses. However, in my context where I give EAP support to students I have little autonomy. It is interesting to note that I can use corpora to encourage self correction among learners especially when they are revising their final draft.

Additionally, the discussion on use of corpus tools in the classroom ought to begin with the usefulness of corpora for the teacher and not what the teacher can do with it. I have been using corpus tools to teach collocation, though in a limited way, I now know that I can take it beyond this, for example by asking students to identify specific academic words and phrases that they can use for their writing tasks.

The use of corpora tools need not be expensive-there are free resources and online tutorials that I can use to improve my knowledge and skills of using corpora and corpora tools in my EAP lessons.

To conclude, I must say textbook production and selling is a very political affair in my context.  Many teachers over rely on textbooks and take them as the ultimate teaching resource. How can teachers be encourage to use corpora tools as a complement to the textbooks?

I am still reflecting on this pertinent question

Based on your reading of this article, add your ideas on the following points below:

1. Three things you learnt from the article

For me the most important learning point is that corpora are efficient tools for both teaching and learning, because they can reveal language patterns by searching a key word of interest, which traditional textbooks are not able to do.

A second point is that concordance lines can be used as exercise materials for explaining the use of a specific word or grammatical structure, which is convenient for teachers and easily arouses the interest of students to learn language independently.

The article also conveyed that in class, it is not necessary to spend much time on introducing what corpus is. It is simpler but more useful to directly demonstrate how corpora can be used to answer the specific language questions that learners ask.

2. Two things you found interesting and want to apply to your own teaching context

One interesting point is that the direct use of corpora has many benefits for learners, which provides a way of allowing learners to find answers on their own. This avoids the situation that learners worry about complex corpora technology before they use corpora.

I was also inspired by the concept that “corpora can help learners at three different stages of language production: before, during and after.”I hope I can incorporate these strategies into my classes. I would be interested to see more examples for each of the different stages of language production and how they can be applied in real classroom setting.

3. One thing you are still not sure about

I am still not confident about how to ensure my interpretations of language patterns are correct when I examine concordances.

To give an example, the collocations of words “historic and historical” are as follows:

Historic tends to be used with concrete places or sites, such as historic buildings, historic houses and historic interest, while historical is commonly used with abstract concepts, such as historical context, historical development, and historical evidence.

How should I crosscheck my interpretation? Did I interpret them correctly?

Three things you learnt from the article

1.       Using corpus does not always mean using a particular software

2.       Corpora can be used for various purposes, not only for vocabulary recognition but also for larger grammar points

3.       Corpora assist students for self-assessment

Two things you found interesting and want to apply to your own teaching context

1.       Using corpora to correct their own text after writing

2.       Training students on how to use concordances

One thing you are still not sure about

How to customize exercise using corpora

3 things I’ve learnt

1. Corpora can be used without extensive downloading of software or tech. “Hands-off” approaches work just as well.
2. Its use can transcend receptive and productive classroom activities.
3. Students do not need extensive explanation of what a corpora is to use it.

2 things I found interesting

1. I liked the use of L1 in the classroom and the comparison between Portuguese and English. If I had a monolingual class I would be interested in using bilingual corpora.

2. I found the autonomy aspect interesting in the after production phase to help with error correction. This would be good to set for self study.

1 thing still not sure about

1. I guess I’m finding the sheer number of different corpora intimidating. I know it’s not a one-size fits all aspect but I would like to feel comfortable knowing which corpora to use when a students asks a specific question.