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Introduction
The corpus approach to researching the features and patterns of
language benefits English language teachers and TESOL practitioners as
they facilitate the learning and acquisition of English. Over the years,
the number of teachers incorporating corpus-based materials in their
classrooms has grown exponentially; yet, there still are relevant
teacher-related hurdles, including, in general, a lack of confidence in
the approach, time constraints, difficulty learning to use and access
tools, recurring questions of relevance, and the challenges in orienting
students and re-designing courses to integrate corpus tools and
corpus-based activities.
Corpus linguistics is primarily a methodological approach to
the study of language structure, patterns, and use. Exploring corpora
has become a popular approach in the quantitative analysis of the
linguistic characteristics of written and spoken discourse, resulting in
the development of more accurate teaching materials and frequency-based
dictionaries and ESL textbooks, especially for university-level
learners of English (Friginal, 2018). Corpora (singular form corpus) are, in a sense, datasets of systematically
collected, naturally-occurring language stored and processed in computer
platforms.
The four main characteristics of a corpus are that it is (1)
authentic, (2) relatively large, (3) electronic, and (4) conforms to
specific criteria (Bowker & Pearson, 2002). There are corpora
containing a variety of registers, also referred to as text
types, including academic English, spoken English, newspaper
articles, novels and short stories, or legal cases. There is no
particular rule regarding the size of a corpus, but it should be large
enough to allow a systematic analysis of relevant, target linguistic
patterns. With the advent of personal computers, as well as major
innovations on the internet, corpora have been freely shared and
analyzed predominantly for research purposes, but also increasingly for
pedagogy. One obvious benefit of this approach is that corpora allow for
the observation and study of real-world language use, with relevant
frequency distributions and access to actual occurrences of features,
rather than relying only on limited teacher or learner intuition.
Considering its potential, it is easy to envision the utility and
benefit of corpus-based approaches in a variety of teaching contexts
(Friginal, Dye, & Nolen, in press).
Theory to Practice: Corpora, Instructional Technology, and Data-Driven Learning
Direct applications of corpora and corpus tools in the
classroom support various language teaching and language acquisition
theories and concepts, especially related to learner autonomy, use of realia and authentic texts, the utility of
leaner-computer and learner-learner interactions, and explicit teaching
of language features and patterns. In the broader field of English
teaching across learners and contexts, corpora and corpus tools have
been incorporated into three primary instructional approaches: (1)
educational or instructional technology-based learning, (2)
computer-assisted language learning (CALL), and (3) data-driven learning
(DDL). These three strategies, especially the first two, share common
characteristics: both are machine-specific (i.e., computers) and they
also align well with and support other instructional approaches such as
learner-centered instruction or autonomous learning.
Specifically, DDL focuses on learners’ direct discovery and use
of linguistic information/data in the language classroom and beyond.
DDL allows learners to inductively discover language structures and
patterns through interacting actively with corpus software (e.g., a
concordancer) and personalized instructional materials. With this, DDL
presents learners with authentic language that centers literally on a
particular word or phrase (as shown in Figure 1). Concordancers may
provide users with the organized contexts of items that are searched,
allowing learners to explore the words before and after a given word. At
the same time, concordancers provide the immediate context surrounding a
target word or phrase, and this context is placed on the word or phrase
of interest leading to potentially discovering the meaning of the
sentence or paragraph as a whole (Friginal, Dye, & Nolen, in press).
Figure 1. Sample concordance output for the phrase “by a” and
common collocates using AntConc
(https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/antconc/)
Research: How Effective Are Corpus-Based Approaches in TESOL?
Corpora have been put to practical use, especially in the
writing classroom, as described in a number of studies since the
mid-2000s. Freely available corpus databases such as the Corpus of
Contemporary American English (COCA) or the Michigan Corpus of
Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP) are easily accessible online. In the
field of TESOL, many of these studies highlight the classroom
experiences of non-native speakers (NNS) of English. A great deal of
linguistic variation exists across academic disciplines, and this can be
particularly challenging for NNSs working to improve their writing
within a specific field. Lee and Swales (2006) designed an experimental
course entitled “Exploring Your Own Discourse World” to help
international doctoral students in the U.S. compare their own writing to
that of more established writers in their fields. The students were
able to examine the use of linguistic elements like common verbs and
their conjugations, definite article usage, and collocates used in their
disciplines.
By comparing their own writing to those of experts, students
can identify, refine, and adapt their linguistic choices enabling
themselves to enhance their overall written presentation of ideas and
research processes. The benefit of acquiring this skill is that students
can continue to use the approach more independently and universally,
well after a course or workshop has finished. For example, Gilquin,
Granger, and Paquot (2007) examined the effectiveness of using NNS
learner corpora in conjunction with native corpora in an English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) context. They found the approach to be useful in
expanding NNSs’ linguistic repertoire and in avoiding falling into
common writing traps that many NNSs face (e.g., repetitive use of
transition words and phrases). In Friginal’s (2018) university-level Writing in Forestry course, students used corpus
tools to focus on developing their research report writing skills by
analyzing the distribution of specific linguistic features such as
linking adverbials, reporting verbs, verb tenses, and passive sentence
structures. The results of the study showed improvements in the
students’ report writing abilities after the corpus instruction.
Overall, research continues to show a great deal of enthusiasm from
teachers regarding corpus use, and there are some data, although still
limited, showing that university-level learners also tend to respond
positively to these types of corpus-based courses and approaches.
Conclusion: Doing What Works
In general, teachers who articulate a clear and immediate
academic English-related goals for their students and those confident in
the use of various types of software for teaching and academic
research, have developed a major interest for the corpus approach. They
typically find various meaningful opportunities to utilize data from
corpora in the classroom and beyond (Friginal, 2018). Applying corpus
tools in English instruction, thus, came naturally, and many teachers
find the approach to be exciting, creative, and fun for themselves and
their students. Clearly, however, there still are major limitations and
the corpus approach is not universally-applicable across TESOL contexts.
What works, then, based on current research on teacher perspectives and
experiences (see Friginal, 2018 and Friginal et al., in press for a more
detailed discussion) are intangibles such as the following themes
below:
Sufficient Teacher Preparation and Ample Time
To effectively introduce students to corpus tools requires
sufficient time for explanation, demonstration, and practice. Several
hours of class time will have to be committed exclusively for this
purpose. Depending on the teacher’s goals, different elements will
require varying amounts of time. The most basic aspects of concordancers
and online corpus databases could be introduced within a single class,
but if the students are expected to compile their own corpora to be
analyzed, more time will have to be allotted. Multiple opportunities to
practice using corpus tools are needed.
Sufficient Explanation of Merits and Limitations
Most learners will intuitively discover the benefits and
applications of this approach as they progress further into their
learning, but one of the most challenging initial responsibilities of
the teacher (to get students to fully commit) is to properly and
convincingly explain to students why these tools can be helpful. Focus
and commitment to learning the process are needed so students can
understand why their time is being spent on an initially difficult or
complicated set of instructions. Successfully explaining why concepts
like frequency, rarity, or authenticity of texts are valuable in
learning English or specifically in writing or editing their own papers
is certainly critical. Without appropriate explanation, it would be easy
for students to feel resentful, bored, or overwhelmed.
Appropriate (English) Language Level of Proficiency of Learners
The students need to have a sufficiently strong foundation of
English before setting out to analyze millions of words of text for
specific linguistic features such as linking adverbials or collocations.
Otherwise, they may not know what features to search for or how to
interpret the results. For this reason, it is recommended that these
types of courses be designed for at least intermediate students, but
preferably more advanced learners.
Relevant Learner Goals and Access to Tools and Materials
Students’ desired outcomes should relate specifically to the
instruction and learning contexts. Easy access to corpora, computer
labs, the internet, and related materials will have to be part of the
classroom routine and setting. A speaking or listening course could
incorporate corpora, but may not be as suitable as a vocabulary/grammar
and writing course. It would also be helpful if the students are at
least minimally computer literate.
References
Bowker, L., & Pearson, J. (2002). Working with
specialized language: A practical guide to using corpora. New
York, NY: Routledge.
Friginal, E. (2018). Corpus linguistics for English
teachers: New tools, online resources, and classroom
activities. New York, NY: Routledge.
Friginal, E., Dye, P., & Nolen, M. (in press).
Corpus-based approaches in language teaching: Outcomes, observations,
and teacher perspectives. Boğaziçi University Journal of
Education.
Gilquin, G., Granger, S., & Paquot, M. (2007). Learner
corpora: The missing link in EAP pedagogy. Journal of English
for Academic Purposes, 6(4), 319–335.
Lee, D., & Swales, J. (2006). A corpus-based EAP course
for NNS doctoral students: Moving from available specialized corpora to
self-compiled corpora. English for Specific Purposes,
25(1), 56–75.
Eric Friginal is professor of applied linguistics
at the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL and director of
International Programs at the College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia
State University.
Peter Dye is an
English instructor and academic manager in Oglethorpe University’s
International Study Center. He has taught a range of EAP/ESP courses in
Spain, South Korea, and the United States.
Matthew Nolen is an English language instructor and the Language
Program director at Conexion Training, Panama. His research interests
include corpus linguistics in the classroom, data-driven learning, and
learner autonomy. |
