An Introduction to Using Corpora with EFL Learners

Abstract

The use of corpora in the classroom represents an innovative way to enable English language learners to undertake independent study of lexical and grammatical patterns; however, only a limited amount of investigation into the use of corpora with students exists. This paper will first briefly introduce pertinent literature, which will give a basic overview of corpus linguistics. The paper will report on the use of the British National Corpus (BNC) and other corpus tools with students in a semester long course in a Japanese university with advanced EFL learners. These students undertook a series of tasks and projects, which allowed them to achieve the overall course goal of being able to conduct independent research into lexical and grammatical patterns. In order to assess student progress and to gather student opinions about the course and the use of corpora, data was collected in two ways: pre and post CEFR style student self-assessments, and a course reflection and evaluation survey. The results indicated that the students had progressed throughout the semester and that they had a largely positive opinion of the course. In concluding the paper, suggestions for teachers wishing to use corpora and corpus tools with their students will be offered.