“I WISH COCA HAD…” – LEARNER PERCEPTIONS ON HANDS-ON CORPUS USE IN EFL CONTEXT

Abstract

A growing body of research has examined the integration of corpora into foreign language classrooms in the last few decades. A sub-line of research concerning the interaction between the two fields has been student perceptions. Additionally, the growing integration of online learning into curricula, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, has aroused a necessity to explore the application of data-driven learning in online learning environments. The current study, therefore, attempted to elicit learner perceptions on learning vocabulary targeted particularly for speaking skill through direct data-driven learning in an online learning context. The data gathered from the participants (N=28) through a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview revealed that the participants found the use of data-driven learning activities in conjunction with the coursebook and oral production tasks helpful to boost their learning. They did not evaluate corpus consultation as a very challenging task to tackle in general. Overall, the study revealed two significant findings: First, it highlighted that collaborative learning might play a significant role in data-driven learning applications. Second, the findings emphasized the necessity for integration of the audio data to the large, publicly available corpora, such as COCA, which could contribute to future research on exploring the efficiency of data-driven learning for speaking skills.