Abstract
The purpose of this article is to explore and report some possible uses of corpus linguistics tools and techniques in a preparatory course for an international exam, focusing on helping students use corpora to find and analyze collocations and colligations when doing and creating multiplechoice cloze exercises. The participants were undergraduate students taking either a teacher training or a translation program. After discussing some research carried out on the pedagogical implications of using corpora, the article presents how a six-session preparatory course was designed and implemented, and the tools used to check participants’ perception of learning. The compiled data analyzed how participants reacted towards using an online corpus while getting themselves ready for the Use of English component of exams. The results demonstrated that corpus techniques were felt to be useful tools as far as fostering students’ autonomy was concerned. The study ends with a brief discussion on its limitations.
Highlights
The study of how Corpus Linguistics can contribute to language teaching dates back to the late 80’s
Tim John’s seminal work (John, 1986; 1991) focusing on the analyses of concordance lines done by learners, known as datadriven learning (DDL), is commonly considered one of the first works to explore corpora for teaching purposes (Leech, 2013)
This paper aims at bridging this gap by providing a contribution to the field of Corpus Linguistics’ application to teaching through the description and analysis of an experience in which corpus linguistics tools and techniques have been used in a preparatory course for an international exam (Certificate in Advanced English – CAE) with undergraduate students
Summary
The study of how Corpus Linguistics can contribute to language teaching dates back to the late 80’s. A number of researchers have delved into the pedagogical implications of using corpora (Fligelstone, 1993; Gavioli & Aston, 2001; Braun, 2007; O’Keeffe, McCarthy, & Carter, 2007; Flowerdew, 2009; Römer, 2011; Berber Sardinha, 2011; Viana & Tagnin, 2011; Leech, 2013). This paper aims at bridging this gap by providing a contribution to the field of Corpus Linguistics’ application to teaching through the description and analysis of an experience in which corpus linguistics tools and techniques have been used in a preparatory course for an international exam (Certificate in Advanced English – CAE) with undergraduate students. The fifth section evaluates and discusses the implications of the findings and indicates future research directions
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