What can a corpus tell us about language teaching?

Abstract

Corpora, corpus-analytic tools and corpus evidence have been increasingly used in English language teaching and learning for the last two decades. Many empirical studies in corpus linguistics have contributed to the understanding of the value and benefits language corpora can bring to language pedagogy, particularly with respect to whether corpora can capture reality, and whether corpora can provide valid models for learners. Studies have mainly reported on ‘what can be done in language learning’ but ‘relatively little on how learners actually go about investigations’. In Hong Kong, corpus linguistics in language learning has been advocated, and the development of corpus-based learning has gone one step further than those proposed by Romer. The findings of corpus-based studies should be explored with respect to the practical implications for curriculum design, materials writing and learning and teaching not only for general English, ESP and Languages for Specific Purposes, but also for informing professional communicative practices.