Integrating Corpus analysis into everyday classroom practice

I will be looking at direct classroom application of corpora and Concordancers as opposed to indirect applications for research, lexicography and material development (Leech 1997). I will be looking at methods of integrating corpus-based learning into everyday classroom environment empowering students to become “language detectives”. (Johns 1997, 101). I will share with colleagues the ways in which I use corpora in the classroom Concordancers can be used for this specific group of learners:

• to explore typical collocations of key-words in their subject areas through building their own corpora in their specific area of study
• to discover patterns of recurrence
• look into word-building
• to analyse grammatical features and usage of words
• to understand differences in meaning
• to understand meaning in context
• to take note of different frequencies and implications of these differences
• to explore stylistic peculiarities of academic writing in comparison with other genres