Corpus linguistics: how can it help with English language teaching and learning? With Niall Curry

Corpus linguistics is a branch of linguistic research that involves the study of large collections of spoken and written language texts, known as corpora. This area of research takes a descriptive approach to language study and can help us to understand how language is used in a variety of contexts. Unsurprisingly, corpus linguistics plays a critical role in contemporary English language education and learner dictionaries, coursebooks, grammars, and language learning technologies across the world make use of corpora in myriad ways. Overall, the use of corpora in language education, indirectly, and the language classroom, directly, is continuing to grow. However, much of this work occurs in the background and, as such, we often gain very little insight into what corpus linguists do and how corpora can be used to produce learning experiences that are based on authentic, representative, and naturally occurring language. To shed a little light on the subject, in this short talk, I will discuss the role of corpus linguistics in language education, outline the opportunities it affords language teaching and learning, and signal the challenges we face when using corpora for English language teaching. In doing so, I will also discuss some useful tools that you can use to work with corpora yourself and some guidelines to help you get started with corpus linguistics.

• #education
• #better_learning
• #cambridge_university
• #elt
• #esl
• #language_learning
• #language_teaching
• #teaching_english