UZAJ9513 Using Corpora in ELT and Learning

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2008
Extent and Intensity
0/20/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 3 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
James Edward Thomas, M.A. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Timetable
Tue 10:00–11:35 A01
Prerequisites
It is expected that course participants will have have studied English , some linguistic subjects, have an awareness of some aspects of language acquisition and pedagogical approaches to language teaching. As this course concerns data-driven learning (DDL), which are computer-based, it is taught in a computer lab. All participants are therefore expected to be experienced users of the web and have basic computer skills.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

The capacity limit for the course is 15 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/15, only registered: 0/15
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
New applications of corpus linguistics to language teaching are being developed in many parts of the world. The use of corpora is gaining recognition as discovery learning, task-based learning, and as tools in learner independence par excellence. And now that there is a plethora of freely available resources on the web, language education practitioners have them at their ready disposal. In this course, we will look at the nature of corpora, how different corpora meet different requirements, the array of tools offered by concordancers (the programs used to access the data that corpora hold), and the language awareness that develops from their systematic use. Language professionals involved in general teaching, developing student writing, correcting written work, creating teaching resources, preparing tests and to a lesser extent, translating, will have the opportunity to experience this wide range of applications. Exploiting corpora to these ends will involve developing a new range of computer skills, linguistic awareness and pedagogical thinking.
Syllabus
  • During this course we will: * learn how to use several web-based concordancers, and compare them * perform searches for a wide range of lexical forms, grammar structures, lexicogrammar, genre variations, multi-word units, collocations * use several pedagogically-based corpus linguistics web-sites * create sample teaching material and tests in a variety of formats (e.g. worksheets, interactive exercises, instructional web pages) using data derived from corpora * compare the web as corpus with corpora constructed according to established principles * create our own dedicated mini-corpora * observe how influential CL has been in the creation of modern teaching resources, dictionaries and grammars in particular. * consider the pedagogical and linguistic implications of DDL and their applications for students, teacher trainees, teachers and translators * read and discus some of the growing body of relevant literature.
Literature
  • HOEY, Michael. Lexical priming : a new theory of words and language. First published. New York: Routledge, 2005, xiii, 202. ISBN 0415328624. info
  • How to use corpora in language teaching. Edited by John McHardy Sinclair - John McHardy Sinclair. Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 2004, vi, 307. ISBN 1588114910. info
  • STUBBS, Michael. Words and phrases : corpus studies of lexical semantics. Oxford [England] ;: Blackwell Publishers, 2001, xix, 267. ISBN 063120833X. info
  • Grammar patterns. 1., Verbs. Edited by John Sinclair. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998, xxii, 650. ISBN 0-00-3775062-0. info
  • STUBBS, Michael. Text and corpus analysis :computer-assisted studies of language and culture. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, xix, 267 s. ISBN 0-631-19512-2. info
Assessment methods
Presentations during the semester, major assignments to be prepared and submitted during exam term.
Language of instruction
English
Teacher's information
http://www.fi.muni.cz/~thomas/EAP/concordancers.htm
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2006, Autumn 2007.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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