Corpora in the classroom: Forging new paths Randi Reppen
Northern Arizona University 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 2 Goals for
this presentation To provide some reasons for using corpora or
corpus research - why To show how to use corpus research and
corpora in the classroom - examples Present some guidelines &
resources 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 3 Why use a corpus to teach? A
corpus can provide insights into language use where intuitions
often fail or worse, give us the wrong information. be a source of
language teaching materials. provide students with hands-on
opportunities for language learning. 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 4 What
is a corpus? A large, principled collection of natural texts
Analyzed using both automatic and interactive computer techniques
Depends on both quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques
(Biber, Conrad & Reppen 1998) 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 5 Four
ways to use corpora & corpus linguistics in the classroom
Inform the syllabus Create materials/activities Create specialized
corpora Use online resources 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 6 Ways to use
corpus linguistics for language instruction: Inform the syllabus
Teachers can use information from corpus research to help inform
decisions about which features to present and how much time to
spend on various features. 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 7 An example
from common verbs 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 8 Most common lexical
verbs (From LGSWE Biber et. al. 1999) 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 9
Distribution across four registers (from LGSWE Biber et.al. 1999)
2010 Randi Reppen Slide 10 The language of business classes
Classroom teaching have /v know /v get /v say /v go /v think /v
want /v thing /n time /n mean /v Textbooks company /n control /n
manager /n question /n win /n market /n factor /n example /n
business /n risk /n 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 11 An example from word
formation 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 12 What do we know about affixes?
Suffixes are more productive than prefixes Not all suffixes are
equally productive when it comes to academic words. The six most
productive suffixes are: -tion, -ity, -er, -ness, -ism, and ment
(Biber et al, 1999) 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 13 Example activity 1
Give students a copy of a page from a textbook or a journal article
in the case of graduate students. Then, ask students to circle all
of the nouns that they find with any of the six suffixes listed
above. Discuss the words: Look how words may change from nouns to
verbs when the suffixes are added paint painter = verb noun; or
noun noun govern government = verb noun 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 14
Example activity 2 ~tion define ~ity act ~ness govern ~er state
~ism ~ment 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 15 Using corpora to create
materials for language instruction Teachers can use corpora to
create a variety of materials. Word frequency lists from readings
Models of language use & role play actual dialogues Practice
activities & testing 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 16 Word frequency
list 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 17 Model language use & Role play
actual dialogues 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 18 Service encounters at a
coffee shop 1: Hi. 2: Hi. Could I get small regular coffee, with
uh, hazelnut? 1: Here's a large cup, because we ran out of the
small ones. 2: OK. Thank you. 1: Thank you. 2: No problem. 1: Have
a nice day. 2: You too. 1: Hi. 2: I want just the onion bagel, and
could I, um, have cream cheese? And a small lemon lime. 1: Thank
you. 2: Thank you. 1: You have a nice day. 2: Thanks. 2010 Randi
Reppen Slide 19 Practice activities & Testing 2010 Randi Reppen
Slide 20 A KWIC gap activity Key Word in Context 2010 Randi Reppen
Slide 21 Slide 22 Slide 23 Gap exercise for article practice Tom,
executive director of ABC, ___ leadership, training program in
Illinois will be visiting. But it's like ___ weight training you
lift ___ little more here and there and eventually get stronger. To
get ___ fresh perspective on why apathy strikes and how to minimize
it, check out XXX. I don't think apathy is just ___ campus problem
it tends to be societal. Last year, I decided to form ___ task
force to conquer apathy and to do some ___ community building. 2010
Randi Reppen Slide 24 Create specialized corpora For example: a
corpus of business texts; a corpus of engineering texts; a corpus
from class readings; a corpus from student papers. 2010 Randi
Reppen Slide 25 An example from a content-based, integrated skills
class on Anthropology (Donley and Reppen 2001) 2010 Randi Reppen
Slide 26 Texts & (number of words) Cultural Anthropology: An
Applied Perspective (8,669) Cultural Ways: A Concise Introduction
to Cultural Anthropology (6,093) Eating Christmas in the Kalahari
(3,646) lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Sonja/Oliver/hoploi/hop1.html (1,626)
www.clpgh.org/cmnh/exhibits/north-south-east- west (5,198) Total
number of words= 25,232 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 27 Content words
are often: Typographically enhanced Defined in the text Easily
explainable Discipline specific Conceptually related to other
content words 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 28 Academic words are: Almost
invisible Often polysemous Often used in a variety of contexts 2010
Randi Reppen Slide 29 Uses of specialized corpora Identify
unfamiliar words Identify high frequency words Use KWICS to
generate class activities Identify word senses Practice inferencing
strategies 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 30 Specialized corpus example -
2 An example from a corpus of class papers 2010 Randi Reppen Slide
31 Errors of elementary student writers Hand coded for three types
of errors: Noun morphology Verb morphology Subject/verb agreement
2010 Randi Reppen Slide 32 Noun morphology, Verb morphology &
Subject Verb agreement errors We put six window in it. Me and Mary
are friend. Last night I stay up until ten o'clock. And I watch the
Country awards last night. She love my little sister. Fred say I'll
show you I can juggle. 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 33 Use this to
inform instruction and as a source for activities. 2010 Randi
Reppen Slide 34 Will textbooks from corpus materials look really
different from the materials I use now? 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 35
An example from Real Grammar Susan Conrad and Doug Biber Longman
2010 Randi Reppen Slide 36 Slide 37 An example from the Touchstone
Level 2 Michael McCarthy, Jeanne McCarten and Helen Sandiford
Campbridge 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 38 Slide 39 Using online corpora
2010 Randi Reppen Slide 40 Site evaluation checklist: How do I want
to use this site? Does the site match my purposes/ goals? Does the
site do what it says it will do? Is the site stable, or does it
crash/freeze my computer? Are the instructions clear and easy to
follow? (Esp. if learners will be using the site) If there is a
user fee, does the fee match the use? 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 41
Online corpora Corpus of contemporary American English COCA
americancorpus.org TIME Magazine corpus corpus.byu.edu/time/
Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English MICASE & MICUSP
www.elicorpora.info/ 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 42 An example using
the Time corpus 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 43 HIPPIE 2010 Randi Reppen
Slide 44 Slide 45 HIPPIE 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 46 A corpus of
academic spoken English MICASE 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 47 Slide 48
Slide 49 Checklist for developing activities Know what you want to
teach! Select the best corpus resource for your lesson. Explore the
corpus completely for the point you want to teach. Have complete
and easy to follow directions Provide a variety of ways for
interacting with the materials. If you are using computers ALWAYS
have a alternative plan or activity. 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 50
Teachers can use corpora to create materials & activities Word
frequency lists from readings Models of language use & role
play actual dialogues Practice activities & testing Specialized
corpora Use online corpora 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 51 Learners can
interact with corpora to: Learn vocabulary; Explore extended
collocations; Compare against model texts; Discover patterns of
use. 2010 Randi Reppen Slide 52 Some challenges Availability of
corpora Studies that explore the effectiveness of corpus-based
materials for teaching Time and resources 2010 Randi Reppen Slide
53 Thanks! 2010 Randi Reppen
