An Interview with APPLE Lecture 2011 Guest Speaker Prof. Tom Cobb

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed the exponential growth of technologies for vocabulary learning, and a revived interest in the applications of corpus linguistics. The TESOL/AL Web Journal team (represented by Anny Sun and Mi Sun Park) was thrilled to meet Prof. Tom Cobb, the APPLE Lecture speaker this year, for an informative session about his expertise in these two areas. One of the most well-known accomplishments of Prof. Cobb is his website, The Compleat Lexical Tutor, which attracts over 2,000 hits daily. While the focus of his APPLE Lecture was more on the application of the materials and programs at his website, here at the interview we were glad to see how he connects theory to practice. We would like to express our appreciation to Prof. Cobb for agreeing to speak with us amid his busy schedule on the day of the Lecture. We would also like to thank Prof. Michael Kieffer, as well as Sarah Creider and Catherine Box, Program Associates for TESOL and Applied Linguistics, for coordinating the event.

Keywords

• Applied linguistics
• Corpora
• Technological innovations
• Educational technology
• Vocabulary learning
• Tom Cobb
• The Compleat Lexical Tutor