Corpora in language teaching and learning

Abstract

This article argues the case for regarding the relationship between corpora and the French term "didactique des langues" (i.e. theory and practice of language teaching and learning) as precisely that: a relationship. Relationships are negotiated and it is this negotiation which is managed by teachers with support from curriculum and materials developers. The article begins by attempting to define what is meant by the terms "corpus" and "teaching" and addressing the thorny question of "authenticity". It proceeds to give illustrations, drawn from my own experience, of three ways in which corpora and language teaching/learning are connected. The first, "From syllabus to corpus", describes how a small corpus of spoken French was created incrementally over more than 10 years of collecting authentic spoken recordings for exploitation in textbooks for the teaching of French to GCSE and A-level students in the UK from 1980 to 1993. The second, "From corpus to syllabus", describes how a specialist spoken corpus with a focus on amenity horticulture was collected, transcribed and analysed to inform a language learning syllabus. The third section, "A corpus of role-plays", investigates the role of learner corpora and how they can inform language teaching, with specific reference to the acquisition of discourse markers. In its consideration of the links between corpora and language teaching, the conclusion highlights the role of motivation, the importance of engaging students » interest and thus rendering activities « authentic ».

Keywords

• syllabus
• authenticity
• specific purposes
• discourse markers
• do‑it‑yourself corpora