A Corpus of Young Learners’ English in the Baltic Region – Texts for Studies on Sustainable Development

Abstract

In order to reach far in the work for sustainable development, communication in foreign languages prior to strategic decisions is required from international partners. In this communication English has become the lingua franca. Even though the use of EFL (English as a foreign language) is widely spread, it is clear that in some geographical regions English has quite recently taken the role as the language of international communication. It is therefore relevant carry out studies in order to identify possible causes for misunderstandings when communicating in EFL. With the aim of providing material for research on EFL by 12-year-olds, the creation of a language corpus on the use of English in the Baltic region is in process. The first part of the data collection was completed in August 2016 and the data comprises some 2,200 texts written in 2015–2016 by Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian and Swedish learners. The aim of the present study is to investigate young learners’ written communication on issues related to sustainable development.

Keywords

• young learners
• english
• baltic region
• corpus
• written production
• discussions of sustainable development