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Corpora in the classroom: Forging new paths

Corpora in the classroom: Forging new paths . Randi Reppen Northern Arizona University. 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

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Corpora in the classroom: Forging new paths

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  1. Corpora in the classroom: Forging new paths Randi Reppen Northern Arizona University ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  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

  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

  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

  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

  7. An example from common verbs ©2010 Randi Reppen

  8. Most common lexical verbs(From LGSWE Biber et. al. 1999) ©2010 Randi Reppen

  9. Distribution across four registers (from LGSWE Biber et.al. 1999) ©2010 Randi Reppen

  10. 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 The language of business classes ©2010 Randi Reppen

  11. An example from word formation ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  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

  14. Example activity 2 ~tion define ~ity act ~ness govern ~er state ~ism ~ment ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  16. Word frequency list ©2010 Randi Reppen

  17. Model language use &Role play actual dialogues ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  19. Practice activities &Testing ©2010 Randi Reppen

  20. A KWIC gap activity Key Word in Context ©2010 Randi Reppen

  21. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  22. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  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

  25. An example from a content-based, integrated skills class on Anthropology (Donley and Reppen 2001) ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  27. Content words are often: • Typographically enhanced • Defined in the text • Easily explainable • Discipline specific • Conceptually related to other content words ©2010 Randi Reppen

  28. Academic words are: • Almost invisible • Often polysemous • Often used in a variety of contexts ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  30. Specialized corpus example - 2 An example from a corpus of class papers ©2010 Randi Reppen

  31. Errors of elementary student writers • Hand coded for three types of errors: • Noun morphology • Verb morphology • Subject/verb agreement ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  33. Use this to inform instruction and as a source for activities. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  34. Will textbooks from corpus materials look really different from the materials I use now? ©2010 Randi Reppen

  35. An example from Real Grammar Susan Conrad and Doug Biber Longman ©2010 Randi Reppen

  36. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  37. An example from the Touchstone Level 2 Michael McCarthy, Jeanne McCarten and Helen Sandiford Campbridge ©2010 Randi Reppen

  38. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  39. Using online corpora ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  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

  42. An example using the Time corpus ©2010 Randi Reppen

  43. HIPPIE ©2010 Randi Reppen

  44. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  45. HIPPIE ©2010 Randi Reppen

  46. A corpus of academic spoken English MICASE ©2010 Randi Reppen

  47. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  48. ©2010 Randi Reppen

  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

  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

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