On the Road From Corpora to Pedagogy
Gena Bennett, genabennett@yahoo.com
O’Keefe, A., McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. (2007). From corpus to classroom: Language use and language teaching. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Abstract
From Corpus to Classroom aims to inform language teaching professionals of the latest and most relevant corpus-based research relating to language description and to draw a connection between that research and pedagogical practices, giving the reader a thorough and informative text concerning corpora and language teaching.
Full text
Corpus is one of the newest buzzwords in the field of TESOL, and an increasing number of materials and resources for second language teaching and learning now boast that they are “corpus-based” or “corpus-informed”; similarly, an increasing number of sessions at conferences, such as the international TESOL convention, deal with ideas relating to corpora and corpus linguistics. Yet many professionals remain unfamiliar with the concepts and findings of corpus linguistics, particularly in the context of language pedagogy. Sinclair explained that “to make good use of corpus resources a teacher needs a modest orientation to the routines involved in retrieving information from the corpus, and—most importantly—training and experience in how to evaluate that information” (Sinclair, 2004, p. 2). As its authors say, From Corpus to Classroom “is about informing the reader of the relevant research that is on-going in the field of corpus linguistics and summarizing the findings in terms of . . . relevance to language teaching . . . , of making such research accessible by explaining key concepts,” and facilitating “a discerning understanding of what it actually means when claims are made that such things as syllabuses, reference resources and teaching materials are ‘corpus-based’” (p. xii). With these aims, From Corpus to Classroom does, as Sinclair hoped, enable teachers to make good use of corpus resources.
Comprising 11 chapters, From Corpus to Classroom essentially covers three topics: an introduction to corpus linguistics (chapter 1), a look at corpus-based research from the word to the pragmatics level (chapters 2 through 9), and a look at specialized corpora (chapters 10 and 11).
Chapter 1, an introduction to corpus linguistics, covers the basics of working with corpora, such as how to build a basic corpus, how corpora have been used, selecting a corpus, and issues and debates in the use of corpora in language teaching. Although a broad base of information is presented, the ideas presented in chapter 1 serve only to give the reader a fundamental understanding of corpus linguistics and an idea of what can be done with corpora; for readers who wish to further their knowledge of these possibilities, or even attempt projects that are described, an abundance of resources is presented for further consultation. For example, the information presented in chapter 1 is not enough to guide a reader in actually designing a corpus. Rather, it gives an idea of the fundamentals of such a project, and the authors kindly include 11 sources as “essential reading if you are considering designing your own corpus” (p. 2).
With such an extensive list of sources, chapter 1 of From Corpus to Classroom can almost serve as a reference tool in and of itself. In a discussion of issues relating to size and corpus design, for example, 16 sources are given to enable the reader to explore the topic. Furthermore, appendix 1, referred to in chapter 1, contains an overview of 35 English language corpora and 12 non-English-language ones, along with Web addresses for obtaining more information about each corpus. Chapter 1 alone makes the book a necessary resource for anyone interested in corpus linguistics.
In chapters 2 through 9, the authors detail some of the insights corpus linguistics has contributed to language description, then discuss how those insights may, or may not, relate to language teaching. Many of the pedagogical applications are supported with examples taken from the recently published Touchstone series.
In chapters 2 through 4, the focus is on vocabulary. The authors discuss the relevance of corpus-related evidence to establishing benchmarks for assessment and evaluation at both the word and phrase level, along with implications of corpus research relating to teaching applications of lexical phrases. Focusing on grammar, chapters 5 and 6 explore what information corpora can provide concerning grammatical categories, patterns, links between lexis and grammar, contexts of use, and attitudinal associations of grammatical words. The authors also show that “grammatical choices are rarely arbitrary and that pragmatic factors often account for particular ways of using grammar” (p. 120), using, of course, several illustrations taken from corpus data, such as the “get-passive” and nonrestrictive which clauses. As the bulk of research related in the book focuses on spoken corpora (the authors rightly say that they chose this focus specifically because most current research focuses on written corpora), chapters 7 and 8 introduce the notion of relational language, or that “which serves to create and maintain good relations between the speaker and hearer” (p. 159). This language entails ideas such as response tokens (like yeah and right), patterns of small talk (as it is often seamlessly interwoven into other types of “talk”), and hedging (such as just I think and I guess). According to the authors, the notions discussed in chapters 7 and 8 are particularly important for considering new approaches to the teaching of speaking and listening. In the last chapter of this section, the authors explore the role of creativity in spoken language, particularly in relation to involvement between speakers. Nevertheless, the authors admit that “there is a long way to go in understanding creativity in the spoken language and in exploring applications to the classroom” (p. 197).
In the last section of the book, chapters 10 and 11 discuss the advantages of looking at small, specialized corpora, which, the authors believe, often have more direct and useful teaching applications. Chapter 11 is particularly interesting as it focuses on creating and using a personal “teacher-corpus” as a tool for classroom reflection and professional development.
From Corpus to Classroom does an excellent job of sharing relevant corpus research and demonstrating how that research can be linked to language teaching. For the student, instructor, or other English language professional who wishes to learn what corpora can show us and how that may be linked to pedagogy, From Corpus to Classroom is an excellent text.
References
McCarthy, M., McCarten, J., & Sandiford, H.* (2005). Touchstone 1-4: From Corpus to Course Book. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. (*Level 2 workbook by Susan Rivers and Georgiana Farnoaga)
Sinclair, J. (2004). How to use corpora in language teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Gena Bennett has been working with English language learners for almost 10 years in a variety of instructional settings. Her current research interests include corpus linguistics and its classroom applications.