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Using Corpora to Teach Vocabulary

Using Corpora to Teach Vocabulary. Helping Students Help Themselves. 1. What are Corpora?. Large free computerized databases of natural language Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English

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Using Corpora to Teach Vocabulary

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  1. Using Corpora to Teach Vocabulary • Helping Students Help Themselves 1

  2. What are Corpora? Large free computerized databases of natural language • Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) • MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English • MICUSP (Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers) • British National Corpus 2

  3. Corpus Linguistics = Methodology Bennett (2010) • Corpus-influenced materials • Textbooks, materials based on frequency & patterns • Corpus-cited texts • Dictionaries (Collins COBUILD) • Grammar books (Real Grammar: A Corpus-Based Approach to English) • Corpus-designed materials • Learner or teacher-created using a corpus

  4. Pre-made Materials Corpus learning 101

  5. Vocabulary Based on Corpus Studies Frequency Lists • West’s General Service List (first ~2000 most frequent words) • Academic Word List (570 word families; 3000 words) LexTutor’s VocabProfiler • Insert your own texts to assess vocabulary level

  6. West’s General Service List 1 the
2 be
3 of
4 and
5 a
6 to
7 in
8 he
9 have
10 it
11 that
12 for
13 they
14 I
15 with 16 as
 17 not
18 on 19 she
20 at
21 by
22 this
23 we
24 you
25 do
26 but
27 from
28 or
29 which
30 one
31 would

  7. AWL abandon abstract academy access accommodate accompany accumulate accurate achieve acknowledge acquire adapt

  8. AWL Analyse – head word analysers analysers analyses analysing analysis– most common analyst Analysts analytic analytical analytically analyze analyzed analyzes analyzing

  9. General English

  10. VocabProfiler Why? How? Create a .txt document In Word (save as, then select .txt) Copy the text Paste the text into the VocabProfile site Double click on proper nouns to exclude Click Submit • Materials development • Check vocabulary levels of webpages • Decide on vocabulary to focus on

  11. MS Office Shortcuts Ctrl + A select all Ctrl + C copy Ctrl + V paste Ctrl + X cut Ctrl + Z undo

  12. VocabProfiler

  13. Data-Driven Learning Using a Corpus to Teach Vocabulary

  14. Knowing a Word (Nation, 2001) Metalinguistic awareness = dictionary definition + • spelling • morphology • part of speech • pronunciation • variant meanings • collocations • specific uses • register

  15. Data Driven Learning (Johns, 1991) Learners become “language detectives” Johns, 1991 Authentic examples & encourages “noticing” or “awareness-raising” Romer, 2008

  16. Using a Corpus Pros Cons Significant teacher training needed Few ready-made exercises and challenging to design Lexical information vast/confusing Contexts incomplete No focus on fluency Natural Language Practice analytical skills/verify choices Creates self-sufficient learners Contexts rich, varied Focus on accuracy 19

  17. Data-Driven Learning: The Corpus of contemporary americanenglish

  18. COCA • 450 million words • 20 million words added yearly (1990-2012) • 90 million spoken words • Academic and general • Spoken • Fiction • Magazines • Newspapers • Academics 21

  19. Academic Genres • Education • Geography/Social Science • Law/Philosophy • Humanities • Philosophy/Religion • Science/Technology • Medicine • Miscellaneous 22

  20. Training Yourself to Use the COCA

  21. Brief Five-Minute Tour

  22. Class Use Sign up for group access at least 2 days prior to use • http://corpus.byu.edu/groupAccess.asp Notice the group limits • One active request at a time • Four hour limit • Teacher must be a registered user

  23. COCA Search Screen

  24. COCA Corpus Search

  25. Parts of Speech with KWIC (Key Words in Context) They certainly will not grow as learnerswithout opportunity to analyzetheirstrengthsandweaknesses.

  26. Language Development • KWIC search • Parts of speech color coded • Students code nearby words • Student code 100 word sample

  27. Language Development Frequency searches (easiest) • Reading fluency • Should you memorize dawdle, meander, or drift?

  28. Phrasal Verb Frequencies Intermediate Class • Explain what phrasal verbs are with examples (mess around, use up, call on, wrap up) • Use COCA to find sample sentences

  29. High beginning writing class • Check spelling and non-English words on 30-minute timed writing • Students look for words that might be misspelled • Use COCA • If frequency below 10, circle the word (e.g., speciel)

  30. COCA for Morphology • Transport • transportation • transported • transports

  31. Wildcard* Searches Circle the word not related in meaning clar* *note clarify connote clarinet denote clarity keynote clark

  32. What are Concordancers? • Computer programs used to analyze text • LexTutor • VocabProfiler • AntConc • Create specialized corpora for ESP classes

  33. Websites of Interest ELT Resource Training Wiki (with Amber Warren) • http://eltresourcetraining.pbworks.com AWL • http://englishvocabularyexercises.com VocabProfiler • http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/ Grimm’s Fairy Tales in .txt • http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/

  34. Contact Information Debra S. Lee Vanderbilt University English Language Center dleetn@gmail.com Twitter: dleetn Google+: dleetn

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