1. Incorporation of Corpus and
Collocation in Language
Classrooms.
Professor: Milenia Reyes

2. Corpus
Collocation

3. Corpus

A collection of texts, written or spoken,
usually stored in a computer
database.
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Newspaper
Books
Magazines
Phone calls
Ordinary conversations
TV shows

4. Purpose
The most frequent words and phrases
in English.
 Tense people use the most.
 Differences in speaking and writing.
 Contexts of use: Informal and
formal situations.
 Different words native speakers use in
conversations.
 Collocations


5. How are you?
I’m fine, Thank
you.
Good thanks
awesome
Great
Not, bad
Pretty good
I’m Ok
I’m sad today

6. Expressions








Really?
Well
I mean
You know
Uh-huh
Oh
Like
Anyway
McCarthy, Michael. (Touchstone 2)





You did?
I’m not sure
Stuff like that
And that sort of
stuff
You see

7. How does it look like?
Jill: Where do want to go for dinner?
Jose: I don’t know. Why don’t we go to
the pizza place on the corner?
Jill: Pizza again! I don’t like their
pizza. It’s too spicy.
Jose: You are right. It’s spicier than
the pizza at Pizza House.
Jill: Well, I still want to go out tonight.
How about the new Japanese
restaurant downtown?
Jose: Ok! Lest go!
Stempleski, Susan (World Link, book 2)

8. How does it look like?
Eve: Ooh, it’s cold tonight.
Chris: Yeah, it is. But actually, I kind of
like cold weather.
Eve: You do? Really? …Boy, there
are a lot of people out here tonight.
Chris: Yeah, it gets pretty crowded on
weekends.
Eve: Do you come here a lot?
Chris: Yeah, I do, actually.
Eve: So are you a big hip-hop fan?
Chris: Yeah, I am. Are you?
Eve: Actually, no, but my brother’s in
the band tonight.
Chris: Oh, really? Cool.... By the
way, my name’s Chris.
Eve: Nice to meet you. I’m Eve.
McCarthy, Michael. (Touchstone 2)

9. Corpus for ESP

It is probably one of the most obvious
and pointed applications of Corpus
Linguistics.
◦ Academic purposes
◦ Nurses and health care
◦ Air traffic controllers

10. What is not a Corpus?
An archive is not a corpus.
 A collection of citations is not a
corpus.
 A text is not a corpus.


11. Collocations

A collocation is a pair or group of
words that are often used together.
(Michael McCarthy)

12. Learning Collocations
It is good to learn collocations
because they will help you to speak
and write English in a more natural
and accurate way.
 It is accepted that choosing our words
carefully in certain situations is more
important than choosing grammatical
structures (Harmer 1991).


13. Types of Collocation
Adjectives and Nouns
• Heavy rain
Verbs and Nouns
• Take a photo
Verbs and Prepositions
• Depend on
• Look at

14. A party
A
problem
A dream
Have
An
accident
Difficulty

15. Collocation Activities

Gap texts.
◦ I’m sure you’ll ________fun on the school
trip.

Sentences that include collocation
errors.
◦ I cannot do [make] up my mind.

16. Collocation Activities
word combinations that collocate with
certain verbs.
do: the laundry, homework, the bed,
exercise.
 A brainstorming activity.

together
in
married
Get
The
phone
up
A
cold

17. Collocation Activities

Put expression in categories.
Evidence (2)
Jail
Police station
Court
Crime
Suicide
Alabi
Accident
Homicide
Drug
money

18. What is the difference?
Make a mistake
checkpoint
a storm in a tea cup