Ven tesol 34th annual conference, Valencia, Venezuela 2016

1. VenTESOL 34th Annual National Conference
Corpus applications to
improve writing skills
Prof. Julio Palma

2. Overview
• What is a corpus?
• Types of corpora
• Categories of analysis in Corpus Linguistics
• Insights from Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis
• Some tools for building and using corpora
• Guidelines for using corpora for teaching writing
• Rationale for using corpora in teaching writing

3. • Naturally occurring language
• Systematically planned and collected
• Samples of authentic texts
• Represents a particular genre
• Machine-readable

4. www.corpus.byu.edu/coca

5. Search collocation for: Prize

6. concordances

7. Keyword Analysis
http://www.tagcrowd.com/blog/2011/03/05/state-of-the-union-2002-vs-2011/

8. Other categories of analysis
• Word Frequency lists
• Keywords
• Collocation
• Colligation preference
• Semantic Prosody
• Lexico-grammatical patterning

9. Types of corpora
British
National
Corpus
Brown
Corpora
Bank of
English
COCA ICE ICLE
Granger 1993

10. Insights from learner corpora
Learner
corpora
Target
language
corpora
• Errors.
• Spelling
mistakes.
• Wrong
collocations.
• Similar aspects.
• Different
aspects.
• Wrong word
choice.
Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis

11. English learner writing Analysis
Data from students at the University of Zulia , Venezuela (2016)

12. Tools for building corpora
www.laurenceanthony.net/software.html

13. Sketch Engine
www.sketchengine.co.uk

14. Tools for using corpora

15. Search: Grant

20. www.lextutor.ca

22. www.just-the-word.com

25. Skell: English Language Learning
http://skell.sketchengine.co.uk/run.cgi/skell

26. Word Sketch

28. Guidelines for material design
• LOOK at concordances for the key term and
words surrounding it, thinking of meaning.
• FAMILIARIZE yourself with the patterns of
language surrounding the key term by referring to
the concordances as you complete the task.
• PRACTICE key terms without referring to the
concordances.
• CREATE your own piece of writing using the terms
studied.
(Thurstun and Candlin 1998:272)

29. Rationale for using corpora
• Based on empirical data: DDL
• Effects on teaching material development
• Hands-on activities for learners and teachers
• Promotes self-awareness on production
• Inductive learning approach
• Descriptive approach to grammar
• Phraseological approach to language

30. Who should use Corpora for EFL?
Teachers as
researchers
of language
Teachers
can create
teaching
materials Students can
discover
language
patternsStudents
can learn
grammar
inductively
Students do
hand-ons
activities

31. Thank you!
Q & A
inglesluzcol@gmail.com