Site LogoBanner Image
Site Login
Forgotten password?

Current Location: Home arrow Grammar and Vocab arrow Corpora

Grammar and vocabulary: Corpora

These articles and teaching tips by Jamie Keddie present a fresh perspective on corpora and suggest how, with a little imagination, we might find corpora in some unexpected places.

Corpora in the classroom

The first three articles in this series will focus on non-conventional corpora such as lyric search sites, film scripts and internet search engines. Then we will examine the diverse possibilities for conventional corpora in the classroom (the British National Corpus, for example). Finally, we will see how easy and advantageous it can be for your learners to develop their own personal corpus.

Please comment on this new series in the Forum, or write to the Web Editor.

In this subsection

  • Introduction to corpora

    In this new six-part series, Jamie Keddie asks, 'What is a corpus?' and invites us to think about how we might use corpora in the classroom.

  • Teaching by numbers

    The Staff Room

    Michael Rundell shows that word-frequency data is relevant to teaching and learning languages.

  • The corpus principle: Part 1 - Songs

    The Staff Room

    Jamie Keddie looks at how we can harness popular technologies, such as media players or lyric search sites on the Internet, to illustrate language points in the classroom.

  • The corpus principle: Part 4 – Vocabulary and collocations

    Print material The Staff Room

    In this fourth article in the series, our attention turns to conventional corpora – i.e. the databases of language that have been compiled specifically for the purpose of linguistic investigation.

  • The corpus principle: Part 5 - Language rules

    The Staff Room

    In the English classroom, student demand for simple, yet reliable language rules has never been higher. In this article, the fifth in the series, Jamie Keddie looks at how corpora can allow learners to see rules for themselves and, in doing so, build up an understanding of how language works.

  • The corpus principle: Part 6 – DIY Corpora

    The Staff Room

    In this last article in the series, Jamie Keddie describes a technique which involves creating personalized corpora for use in class.

  • Towards a new methodology

    The Staff Room

    Dave Willis puts the case for making lexis the starting point in teaching.

  • The corpus principle: Part 2 - Quotations

    Print material The Staff Room

    Jamie Keddie looks at using quotations as a basis for language study as well as for a springboard to get our learners speaking and writing.

  • The corpus principle: Part 3 – Image corpora

    The Staff Room

    Welcome to the third part of this series in which we examine the potential roles of non-conventional corpora (search engines, etc.) in language learning and teaching. So far, we have looked at lyric search sites, multimedia players and quotation banks. In this article, our attention is going to shift from words to pictures.