The Necessities, Feasibilities and Principles for EFL Teachers to Build A Learner-oriented Mini-corpus for Practical Classroom Uses
Title
The Necessities, Feasibilities and Principles for EFL Teachers to Build A Learner-oriented Mini-corpus for Practical Classroom Uses
The Necessities, Feasibilities and Principles for EFL Teachers to Build A Learner-oriented Mini-corpus for Practical Classroom Uses
Keywords: self-built mini-corpus, established general and learner corpora, EFL teaching and learning
Authors
Sihong Zhang
Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China
Sihong Zhang
Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China
Bio Data
Sihong Zhang has been a teacher of English at Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine since his graduation with a B.A. in English Education from the School of Foreign Languages, Anhui Normal University in 1995. He then continued his study in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Linkoeping University, Sweden and was awarded an M.A. in Linguistics with an A-level graduation thesis focusing on corpus linguistics. His research centers on EFL teaching methodology and recently, the application of linguistic corpora to FEL teaching and learning.
Abstract
Corpus linguistics is developing at such an amazing rate that established corpora of different genres and for different purposes are emerging rapidly in recent years. However, though the advantages of all these corpora to language teaching and learning are well acknowledged, they haven t produced tangible pedagogical results (Nunn, 2005) in an EFL classroom context. With a brief review on the evolution of EFL teaching methods and a short introduction to the established general and learner corpora, this paper analyzes the main reasons why there is a gap and a lag between on-going corpus linguistic research and EFL teaching and learning, and concludes that it is necessary and feasible for EFL teachers, focusing on some basic principles, to build a learner-oriented mini-corpus to complement the existing shortcomings of the established corpora in EFL teaching. In addition, this paper also points out that an EFL teacher should endeavor to use various teaching methods or measures to meet EFL learners diverse needs, including the use of corpora, either the self-built or the established ones or their collaborations.
Corpus linguistics is developing at such an amazing rate that established corpora of different genres and for different purposes are emerging rapidly in recent years. However, though the advantages of all these corpora to language teaching and learning are well acknowledged, they haven t produced tangible pedagogical results (Nunn, 2005) in an EFL classroom context. With a brief review on the evolution of EFL teaching methods and a short introduction to the established general and learner corpora, this paper analyzes the main reasons why there is a gap and a lag between on-going corpus linguistic research and EFL teaching and learning, and concludes that it is necessary and feasible for EFL teachers, focusing on some basic principles, to build a learner-oriented mini-corpus to complement the existing shortcomings of the established corpora in EFL teaching. In addition, this paper also points out that an EFL teacher should endeavor to use various teaching methods or measures to meet EFL learners diverse needs, including the use of corpora, either the self-built or the established ones or their collaborations.
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See pages: 1-15
[/private]Category: Monthly Editions, Volume 29
