Corpora: CORPORA IN ELT / QUESTIONNAIRE
Chris Tribble
ctribble at sri.lanka.net
Mon Jan 15 09:54:58 UTC 2001
APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTINGS ...
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CORPORA IN ELT / QUESTIONNAIRE
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This questionnaire is addressed to language teachers who ARE and who ARE NOT
using language corpora in their teaching. It will be greatly appreciated if
you could help by completing this questionnaire, no matter which you are in.
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INTRODUCTION
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A language corpus (plural: corpora) is a collection of texts which can be
analysed using different computer programs, including concordancing
programs. A concordance of a word lets you see all the instances in which it
occurs in a collection of texts, and to see the contexts in which that word
is used. An example from a concordance for the word "listen" is given below.
The texts used were in the Spoken section of the British National Corpus:
28 have a say. You 've got to listen. Yeah. Nobody listens to
29 Ah, since when does nobody listen to you? At school they do
30 l do, we 'll do, Paul Paul listen, do n't be distracted. We
31 nderstand I 'm on about Listen listen to me. You ca n't t
32 tand I 'm on about Listen listen to me. You ca n't talk abo
33 ight, had a back to back No listen, this is funny, she lived
Using this kind of corpus data, it is possible to find out about features
such as word frequency and to investigate the ways in which words combine
with one another in different contexts. Such information has been hugely
influential in the development of modern dictionaries and grammars, and
linguists have been using corpora for the last twenty or thirty years.
However, most language teachers have not started to use this kind of
resource in their own teaching, and I have prepared this questionnaire to
try to find out more about who is using corpus data, who is not - and why.
I will send a summary of findings from this questionnaire to respondents,
and will draw on this data in an article I am preparing for publication
later in 2001.
Many thanks for your cooperation.
Chris Tribble
Associate Lecturer, English Language Centre, King's College, London
University
PLEASE NOTE - I want to find out about teachers who DO and who DO NOT use
corpora in their teaching. I would be very grateful if you could complete
it which ever group you are in! The questionnaire is the second version of
one which I distributed around a year ago, and has been designed to build on
the responses I obtained at that time. Even if you filled it in last year,
I would be very grateful if you could also complete and return this version!
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** YOU **
1) FAMILY NAME :
2) GIVEN NAME :
3) JOB TITLE :
4) Gender
- Female [ ]
- Male [ ]
5) INSTITUTION :
6) EMAIL ADDRESS :
7) Which language(s) do you teach please write beside each colon.
- Lang 1:
- Lang 2:
- Lang 3:
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** YOUR STUDENTS **
NB. Please mark one or more response with an x
8) What kind of institution do you currently teach in?
- University / College [ ]
- State school - Senior [ ]
- State school - Junior [ ]
- Private sector adult [ ]
- Private sector junior [ ]
- Other (please specify) [ ]
9) What level of student(s) do you currently teach?
- beginner [ ]
- elementary [ ]
- intermediate [ ]
- advanced [ ]
10) What kind of student do you teach?
- Language majors (college / university level) [ ]
- ESP students (Business) [ ]
- ESP students (Other subjects) [ ]
- EAP students [ ]
- General English students [ ]
- Other (please specify)
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** COMPUTERS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS **
11) How do you rate your expertise as a computer user? (please mark one
response with an x)
- non-user [ ]
- beginner [ ]
- elementary [ ]
- intermediate [ ]
- advanced [ ]
12) Do you have a computer at home? (please mark with an x)
- YES [ ]
- NO [ ]
If you answered NO, please go to Question 15).
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13) What storage facilities does this computer have? (please mark one or
more response with an x)
- Floppy disk drive i.e. reads and writes to floppy disks [ ]
- CD Drive i.e. reads data and music CDs [ ]
- CDRW Drive i.e reads & writes data and music CDs [ ]
- DVD Drive i.e. reads Digital Video Disks [ ]
- Don't know [ ]
14) What operating system do you use on your home computer? (please mark one
or more response with an x)
- MS Windows 3.1 [ ]
- MS Windows 95/98 [ ]
- MS Windows ME [ ]
- MS Windows 2000 [ ]
- MS Windows NT [ ]
- Unix or related (e.g. Linux) [ ]
- Mac OS [ ]
- Don't know [ ]
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15) Do you have access to computers at work? (please mark with an x)
- YES [ ]
- NO [ ]
If you answered NO, please go to Question 19)
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16) What storage facilities do the computers you use at work have? (please
mark one or more response with an x)
- Floppy disk drive i.e. reads and writes to floppy disks [ ]
- CD Drive i.e. reads data and music CDs [ ]
- CDRW Drive i.e reads & writes data and music CDs [ ]
- DVD Drive i.e. reads Digital Video Disks [ ]
- Don't know [ ]
17) What operating system is used on the computers you use at your place of
work? (please mark one or more response with an x)
- MS Windows 3.1 [ ]
- MS Windows 95/98 [ ]
- MS Windows ME [ ]
- MS Windows 2000 [ ]
- MS Windows NT [ ]
- Unix or related (e.g. Linux) [ ]
- Mac OS [ ]
- Don't know [ ]
18) Are your work computers networked or stand-alone? (please mark with an
x)
- Networked [ ]
- Stand-alone [ ]
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19) You answered NO when asked if you have access to computers at work.
Could you please explain why this is so, and indicate if such access is
planned for the near future?
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** USING CORPORA **
Given below is a further example of a Key Word in Context concordance (data
source: Written texts in the British National Corpus).
15 Earth, empty today, empty forever
16 ast bead drops into an empty hole and her turn
17 looked silently at her empty house. Now ther
18 tood alone outside her empty house. It
19 s. Drew looked at the empty house. His face
20 like performing to an empty house. JC : It re
21 My heart was empty. I saw millions o
22 we are alone. We are empty in our hearts. W
20) When did you first see this kind of corpus data? (please mark with an x)
- before 1990 [ ]
- 1991 - 1995 [ ]
- 1996 - 1998 [ ]
- 1999 - 2001 [ ]
- Not seen before [ ]
21) Have you ever used this kind of data in your teaching? (please mark
with an x)
- YES [ ]
- NO [ ]
If YES please answer the following questions. If NO, please go to questions
34) and 35) below.
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22) How many years have you been using corpora in your teaching? (please
mark with an x)
- up to 1 year [ ]
- up to 3 years [ ]
- up to 5 years [ ]
- up to 10 years [ ]
- more than 10 years [ ]
23) Why did you decide to use corpus data in your teaching?
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24) If you use published corpora, please list up to three of the ones you
find most useful:
- corpus 1
- corpus 2
- corpus 3
25) Why do you find these corpora particularly useful?
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26) If you use unpublished corpus material, what kind of data do you and
your students find most useful?
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27) Which computer programs do you use for analysing corpora? (please mark
one or more response with an x)
- Wordsmith Tools
- Monoconc Pro
- Longman Mini-concordancer
- Oxford Concordancing Program
- Other (please specify)
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28) Which of these programs do you use find most useful for analysing
corpora + Why?
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29) To what extent do you feel that working with corpora has changed the way
you teach? (please mark one response with an x)
- a lot [ ]
- a bit [ ]
- not much [ ]
- not at all [ ]
30) Why? Can you give any examples?
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31) To what extent do you feel that a corpus informed approach to language
teaching has helped your students? (please mark one response with an x)
- a lot [ ]
- a bit [ ]
- not much [ ]
- not at all [ ]
32) Why? Can you give any evidence for this?
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33) Please say in one sentence why you feel corpora are relevant for
language teachers?
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You answered NO when asked if you use corpus data in your teaching. It
would be very helpful if you could answer the following questions:
34) Please report briefly on why you are not using corpora in your teaching.
Is it for one (or more) of the following reasons? (please mark one or more
response with an x)
- I don't have access to computers [ ]
- I'm not sufficiently confident in using computers [ ]
- I'm not sufficiently confident in using computers to analyse language
[ ]
- I don't have enough knowledge of the potential of corpora for language
teaching [ ]
- I don't have access to appropriate software [ ]
- I don't have access to texts that will be interesting for my students
[ ]
- I don't have enough time to develop these kinds of materials [ ]
- I don't think it adds much to language teaching [ ]
- I've tried it and my students didn't like it [ ]
- Other (please specify below)
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35) Please report briefly on any ways which might help you to make more use
of corpus data in your teaching. We recognise that the problem of time might
be insurmountable!! (please mark one or more response with an x)
- training in computer skills [ ]
- training in corpus analysis [ ]
- more relevant text collections [ ]
- contact with other teachers who are using corpora (e.g. e-mail,
newsletters, workshops) [ ]
- Other (please specify below)
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Many thanks for completing this questionnaire. Please return it (with any
further comments you might have) to ctribble at sri.lanka.net.
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