Corpora: RE: concordances in EFL setting

[Linda Bawcom]

Dear Patrick,

I began using concordances in my classroom at the upper-intermediate level-Advanced about 2 years ago (not that they can't be used at lower levels). Through trial and error I found that using concordances (sometimes edited, sometimes not) with a worksheet, worked best. Believe me, at least with my Spanish students, they still have to work hard together, negotiating meaning, coming up with rules and so on.

At the beginning, I just handed out a list from the COBUILD on-line concordances (before getting the BNC sampler) and said basically, "see what you can find"-I'm afraid I didn't realize that what seemed so obvious to me, was far from obvious to them. Although, admittedly, I started out with some pretty tough words like glimpse/glance and grab/snatch (you know, the kind material writers seem to love to put in a box along with 10 other words with no collocations/co-occurrences and very broad categories). 

Thankfully, at the TALC conference in Graz, I was able to obtain Chris Tribble and Gly Jones's Concordances in the Classroom (Houston:Athelstan) and I've been using their material and suggestions ever since (albeit mainly with key words and grammar although there are excellent suggestions regarding other uses).

So, although I haven't done any research into which would be best (your A or B), I think the frustration level is lower and the sense of accomplishment is higher giving them some guidance. And yes, it is less time consuming and as you probably know, in an EFL setting, time *is* of the essence.

Well, since everyone seems to be putting in their 'two cents' lately, I thought I'd put in mine. Hope it's of some small interest.

Take care,
Linda


 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Patrick Hanks 
  To: Michael Rundell 
  Cc: corpora at hd.uib.no 
  Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 10:27 PM
  Subject: Corpora: RE: corpora: evidence and intuition



  hi Michael -
   
  Ah! one of the most core points about Corpus Linguistics ever made!
  (or perhaps I should say "corest"?)
   
  Of course, you're right. A corpus is only a collection of texts, when all is 
  said and done.  Explanations do not spring, fully formed without human 
  intervention, from a corpus -- nor even from a concordance.  Corpus data 
  needs to be interpreted (in different ways, for different applications). 

  But the question is, whose interpretation?  Whose intuitions?
  TEFL Teachers, please tell: do students learn better if presented 
  with A, or with B? - 
   
          A) Pre-sorted sets of concordance lines (maybe with carefully 
              crafted explanations already attached), or 
          B) Unorganized concordances, which they have to wrestle through, 
              forming their own hypotheses and imposing their own order.
   
  Obviously A is quicker  -- but, if time is not a problem, is B more effective?

  Patrick

   
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