Corpora in the classroom:
Forging new paths
Randi Reppen
Northern Arizona University
©2010 Randi Reppen
Goals for this presentation

To provide some reasons for using
corpora or corpus research - why

To show how to use corpus research and
corpora in the classroom - examples

Present some guidelines & resources
©2010 Randi Reppen
Why use a corpus to teach?
A corpus can…
provide insights into language use where
intuitions often fail – or worse, give us the
wrong information.
be a source of language teaching materials.
provide students with hands-on
opportunities for language learning.
©2010 Randi Reppen
What is a corpus?
A large, principled collection of natural texts
Analyzed using both automatic and
interactive computer techniques
Depends on both quantitative and qualitative
analytical techniques
(Biber, Conrad & Reppen 1998)
©2010 Randi Reppen
Four ways to use corpora & corpus
linguistics in the classroom

Inform the syllabus

Create materials/activities

Create specialized corpora

Use online resources
©2010 Randi Reppen
Ways to use corpus linguistics for
language instruction:
Inform the syllabus
Teachers can use information from corpus
research to help inform decisions about
which features to present and how much
time to spend on various features.
©2010 Randi Reppen
An example from common verbs
©2010 Randi Reppen
Most common lexical verbs
(From LGSWE Biber et. al. 1999)
6000
freq per million words
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
sa
y
ge
t
go
o
kn
w
n
thi
k
se
e
e
k
ma
c
e
om
©2010 Randi Reppen
e
tak
nt
a
w
e
giv
a
me
n
Distribution across four registers
(from LGSWE Biber et.al. 1999)
160
Freq per million words (thousands)
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Conv
Fict
News
©2010 Randi Reppen
Acad
The language of business classes
Classroom teaching
have /v
know /v
get /v
say /v
go /v
think /v
want /v
thing /n
time /n
mean /v
Textbooks
company /n
control /n
manager /n
question /n
win /n
market /n
factor /n
example /n
business /n
risk /n
©2010 Randi Reppen
An example from word formation
©2010 Randi Reppen
What do we know about affixes?

Suffixes are more productive than prefixes

Not all suffixes are equally productive
when it comes to academic words.

The six most productive suffixes are:
-tion, -ity, -er, -ness, -ism, and –ment
(Biber et al, 1999)
©2010 Randi Reppen
Example activity 1
Give students a copy of a page from a textbook
or a journal article in the case of graduate
students.
 Then, ask students to circle all of the nouns that
they find with any of the six suffixes listed above.
 Discuss the words: Look how words may change
from nouns to verbs when the suffixes are added
paint  painter = verb  noun; or noun  noun
govern  government = verb  noun

©2010 Randi Reppen
Example activity 2
define
act
govern
state
~tion
~ity
~ness
~er
~ism
~ment
©2010 Randi Reppen
Using corpora to create materials
for language instruction
Teachers can use corpora to create a
variety of materials.
Word frequency lists from readings
 Models of language use & role play actual
dialogues
 Practice activities & testing

©2010 Randi Reppen
Word frequency list
©2010 Randi Reppen
Model language use
&
Role play actual dialogues
©2010 Randi Reppen
Service encounters at a coffee shop
1: Hi.
2: Hi. Could I get small regular coffee, with uh, hazelnut?
1: Here's a large cup, because we ran out of the small ones.
2: OK. Thank you.
1: Thank you.
2: No problem.
1: Have a nice day.
2: You too.
1: Hi.
2: I want just the onion bagel, and could I, um, have cream
cheese? And a small lemon lime.
1: Thank you.
2: Thank you.
1: You have a nice day.
2: Thanks.
©2010 Randi Reppen
Practice activities
&
Testing
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A KWIC gap activity
Key Word in Context
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Gap exercise for article practice

Tom, executive director of ABC, ___ leadership,
training program in Illinois will be visiting.

But it's like ___ weight training you lift ___ little more
here and there and eventually get stronger.

To get ___ fresh perspective on why apathy strikes
and how to minimize it, check out XXX.

I don't think apathy is just ___ campus problem it
tends to be societal.

Last year, I decided to form ___ task force to
conquer apathy and to do some ___ community
building.
©2010 Randi Reppen
Create specialized corpora
For example:
a corpus of business texts;
 a corpus of engineering texts;
 a corpus from class readings;
 a corpus from student papers.

©2010 Randi Reppen
An example from a content-based,
integrated skills class on Anthropology
(Donley and Reppen 2001)
©2010 Randi Reppen
Texts & (number of words)
Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective
(8,669)
Cultural Ways: A Concise Introduction to Cultural
Anthropology
(6,093)
Eating Christmas in the Kalahari
(3,646)
lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Sonja/Oliver/hoploi/hop1.html
(1,626)
www.clpgh.org/cmnh/exhibits/north-south-eastwest
(5,198)
Total number of words = 25,232
©2010 Randi Reppen
Content words are often:
Typographically
enhanced
Defined in the text
Easily explainable
Discipline specific
Conceptually related to other
content words
©2010 Randi Reppen
Academic words are:
 Almost
invisible
 Often polysemous
 Often used in a variety of contexts
©2010 Randi Reppen
Uses of specialized corpora
Identify unfamiliar words
 Identify high frequency words
 Use KWICS to generate class activities
 Identify word senses
 Practice inferencing strategies

©2010 Randi Reppen
Specialized corpus example - 2
An example from a corpus of class papers
©2010 Randi Reppen
Errors of elementary student writers

Hand coded for three types of errors:
 Noun
morphology
 Verb morphology
 Subject/verb agreement
©2010 Randi Reppen
Noun morphology, Verb morphology &
Subject Verb agreement errors
We put six window in it.
Me and Mary are friend.
 Last night I stay up until ten o'clock.
And I watch the Country awards last night.
 She love my little sister.
Fred say I'll show you I can juggle.

©2010 Randi Reppen
Use this to inform instruction and
as a source for activities.
©2010 Randi Reppen
Will textbooks from corpus materials
look really different from the materials
I use now?
©2010 Randi Reppen
An example from
Real Grammar
Susan Conrad and Doug Biber
Longman
©2010 Randi Reppen
©2010 Randi Reppen
An example from the
Touchstone Level 2
Michael McCarthy, Jeanne McCarten and
Helen Sandiford
Campbridge
©2010 Randi Reppen
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Using online corpora
©2010 Randi Reppen
Site evaluation checklist:






How do I want to use this site?
Does the site match my purposes/ goals?
Does the site do what it says it will do?
Is the site stable, or does it crash/freeze my
computer?
Are the instructions clear and easy to follow?
(Esp. if learners will be using the site)
If there is a user fee, does the fee match the use?
©2010 Randi Reppen
Online corpora
Corpus of contemporary American English
COCA americancorpus.org
 TIME Magazine corpus
corpus.byu.edu/time/
 Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken
English MICASE & MICUSP
www.elicorpora.info/

©2010 Randi Reppen
An example using the Time corpus
©2010 Randi Reppen
HIPPIE
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©2010 Randi Reppen
HIPPIE
©2010 Randi Reppen
A corpus of academic spoken English
MICASE
©2010 Randi Reppen
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©2010 Randi Reppen
Checklist for developing activities






Know what you want to teach!
Select the best corpus resource for your lesson.
Explore the corpus completely for the point you
want to teach.
Have complete and easy to follow directions
Provide a variety of ways for interacting with the
materials.
If you are using computers ALWAYS have a
alternative plan or activity.
©2010 Randi Reppen
Teachers can use corpora to create
materials & activities
Word frequency lists from readings
 Models of language use & role play actual
dialogues
 Practice activities & testing
 Specialized corpora
 Use online corpora

©2010 Randi Reppen
Learners can interact with corpora to:
Learn vocabulary;
 Explore extended collocations;
 Compare against model texts;
 Discover patterns of use.

©2010 Randi Reppen
Some challenges

Availability of corpora

Studies that explore the effectiveness of
corpus-based materials for teaching

Time and resources
©2010 Randi Reppen
Thanks!
©2010 Randi Reppen