Notes on Concordances in the Classroom

Introduction to Concordance in Language Learning

  • Growing interest in corpus linguistics and language learning.
  • Involvement of teachers and learners in language investigation.
  • Significant influence of concordancers on language learning:
    • Stimulates learner enquiry and speculation.
    • Develops abilities to see patterns in target language.
  • DIY (Do It Yourself) approach recommended for classrooms without computers.

From Corpus to Concordances

  • Definition: A corpus is a collection of language data, often stored electronically.
  • Steps for researchers studying language:
    • Gather a representative corpus relevant to their study (e.g., language of three-year-olds).
    • Analyze the corpus to answer research questions.
  • Importance of size and representativeness of the corpus.
  • Early corpora examples: The Bank of English, COBUILD, British National Corpus (BNC).
  • Concordancers allow lexicographers to generate useful insights into specific words and their uses.

Analyzing Language via Concordance

  • Example explored: Use of the word "any" provided insights against typical grammar rules.
  • A small number of concordance lines can reveal the balance of usage and meanings of words.
  • Importance of organized study for grammar and lexis descriptions.
  • Applying corpus linguistics to teaching encourages learner autonomy and awareness.
  • Schmidt (1990) and Ellis (1991) emphasize the need for 'noticing' language features.

Need for a 'Pedagogic Corpus'

  • Distinction between research corpus and pedagogic corpus:
    • Pedagogic Corpus: Small collection familiar to learners, targeting comprehension and use of the language they will encounter.
    • Authentic texts should be prioritized over overly simplified or unnatural language.
  • Benefits of familiar texts to learning and analysis activities:
    • Helps students discover typical features and constructions of the language.

Concordancing by Hand

  • Steps for conducting hand-based language analysis:
    1. Start with familiar texts learners have processed for meaning.
    2. Identify frequent words to study in depth (word frequency lists are helpful).
    3. Use collected texts to search for concordance examples, focusing on frequent words.
  • Text examples should include common phrases and collocations.
  • Use of dictionaries for better understanding of word meanings and classifications.

Sample Class Activities

Activity 1: Focus on "as" for ESP students
  • Assemble concordance lines from agricultural texts focusing on the word "as".
  • Classify the different meanings and usages of "as" based on the concordance lines, alongside discussions of their meanings.
Activity 2: Common Words in Spontaneous Spoken Narrative
  • Identify ten frequently occurring words in transcripts from interviews/stories.
  • Classify and analyze the significant roles of words like "I," "that," and "one" in narrative discourse.

Learning Outcomes from Activities

  • Awareness of different meanings of common words.
  • Ability to identify phrases and collocations.
  • Insight into the structure of discourse types.
  • Helps critical thinking in language use; applicable to all learner levels.
  • Concordance activities can be designed for varying levels of learners.

Conclusion

  • Hand-generated concordances can provide effective learning opportunities without technology.
  • Focusing on common words can reveal extensive knowledge about language use: integrating vocabulary, grammar, phrases, and discourse patterns.
  • Encouraging deeper language understanding and application through concordance analysis promotes self-directed learning and boosts learner confidence in language usage.