From pedagogically relevant corpora to authentic language learning contents

Abstract

The potential of corpora for language learning and teaching has been widely acknowledged and their ready availability on the Web has facilitated access for a broad range of users, including language teachers and learners. However, the integration of corpora into general language learning and teaching practice has so far been disappointing. In this paper, I will argue that the shape of many existing corpora, designed with linguistic research goals in mind, clashes with pedagogic requirements for corpus design and use. Hence, a ‘pedagogic mediation of corpora’ is required (cf. Widdowson, 2003). I will also show that the realisation of this requirement touches on both the development of appropriate corpora and the ways in which they are exploited by learners and teachers. I will use a small English Interview Corpus (ELISA) to outline possible solutions for a pedagogic mediation. The major aspect of this is the combination of two approaches to the analysis and exploitation of a pedagogically relevant corpus: a corpus-based and a discourse-based approach.