I have to admit that the difficulty of utilizing corpora in English language courses has weighed on my thoughts for quite a lot of years.
I’ve at all times been keen to construct my college students’ data of collocations and lexical chunks. I’ll outline these phrases later.
Lastly, in the beginning of 2025, I began to utilize the British Nationwide Corpus (BNC) to develop, predominantly, my college students’ collocational data of:
(a) beforehand discovered phrases, which I recorded of their lesson notes
(b) a small collection of phrases in articles the scholars are anticipated to learn earlier than every class.
(c) delexical verbs
Just a little bit concerning the British Nationwide Corpus
Accomplished in 1994, the BNC includes round 100 million phrases of textual content from an intensive vary of genres. These embody fiction, spoken, educational, newspapers and magazines.
The spoken a part of the BNC (roughly 10%) consists of orthographic transcriptions of unscripted casual conversations and spoken language amassed in several contexts. These vary from authorities conferences to radio exhibits.
The written a part of the BNC (90%) accommodates, as an illustration, extracts from nationwide and regional newspapers, journals, educational books and widespread fiction, college essays and printed and unpublished letters and memoranda.
The BNC is intently associated to different corpora from English-Corpora.org, such because the Film Corpus and Corpus of Up to date American English (COCA).
How can English language academics exploit corpora to create workout routines and actions based mostly on collocations and lexical chunks?
From a lexical perspective, and from the angle of spoken English, one of many basic strengths of corpora is that they reveal genuine language information pertaining to English. Merely, partaking within the research of corpora could assist to dispel commonly-held assumptions which educators and native audio system typically could maintain. Certainly, academics can not at all times depend on their instinct relating to the which means and utilization of lexical objects.
Academics can set about utilizing corpora in English language courses in a wide range of methods, as I shall discover under.
1. Deal with what’s frequent within the English language fairly than counting on instinct and custom
Mauranen (2004, p.90) gives the instance of the verb ‘to suppose’. Most of us would presume that the which means of ‘to suppose’ refers to “some ponderous psychological exercise”. Nonetheless, when you delve deeper into corpora, it turns into obvious that ‘suppose’ is extra related to the which means ‘have an opinion’. Take a look at this instance from the BNC (Davies, 2004):
Properly, I do not suppose there’s far more we are able to do right here tonight, however earlier than we wind issues up, I believe I might like a phrase with that lad upstairs
With the instance from the BNC above in thoughts, Mauranen (2004, p.92) states that:
… we are able to exchange suggestions of language use that are solely based mostly on custom or instructor instinct. It has develop into a typical discovering that what’s taught as useful language use isn’t essentially in settlement with what’s frequent within the language, and even seems in any respect.
2. Acquaint college students with widespread collocations of beforehand met phrases
In relation to defining collocations, I’m fairly in settlement with Timmis (2015, p.24) who states {that a} collocation is a “mixture of two lexical (versus grammatical) phrases usually discovered collectively or in shut proximity …”
Actually, make sense and dire straits are collocations. Nonetheless, as Timmis (ibid.) factors out, tutors shouldn’t view collocations as chunks which merely include two phrases. Firstly, if a pair of phrases is separated by an article, as in have a celebration, this could nonetheless depend as a collocation. Secondly, phrasal verbs resembling perform could also be handled as one phrase. Due to this fact, perform an experiment nonetheless counts as a collocation.
I see it as my obligation as a instructor to document lesson notes for college kids which element newly discovered phrases, errors made throughout talking and pronunciation errors. Because the flip of 2025, I’ve begun to revisit a few of my college students’ earliest entries, as you may see under with my scholar Maksim:
Exploiting scholar notes for the aim of constructing collocational data of beforehand discovered phrases
The above set of notes is seven years previous. It’s unlikely that this scholar revisits his oldest units of lesson notes. Nonetheless, I consider that these phrases and collocations are someplace at the back of his thoughts and will be ‘reawakened’.
Utilizing corpora in English language courses makes quite a lot of sense when you may head to the ‘collocates’ show within the BNC and see what phrases generally happen close to your goal phrase. I not too long ago reacquainted Maxim with the phrase jealous, which solely returns 897 leads to the ‘Record’. Due to this fact, jealous isn’t a steadily occurring entry within the BNC.
Within the search I simply carried out for the needs of penning this publish, I set the variety of phrases occurring earlier than and after jealous to ‘2’:
Clicking on ‘Discover collocates’ reveals the next outcomes (prime 25 as a pattern solely):
The vast majority of sentences I choose for college kids are likely to have wealthy collocational worth relating to every goal phrase. As you may see under, I are likely to give attention to collocations which include two phrases. Nonetheless, I do typically give attention to multiple-word lexical chunks and on prepositions which come after goal phrases:
As you may see above, I present the primary letter or letters of the lacking phrase after every sentence based on how complicated and customary I believe the collocation is. In (c), for instance, I solely offered the primary letter (b) as a result of there’s a really restricted vary of verbs which may precede jealous right here. The lacking phrase is turned. Conversely, in (d), the variety of potential lacking phrases (adjectives) starting with the letter ‘p’ is intensive. Due to this fact, I offered the primary three letters (pos) of the lacking phrase (possessive).
The numbers after the sentences characterize the variety of phrases which ought to go into the gaps.
In your reference, listed here are the options for the sentences referring to jealous:
Wrapping up this part, I’m nonetheless in two minds as as to whether to tell college students of the goal phrase, or phrases, prematurely of every class. The upside of this concept is that my college students are usually eager to seek the advice of the BNC and word down or print off the commonest collocations of a goal phrase earlier than every class. Conversely, I typically get the impression that those that are ready with their record of collocations don’t learn by way of the sentences I present as they’re too keen to supply the appropriate solutions. Due to this fact, they might miss out on creating essential deductive abilities.
The Rationalization of Collocations
Writing concerning the ‘Rationalization of Collocations’, Tsui (2004, p.54) shares one of many queries a instructor had on TeleNex – a web site for English language academics in Hong Kong. This instructor requested whether or not one can say ‘well-experienced’:
If we are saying somebody is skilled, we imply this particular person has sure data or experience. Do now we have ‘well-experienced’ as properly? If that’s the case, does it imply there’s a fair increased stage of experience?
Tsui then goes on to cite a local speaker of English who was a member of employees from TELEC (Academics of English Language Training Centre) within the Division of Curriculum and Instructional Research on the College of Hong Kong. This lecturer was a bit uncertain about ‘well-experienced’ so seemed it up within the corpus:
There weren’t any examples of well-experienced in any respect. To precise a fair increased stage of experience, the examples from the corpus confirmed that folks use adverbs resembling very and vastly – however these don’t appear to be quite common … Thoughts you, … , even when there’s such a phrase as well-experienced, I’m no longer so positive that it means greater than skilled. Equally, is a well-educated particular person extra educated than an informed one?
Tsui subsequently carried out a search on the MEC in TeleCorpora on the phrase skilled. It confirmed that there are 105 situations of skilled in adjective type. Nonetheless, there are solely 25 instances the place skilled was modified by intensifiers resembling ‘very’ and by comparatives and superlatives like ‘extra’ and ‘most’. A fast search on the BNC simply now yielded solely eight situations of ‘properly skilled’.
Tsui carried out a search within the BNC to analyze any distinction within the conduct between skilled and different adjectives which take ‘properly’ because the modifier. The search yielded the next compound adjectives: ‘properly certified’, ‘properly educated’, ‘properly organised’, ‘properly geared up’ and ‘well-known’. With the intention to discover out whether or not the uncommon incidence of ‘properly skilled’ is linked with the semantics of ‘skilled’, Tsui carried out one other search on the next modifying adverbs: ‘extremely’, ‘very’, ‘poorly’ and ‘badly’. Listed below are the outcomes of the search (Tsui, 2004, p.56):
On account of the search, Tsui presents the next observations:
1. The incidence of ‘properly skilled’ is considerably fewer than the opposite modifier + adjective combos;
2. Though there’s a lot of situations of ‘skilled’ taking the intensifier ‘very’, there are only a few or no situations of the opposite 5 adjectives following ‘very’;
3. The 5 adjectives, besides ‘skilled’, take the intensifier ‘very’ once they mix with ‘properly’ to type compound adjectives;
4. Despite the fact that the adverbs ‘poorly’ and ‘badly’ can modify ‘educated’, ‘organised’, ‘geared up’ and ‘recognized’, ‘skilled’ doesn’t collocate with the stated adverbs.
Based on Tsui (2004, p.56), the 4 observations above counsel that “it’s doubtless that skilled denotes a optimistic high quality which renders the modification by ‘properly’ superfluous and the contradictory modification by ‘poorly’ and ‘badly’ unacceptable.” Against this, as Tsui (ibid.) continues, “apart from ‘certified’, the opposite adjectives will be modified by adverbs denoting detrimental qualities, suggesting that they can be utilized neutrally, although they generally denote optimistic qualities.”
3. Construct college students’ data of formulaic expressions / lexical chunks
A lexical chunk, also called a formulaic expression, formulaic sequence and a prefabricated chunk, is “a frequent significant sequence of phrases which will embody each lexical and grammatical phrases”. (Timmis, p.26). For instance, ‘to a sure diploma’ features a preposition and an article.
As Lindstromberg and Boers (2008, p.8) word, lexical chunks are “various in kind”. Such chunks could certainly be sturdy collocations. Nonetheless, there are different varieties and kinds which assume numerous capabilities (ibid.):
- Conversational fillers – you recognize what I imply, type of
- Pragmatic notices – excuse me, How are you doing?
- Discourse organisers – The factor is, Having stated that
- Sentence heads – May you …?, Why not …?
- Phrasal verbs – break down, delay
- Compounds – bank card, climate forecast
- Figurative idioms – make ends meet, break the ice
Academics eager on utilizing corpora in English language courses ought to be inspired by the alternatives afforded by lexical chunks relating to creating linguistically priceless and extremely motivating awareness-raising workout routines and actions. For instance, academics can get college students to establish doubtless chunks in texts or extracts of genuine speech. The following step might be for college kids to make use of on-line corpora, such because the BNC, to test the relative frequency of chunks/phrase sequences.
4. Assist college students to know delexical verbs inside out
‘Delexical’ verbs, also called ‘mild’ verbs, rely upon the nouns which accompany them for his or her which means. Examples of delexical verbs embody have, make, do, get, give and take.
Gentle verb constructions embody a noun and may additionally embody a preposition:
I didn’t take benefit of the chance
Are you giving a presentation on the seminar subsequent week?
David made such a horrible mistake
Within the examples above, I’ve underlined the sunshine verbs. The phrases in daring comprise the delexical verb constructions. To reiterate what I hinted at within the opening sentence to this part, the primary which means in mild verb constructions resides with the noun. The sunshine verb itself contributes little or no content material to an utterance.
I’ve written concerning the numerous meanings of get earlier than right here on this weblog. For my part, fluency revolves round having fast entry to all kinds of lexical chunks, notably chunks and collocations dominated by lexical verbs resembling get.
In latest occasions, I’ve set about testing my college students’ data of collocations and lexical chunks containing the delexical verb ‘get’:
I consider that almost all of my college students have come throughout these chunks and collocations numerous occasions earlier than. Nonetheless, resulting from irregular publicity and an absence of willingness to note and underline these chunks and collocations whereas studying, these items of language are very a lot dormant in my college students’ psychological lexical chunk dictionaries.
5. Synonymous lexical objects
Lastly, I like to recommend utilizing corpora in English language courses to check synonymous lexical objects. Tsui (2004, p.44) assesses the variations in which means and utilization between tall and excessive.
In lots of languages, there could also be no distinction in any respect between very comparable phrases in English. Certainly, Tsui (2004, p.45) factors out that the distinction in utilization between tall and excessive is problematic for Chinese language learners of English to know as there isn’t a such distinction in Chinese language. It’s the same state of affairs in Polish whereby the phrase wysoki capabilities as each tall and excessive.
Now we are able to go to the Evaluate phrases show within the BNC to check the collocates of two phrases as a way to see how they differ in which means and utilization. For instance, let’s examine massive and giant:
It’s value displaying lists resembling those under with college students to debate observations concerning utilization:
What instantly jumps out to me is the way in which by which giant is used with amount phrases – portions, proportion and quantities. Conversely, massive tends to seem in casual fastened expressions – massive blow, massive bother, massive information.
Total, you may put teams of intermediate to superior college students into pairs. Through the use of the Evaluate phrases show within the BNC, ask every pair to do some research and are available to conclusions concerning synonymous lexical objects. Different synonymous lexical objects embody:
- small – little
- low – quick
- event – likelihood
- quiet – silent
Closing Ideas
Total, this publish has made it abundantly clear that utilizing corpora in English language courses ought to be an absolute necessity. Actually, syllabus writers with a extra lexical view of language studying have to seek the advice of corpora greater than they do fairly than depend on native-speaker instinct and introspection. The usage of corpora ought to be one other weapon within the battle to assist college students overcome the intermediate plateau and develop into superior audio system of English.
References:
Davies, M. (2004) British Nationwide Corpus (from Oxford College Press). Out there on-line at https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/
Mauranen, A. (2004) ‘Spoken corpus for an unusual learner’, in Sinclair, J.McH (ed.) Find out how to use Corpora in Language Instructing, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins publishing Firm, pp.89-105
Timmis, I. (2015). Corpus Linguistics for ELT: Analysis and Apply, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge
Tsui, A.B.M. (2004) ‘What academics have at all times wished to know’, in Sinclair, J.McH (ed.) How to make use of Corpora in Language Instructing, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins publishing Firm, pp.39-61