1. Using the BNC for teaching and research

2. Teaching and learning

3. Where do corpora fit in?  As a (teacher) reference tool  As a teaching aid in the classroom  Replace/supplement teacher intuition  Place native/non-native speaking teachers on equal terms  As a self-access learning aid  Find out about the language/the culture for yourself (data-driven learning) Hypothesis testing Hypothesis generation  Contradict the teacher

4. Create informative materials: corpus-based explanations (teacher consults corpus-based reference works or corpora) Create illustrative materials: corpus-based examples, e.g. concordances (teacher consults corpora) Create corpus-based tasks and exercises (on paper or computer) Use corpora as a basis for correction and feedback Do contrastive analyses (lexico-grammatical studies) What teachers can do with corpora (cf. Mukherjee 2002)

5. form-focused activities ('data-driven learning') meaning-focused activities (e.g. word meanings, synonyms, semantic prosodies, cultural associations) skill-focused activities (e.g. developing reading strategies) reference activities (e.g. corpus as writing aid) research activities (e.g. variation studies, cultural studies, CLIL) What learners can do with corpora (cf. Aston 2002)

6. Illustrations (Thanks to Prof Guy Aston, University of Bologna)

7. Learners aren’t linguists  The aim is NOT to provide  a complete description of all the data  maximum generalisations/abstractions  The aim IS to take away  usable partial generalisations  memorable experiences  enthusiasm  Using BNC-xml with Xaira can provide these?  Examples focussing on Xaira improvements  From experience with advanced learners of English

8. Example 1: Grammer  To + gerund  used to -ing, accustomed to -ing, look forward to - ing, object to -ing  Xaira AddKey Query allows you to look for any word with a specified POS value!  To + VVG|VBG|VDG|VHG

9. The AddKey query (any VVG) Or VBG, or VDG, or VHG (multiple selections)…

10. QueryBuilder: To NEXT VVG Or VBG, or VDG, or VHG …

11. Too many solutions

12. Random 30/14227 (sort 1L) look forward to / when it comes to / devoted to / well on the way to

13. To + V.G is written formal …

14. Collocates of to + V.G (1,0): by frequency

15. Learners should take something away which is  relevant  memorable  typical  not over-general  E.g.  The French are the meanest when it comes to sending Christmas cards  When it comes to buying houses, the British are keenest of all  I’m not exactly the archetypal Mills & Boon dark stranger when it comes to courting girls

16. Example 2: the verb tend  Missing from textbooks (Carter & McCarthy 1995)  Frequent (>100/M), widely distributed  How is it used?

18. Too many solutions? Try Collocation/Analysis

20. VERB collocates (0,3): by frequency

21. TEND to concentrate (30/96)

22. Colligates (0,2: lemmata) Just what nouns?

23. SUBST collocates (lemmata: 0,2)

24. Tend * SUBST collocates (25/352)

25. An odd list of nouns  You can tend:  gardens  cattle/sheep/flocks  fires  Things can tend:  to unity/infinity  to sort of VERB

26. Isn’t this all in the dictionary?  Perhaps, but the corpus gives  More frequency/distribution information  More examples  Access to wider contexts  Practice in working things out for yourself  Casual encounters – did you know tend to unity?  The corpus calls for an open mind – you regularly find the answer to a different question from the one you started off with … but you learn a lot in the process

27. A problematizing resource...  Use of the BNC (or comparable resources)  complements (and corrects) intuition  critiques the myth of the native speaker  increases learner autonomy  For teacher and learner alike

28. The ins and outs of autonomous use  Learners may need warning to... focus on patterns which recur, without necessarily trying to explain all the data avoid overgeneralisation ... and encouragement to be curious browse the context investigate exceptions

29. (Dis)confirming intuition  about choices  have a problem + infinitive or gerund?  do you make or take decisions?  about vocabulary  which nouns collocate with hard?  about grammar  I would be grateful if you [modal]?

30. Corpus use allows the learner to become researcher What about the researcher?

31. What is the starting point?  Have answer – illustrate w corpus examples  Plant has several meanings  Have hypothesis – test on corpus  Plant is usually a noun  Examine patterns in corpus – corpus as starting point  Which is the most frequent use of plant?

32. Know the corpus  What does it contain?  Types of texts  Sampling strategies  More than text?  Potential weaknesses  How to search it  There are different options

33. Corpus research  Often form-based  Often includes frequency data  Has to rely on what is in the corpus + analysis of data  Can be reproduced  Can be part of (larger) study

34. Corpus research – some components  Idea  Plan  Pilot/sample searches  Materials gathering  Analysis  Evaluation  Conclusion

35. Start with some sample searches  How much (relevant) material is there in the corpus?  If not enough – what can you do?  Find more data  Reconsider research idea  If too much – what can you do?  Only examine a part (of corpus or results)

36. Subcorpus  A part of the corpus selected according to defined criteria  All texts of a particular kind  A proportion of (certain) texts  Mix of texts not readily available in corpus  May be possible use partitions in Xaira  (subcorpus can be saved and indexed separately or can be used with other tools)

37. Random set of examples  Each example equally possible  From whole corpus or sub-set  Random sample = each time (potentially) different

38. Gather data Make sure to document what you do! For your own sake and to make it possible to repeat study.

39. Too many hits?  Sample the corpus or the search result.  Restrict  what you are searching (use part of the corpus)  what you examine (in detail)

40. Use annotation (or not?)  The annotation and metadata can help restrict your sample  plant as verb  spoken by women, written in newspapers etc  Be aware of limitations  errors  un-labelled material  Check reliability

41. Look at the data!  Qualitative and quantitative analyses  Read/examine examples (both expected and unexpected ones)  Evaluate reliability (teenagers talking about Norwegians)  Look for trend and tendencies

42. ‘Counting words’ – numbers and statistics  Proportions  Frequency per XXX words  Trends vs. absolute truths  Illustrations can help

43. Plant 8,123 or 17,178 instances (form vs lemma) 14,572 nouns, 2,605 verbs SUBST = 85%, <5/6 NN010% NN1633843% NP0380% NN1-VVB10547% NN2711549% NN2-VVZ260%

44. Plant figures

45. Document  Corpus used  Search strategy/method  Number of instances found  Number of instances examined  Selection criteria  Evaluation

46. Using the BNC for teaching and research