Using corpora for bespoke language teaching James Wilson University of Leeds j.a.wilson@leeds.ac.uk

Structure of today’s presentation An introduction to corpora and the IntelliText interface Corpora and their role in language learning and teaching: what advantages corpora offer; corpora and outward mobility Demo (IntelliText for LSP) general use domain-specific (politics/economics)

What is a corpus? Any collection of texts Usually large, structured and machine- readable Annotated (lemmatisation, POS-tagging) Reference corpora: Russian National Corpus, British National Corpus, Czech National Corpus, etc. Specialised corpora: collections of texts on a specific topic or in a more specific domain Interface: the tool we use to access and exploit corpora

Learners can use corpora to … View grammar in context Display complex grammatical forms not shown in conventional bilingual dictionaries Access hundreds of authentic examples at the touch of a button View vocabulary in a broader context, extracting common and useful collocations Grasp subtle differences between words and phrases Verify their linguistic intuition Achieve a better grasp of style and register Augment their vocabulary, in particular on themed topics and in specific domains Test controversial points of grammar and compare prescribed grammar with actual language use

IntelliText project Run by the Centre for Translation Studies (CTS), University of Leeds, UK A one-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): 2010- 2011 www.corpus.leeds.ac.uk/it/ Aimed to simplify and enhance corpus use for teaching and research in the arts and humanities Needs-driven: functions suggested by users Output = a versatile and intuitive interface

IntelliText ... Allows access to monolingual corpora for 11 languages (there are several corpora for many of the supported languages) Allows access to several bilingual corpora Has 8 search functions (e.g. concordance, collocations, affix, keywords) Includes a “Build Your Own Corpus” function that allows users to create and annotate their own corpora Is freely available for download or for online use

At Leeds we use IntelliText ... On general UG language modules (English, German, Russian) In a weekly corpus class aimed at vocabulary building on themed topics (Russian) On final-year dissertation modules on which students write their dissertations in the target language (German) In LSP teaching (Business Russian, German for Professional Purposes, EAP) For bespoke PG language training

BYOC and ad-hoc corpora Ad-hoc corpora allow us to: analyse domain-specific language in any area and (for which there may be few or no printed materials); focus on (the language of) recent events (Syrian civil war, Thatcher’s funeral, Cleveland kidnap case, etc.): yesterday’s top news story is today’s lesson; tailor tuition to the individual student: we can create corpora on texts relating to a PhD student’s research topic; make use of a vocabulary-oriented approach to language acquisition on the basis of corpus-derived keyword lists.

Corpora and students as materials developers In the SLAV3101 corpus class students created their own corpora (racism in football, fashion, US elections, Jimmy Savile) They produced keyword lists and annotated vocabulary lists (with exercises) in a format that best suited them They used programmes such as Anki, Quizlet and Memrise to learn the words from their keyword lists Autonomous learning and flexible learning: students structure their own learning around topics that interest them and methods that work for them Fun and achievement: students comment that creating corpora is fun and that there is a sense of achievement in building and working with their own corpora

IntelliText beyond Leeds There are plans to introduce IntelliText as part of the Research Training Programme at the three White Rose institutions (Leeds, Sheffield, York) from next academic year IntelliText is being used in Portland (Oregon) to create and tag learner corpora (Russian) IntelliText is used at institutions across the world for language teaching and in linguistic research (esp. EFL) IntelliText is being used as part of the HEA’s outward student mobility initiative

IntelliText on funded projects KELLY (EU Lifelong Learning Project): corpus- derived multilingual flashcards ReadingCorp (ARHC Collaborative Training Award): PG language training through domain-specific keyword lists WritingCorp (UoL TESS funds): materials design to support IntelliText White Rose Skills Development Project: PG language training & creation of academic corpora for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish

Corpora and IntelliText for outward mobility We intend to use IntelliText as in PG training to extract lists of domain-specific vocabulary and create exercises around key words and collocations Students at the beginner and lower-intermediate level can use corpora for vocabulary acquisition on themed topics, many of which aren’t covered in standard teaching manuals Students at the upper-intermediate and advanced level can enhance their writing skills IntelliText - materials development – application in the classroom – new media – online flashcards

Corpora and IntelliText for outward mobility (2) IntelliText allows students to structure their own learning around topics specific to their studies and/or that they are interested in A corpus approach may benefit non-language students who need to learn domain-specific language quickly The IntelliText tools can be accessed anywhere in the world and can be used on the move: ideal for study/work placements abroad What’s realistic for non-language students?

Demo: using IntelliText http://smlc09.leeds.ac.uk/itb