Creating Authentic EFL Materials Using English Corpora: Some Benefits of Corpus for the Layman Tyler Barrett Kure City ALT [PowerPoint by Tim Hawthorne Hiroshima International University]

Corpus Research Can Be Used To: Improve EFL coursebooks Enhance the overall learning experience of the student

Areas of Discussion Grammar Patterns and the Present Perfect Pedagogic Corpus Comparing Real-Life Data Wordlists in Parallel Corpora (U.K. vs. USA) Cultural Awareness and Differences Understanding and Using Native Speaker Consensus

Grammar Patterns and the Present Perfect According to Mindt (2000), of the four meanings of the present perfect (indefinite past, past continuing into present, recent past, and unspecified completion), indefinite past is by far the most frequently used (80%). However, typically, course books teach past- into-present as prototypical, though it’s use is only 5% in the corpora. (Hunston 2002)

Choosing Vocabulary for Grammar Patterns Over-emphasizing grammar structures can lead to invented language examples created as a result of theoretical principles designed to predict language patterns (McEnery and Wilson 1996). This can lead to dialogues in course books that reflect less frequently used vocabulary.

Dialogue Between Mr. and Mrs. Snow (Romer 2004) Mr. Snow: Hello, Wendy. Mrs. Snow: Hello, Ron. Mr. Snow: Where are the girls? Are they packing? Mrs. Snow: Yes, they are. Mr. Snow: Or are they playing? Mrs. Snow: No, they aren’t, Ron. They are packing.

Analysis of Dialogue British National Corpus (BNC) data indicate “playing” and “packing” are less frequently used than “happening, talking, listening and staying.” According to Romer (2004), the phrase “are they packing” does not occur in the BNC (spoken), while “are they playing” occurs only once.

Benefits of Frequencies and Wordlists Corpus based frequencies and wordlists can help teachers teach learning strategies. Lists can aid teachers in making decisions about priorities in teaching and in creating teaching materials (Szirmai 2001). Language differences and cultural tendencies can be recognized and exploited in course books.

Frequency based orthographical and morphological indications Wordlists organized in parallel corpora (e.g. the LOB of British English and the American Brown corpus) reveal differences in spelling (“colour” and “color”) and morphology (“got” and “gotten”) (McEnery and Wilson 2004). Orthographical and morphological features can be chosen and highlighted according to the variety of English to be used.

Cultural Implications Comparisons of American and British corpora frequency patterns reveal cultural differences such as higher frequencies of words associated with travel, crime and the military in American English. This kind of knowledge enables teachers to choose course books tailored to students’ communicative needs.

Native Speaker Intuition and Corpora Consensus A goal of many course books is to exploit consensus based authentic and frequent language patterns. NS intuition might question examples such as “What do you have for breakfast?” Corpus consensus confirms that the more natural form is “What do you usually have for breakfast?”

Conclusions Knowing that course book materials are corpus data based gives both teachers and language learners confidence that they are using authentic language from real-life situations. Language learners’ increased confidence greatly aids them in preparation for real-life communication in English.