Using corpora in the classroom – an #ELTchat summary

Screenshot of BNC home page - http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/

This is a summary of an #ELTchat discussion which took place on 6 March 2013.  The full topic title was 'Using corpora in the classroom – teachers and learners, tips, ideas, best practices', and was proposed by @LizziePinard.  It takes quotes and opinions directly from the chat and generally avoids the temptation to digress into those found on the numerous links mentioned during the chat, unless explicitly stated. The numerous links could be followed up for more detail as the chat itself arguably only skimmed the surface of the topic.  In trying to represent what was said, I hope that I haven't inadvertently misrepresented anyone, which can happen given the nature of #ELTchat, the way tweets interlink and the requirement on contributors using the hashtag correctly in order for tweets to appear in the transcript.  Nearly all the external references are linked to from within the summary, hence there is no exhaustive list at the end.

An initial request to clear up some terms for those unfamiliar with corpus (n sing) and corpora (n plural) fell on deaf ears as it appeared that most who contributed to the chat already had some idea and, indeed, were very knowledgeable on the topic.  However there may have been some #ELTchat 'lurkers' - a term which seems to have become synonymous with this format - who were less sure.  For the purposes of this brief summary, a quick definition is borrowed from @teflerinha's post (26 Sep 2012) which was referred to:

"a corpus (plural corpora) is a collection of texts (for written corpora) or recordings of speech (for spoken corpora). A vast amount of language is gathered, and when sorted by a computer, this can provide a lot of data about how language is actually used, which words naturally collocate and so on."

There is also this introduction, part of a series on the topic, by Jamie Keddie (@cheimi10) as mentioned in the chat by @Onestopenglish, although you need to be a member to access all six parts.   A subsequent request during the chat was made to provide some sources and links.  

Examples of Corpora

These came thick and fast. @bhrbahar and others mentioned the British National Corpus, as hosted on the Brigham Young University website.  @Vickyloras, c/o @annapires, has used Compleat Lexical Tutor. @teacherphili mentioned Collins Wordbank. @theteacherjames recalled someone previously on #ELTchat recommending the "nicely designed" Scottish corpus website and, in particular, its collocate clouds.  @Marisa_C believed The Time American Corpus is "great ... and has a great tutorial on how to use."  @ManosSY provided a link to a collection of online concordancers (software for producing examples of lines of text from a corpus which shows a word or phrase and its surrounding co-text) - see here.

Corpus researcher @Lexicojules stated she used "BAWE (student academic writing) and BASE (ditto speaking) with EAP Ss [as] very relevant", later adding,  "You can use any online search tools as a basic corpus, [such as] online journals for EAP."

@muranava, who writes extensively about corpora on his blog, highlighted a recent post which included mentions of specific corpora links "for some of the doubters".  It includes the Backbone pedagogic corpora for content and language integrated learning, the MICASE corpus of academic spoken English, COCA (corpus of contemporary American English), as well as the already mentioned BNC (British national corpus).  It also highlights the Phrases in English tool which uses the BNC, giving an example. 

Screenshot taken from a Phrases In English concordance search.

It was queried whether the BNC was still free. @leoselivan stated that it is "but that you have to sign in after 10 lookups."  @lexicojules, who believed the BNC is now considered small and rather dated, mentioned other fun analysis tools include things like Google NGram Viewer (which looks at how words or phrases in a corpus of books have changed in frequency over time) and Google Fight to investigate relative frequencies. @leoselivan, however, later questioned the trustworthiness as "Google yields different results for different people".  So there is a question of bias.  @How2TchEnglish also suggested using Google, if there is no access to a corpus, using quotation marks around the search term.

@muranava also offered demo activities from the FLAX learner corpus - here. The FLAX interface to the BAWE is great, apparently! - see here. He also linked to another post here about building your own corpus using TextSTAT and AntConc, showing how to generate a frequency list.  A number of others referred to creating your own corpus or using alternative, personalised corpora.  Some of these possibilities are discussed by Jamie Keddie in the already mentioned source, while his article on using Google searches is freely available here.

Uses of Corpora

@lexicojules:  "If you use live/unedited corpora, you have to be prepared to explain things that don't follow the rules."

There was a general sense from the transcript that use of corpora and of concordance software could be a little bit intimidating unless you know what you are doing.  You have to take care considering which one to use and how.  There is also arguably not a huge amount of free corpora online. But the effort can be rewarding for those that try and those that had experience of doing so, nonetheless, shared some ideas, whilst the rest speculated. 

Early on, @toulasklavou stated that "corpora can help Ts identify vocab used for specific genres to help Ss use relevant vocab". Later @toulasklavou also suggested that "Ss in groups find the 10 most frequent adjectives, verbs etc for a specific genre, with each group [taking] one part of speech."  while @How2TchEnglish thought it was "good for students to use in conjunction with a vocab notebook and [to] promote learner autonomy."

@theteacherjames, who had dabbled with corpora to check how English is really used stated that it could "be used as a reference for the Ss but also as a reference for the teacher to make sure they are teaching the 'correct' language." Corpora can go some way to showing the most common way of saying something, if not the 'correct' way.  He mentioned the 'availability bias/heuristic' - "being affected by what we see/hear in how we perceive lang to be" - or where teachers make judgments about the probability of events or overestimate the frequency of an event by how easy it is to think of examples.   @harrisonmike offered some words of caution in reply:  "Gotta be careful which corpus you're using then!!" before adding "It can be limiting/misleading since you have to choose whether Am or Br Eng, written or spoken. Can be time consuming."  Indeed, many teachers are probably put off by how long it takes to figure out the software and use it effectively.   But is it still preferable to intuition?

@Marisa_C offered some practical ideas for a 'genre balanced' Eng corpus, COCA, with this 2009 blog post. @muranava offered a series of short examples for using the same corpus in his more recent posts entitled Quick Cup of COCA.  @muranava also offered his post on how a teacher could explain a word using COCA and its 'word and phrase.info' interface.  @Marisa_C also advertised a CUP book, 'From Corpus to Classroom' which "has many useful ideas" and is "superb, very well written and very informative" according to @muranava.

A screenshot of COCA's Word and Phrase.Info Interface - see here

 
@LizziePinard asked if [anyone] uses corpora when making materials.  @CotterHUE replied "occasionally when checking word frequency for an article ... but rarely."  @muranava stated that in her opinion teachers need to play around with corpora first before using it in class.  She went onto state that she uses it with multi-media students, using it to "focus reading texts, e.g. word like 'features', then collocates of that."  @lexicojules added that you could check the usage of a word that students disagree about - either during the class if confident or at home, bringing in the results next class.

@LizziePinard asked if anyone had used concordances in class or a non-native speaker corpus but there wasn't much direct reply to this.  Similarly, @Marisa_C asked if anyone had projected a concordancer [in a lesson] to little response.  'Antconc' is a free concordancer, noted @LizziePinard, and there may be others, unless you want to buy WordSmith.  There are online tutorials for Antconc, such as the one here, by the creator, Laurence Anthony.

@lexicojules later stated that "looking up following vb patterns or dependent preps always comes up nicely in a concordance."  @Marisa_C mentioned the late Graham Davies, who wrote a guide on using concordance software in MFL - see here.  @leoselivan mentioned @teflerinha's great post on user-friendly concordance ideas late on.  She acknowledges at the beginning that it is rare for corpora and especially concordances to be used much in the classroom, often being "dense and unattractive", before going on to give examples of how they might be used, such as raising awareness of collocations. See the post for full details.   

@LizziePinard also asked if anyone had made a corpus out of student's work and analysed it for errors.  @toulasklavou thought this sounded like "a great idea, an engaging activity". Similarly, @theteacherjames thought this would be fascinating if there is software for it.
 
@LizziePinard suggested that it would be easy using word tools, before going on to suggest making a corpus out of your course book and comparing it to BNC.   @lexicojules thought this was easier with students submitting work electronically, although systematically searching for errors is not simple.  At a basic level Ss essays could be combined in a single word doc with 'find' facility engaged for how they used words. @theteacherjames still wondered how you would analyse it before suggesting making a corpus based on #ELTchat conversations. @Marisa_C said the [CUP] book suggests WordFast, while @LizziePinard returned with the previously mentioned Compleat Lexical Tutor for analysing small amounts.

Late on, @theteacherjames retweeted a couple of more links c/o @EBEFL - a piece here by Andrew Walkely and another by @EBEFL here - as to why corpora can be useful and which both discuss the 'availability bias/error'.

@leoselivan, joined in the chat towards the end having been knowingly namechecked by @teacherphili and @theteacherjames, who had stated that "using corpora would be necessary if you are teaching in a lexical, chunk based way." As a keen practitioner in the lexical approach, @leoselivan obviously agreed, but immediately mentioned a "recent criticism of an obsession with corpora" by another keen advocate of this approach, @hughdellar and his intention to write a response.  He later stated that "corpus is important for both NS (native speaker) and NNS (non-native speaker) teachers [as] intuitions may not always be true."  A teacher's intuition seems to be a fundamental point about the usefulness of corpora in the classroom.  As Leo has since stated on his blog, "Corpora have shed light on many aspects of language which were previously described based on intuition.  Instead of groping in the dark and anecdotal evidence we now have access to authentic language data."

Debate arrounding use of Corpora

@muranava twice highlighted a post, mentioned already, which was a response to @hughdellar's earlier post, which had reiterated doubts from ten years ago about the use(fulness) of corpora.  It includes a subsequent discussion.  This post was followed, as mooted in the chat, by @leoselivan's own response and subsequent discussion with Hugh on his blog.  Follow the links to read the discussion.  Leo's own guide to essential corpus tools which features Just-the-Word, Phrase Up, Netspeak, Concordancer and Fraze It is here.

Conclusion

Although I took part in the chat, it wasn't always easy to follow the thread.  Looking back at the transcript, 7 weeks later, it was no clearer.  It was apparent that a few of the participants clearly knew what they were talking about and gave plenty of links to using corpora, while others showed an interest in the topic without having ever put any of the theory into practice.  But working out what a reply was in reply to was not always easy.  This summary only represents the outline discussion - there was no mention of colligation, semantic prosody or lexical priming - a lot of the 'meat' is in the links, mostly to blog posts, that were offered up, where these and many other things are discussed.

There was, at one point, a request for a screencast to be made showing how to upload your own corpus to lextutor.  Screencasts, such as the one of Antconc mentioned, which demonstrates analysing text uplodaed from a textbook, as well as more straightforward step by step guides, might well be invaluable ways of demonstrating the usefulness of certain concordance tools to teachers.  I don't think even Russell Stannard of TeacherTrainingVideos.com has ever done a screencast for one.  The potential for analysing 'real', 'correct' language and confirming, or otherwise, a teacher's intuition is definitely there.  But I guess, unless you try it out, you'll never know for sure.  Please comment if you have other sources or ideas in using corpora in the classroom.

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About the summary writer:  Phil Longwell is currently out of work despite having, last year, completed an MA in ELT at the University of Warwick where, amongst other things, he wrote an essay - here - on using corpora to investigate the phrase 'public interest'.   The main finding of which was that the phrase has a tendency to appear at the beginning or end of sentences, especially the former, and that we might be primed into using it this way.

Virtual Learning Environments - An #ELTChat Summary

This is a rough summary of an old #ELTChat, dated 2 November 2011, which I volunteered to write as I (am) currently researching the topic for an upcoming job interview.  It also connects with my MA dissertation topic, which I completed in September 2012, about the kinds of educational technology teachers currently use in their job.   I did not find it easy to make sense of a transcript or to put together a summary of a chat which I was not part of and at a time which pre-dates my knowledge of the existence of #ELTChat. Nonetheless, I present some of the ideas and shared links below, hoping that I haven't mispresented anyone who took part.  I feature those who lead the chat more than those who simply followed and retweeted if in agreement.

Image : http://www.jaydax.co.uk/vt/index.htm

According to a Wikipedia, a A virtual learning environment (VLE) is an education system based on the Web that models conventional real-world education by providing equivalent virtual access to classes, class content, tests, homework, grades, assessments, other class tools and perhaps even museums and other external academic resources. It is also a social space where students and teacher can interact through threaded discussions or chat. It typically uses Web 2.0 tools for 2-way interaction, and includes a content management system.

Virtual learning environments are the basic component of contemporary distance learning, but can also be integrated with a physical learning environment; this is sometimes referred to as Blended Learning.

As acknowledged during the chat, a virtual learning environment can also include students and teacher 'meeting' online through a synchronous web-based application. The students are able to talk with other students and the teacher, as well as collaborate with each other, answer questions, or pose questions. They can use the tools available through the application to virtually raise their hand, send messages, or answer questions on the screen given by the teacher.  Virtual learning can take place synchronously where participants meet in 'real time'. Teachers conduct live classes in virtual classrooms, for which examples were given during the chat. Students are expected to complete lessons and assignments independently through the system, with the teacher always present. Learning can also be 'asynchronous' where each student is effectively learning at his own pace, away from the obvious presence of a teacher, but who still exists in terms of setting up and assessing work.

USING VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR ELT

The chat opened, as they often do, with a search for a definition.  What is meant by a Virtual Learning Environment? "Social spaces where educational interactions occur" offered @BrunoELT.  "Any space that has been set up to foster learning but without the need of the physical presence of the teacher" offered @hoprea. "VLEs aren't massively social though," countered @harrisonmike, as they are not open to all, unlike the medium of this chat, Twitter, which potentially has a limitless reach. @SueAnnan wondered if Wikis could be considered VLEs to which @hoprea opined that it depended on the way they are set up.  @Harrisonmike believed educational wikis must be included.  @SueAnnan and @barbaska wanted to know how people were using them to teach in the classroom.  It was suggested, by @ShaunWilden and others, that VLEs were an extension of, or possibly instead of, the classrom.  They can vary from very simple to complex ones, "as long as learning is taking place then it's a VLE," said @hoprea.  @Mollybob commented that they are "not so much for teaching as learning, evidence of learning and places for interaction".  Meanwhile, @fceblog guessed "VLEs are places where a teacher's presence (could) be felt."  @ShaunWilden found this interesting and later agreed that 'teacher presence' is important.  A couple of participants also later queried whether the teacher 'has to' be 'seen', which was taken to mean their 'presence' was noticeable.  @PatrickAndrews commented that a teacher/tutor has an important role in moderating (what goes on), while @ShaunWilden replied that it was not just moderating, but also "coaxing, motivating and even assessing."  @Barbsaka later summarised the approach as "not so much what you use, but how you use it," which many retweeted.  @Mollybob later added that "a VLE is evidence of interaction that has taken place, while the learning focus is on the interaction/behaviour it affords."

A number were at pains to point out that some things we might think of as being VLEs, such as Elluminate, WizIQ and Adobe Connect were better described as synchronous virtual classrooms. Some wanted to distinguish between VLEs and Learning Management Systems. @teflgeek wondered if the latter is administrative, whereas a VLE has pedagogic value.  Examples of LMS included Blackboard and Moodle, which @seburnt and @harrisonmike were 'forced to use' respectively.

Examples given at the top included Moodle, Edmodo and Blackboard.   Fronter was also put forward by @ShaunWilden, who later commented that "simple shared space(s) for speaking courses were some of the best examples he had seen, giving students excellent task practice and recording all through the VLE".  First Class was also mentioned, although it appeared to be on the wane for some reason.  Second Life and Open Sim were referred to as being VLEs as well. Blackboard, thought, @seburt, had weak functionality.   @hoprea suggested Skype could "become a VLE" and @marcego03 said she had already used it as one, while @jobethsteel claimed it was as easy to use Skype to deliver courses as other methods.  @harrisonmike wondered if Google Docs counted and, by definition of being virtual and allowing for learning, was included, by @hoprea.

Ning was mentioned by @PatrickAndrews and also by @teflgeek, who had been put off by charges. @Yitzha_sarwono had used Ning previously but in Indonesia found "Facebook the first choice".  Facebook groups were mentioned by others but there was a general agreement it wasn't the best method or example, with security being one issue (@teflgeek) and a difficulty organising learning being another (@harrisonmike) referring to FB's algorithms.  @fceblog later ruled out FB because "a teacher's presence is a key difference between a VLE and a PLE (personal learning environment)".  "Students were treating (FB) as an extension of their social lives and not a VLE," commented @teflgeek, to which @ShaunWilden countered that it was "a good way to get them in .. build learning on to the social (aspect)," to which @teflgeek replied that he was trying to do this.  @hoprea added that if we agree that learning is social, FB does offer lots of possibilities and can also become a VLE, "if dealt with appropriately".  @Cybraryman1 later shared his effusive opinions on how FB could be used, demonstrating many ways it can be used for educational purposes (link below).   A number of participants, however, felt that Edmodo, which has a similar interface to Facebook, was better for organising students and for facilitating the learning process.  It doesn't have synchronous tools but still think of it as VLE (@Marisa_C, @ShaunWilden), a wonderful tool, even with adults (@marcego03).

@NikPeachey offered Wiggio as his VLE of choice.  It can host content easily and has great communication tools and features, as well as being quick to create. Nik provided a link to a introductory screencast.   He added to the earlier comment that "learning can be just social ... but it can be made more efficient by feeding in task and support."  "Without proper guidance, affordances and scaffolding", added @hoprea, "it is just chat." @Marisa_C said she really liked Vyew, which has nice features other VLEs don't have, such as being able to leave tools on indefinitely, providing a link (below).  She asked @NikPeachey whether Wiggio was free and he stated it was for him, with "better asynchronous features than WizIQ".

@Hoprea stated further down the chat that all you needed to do was to "add the 'virtual' component to any learning environement and there you go!"  This triggered off a comment regarding ALE - 'Any Learning Environment'.  "Motivation, engagement, ability to work independently are all important in ALE," suggested @hoprea, which was retweeted several times.

There was correlating chat around the way that VLEs are supported by other tools - such as wikis, blogs etc (@SueAnnan).  The way these other tools are used was apparently questioned as a determiner of whether education/learning takes place.  @Barbsaka  reiterated her comment about how tools are used affected learning. @Teflgeek stated that how you use the available tools can affect the degree to which (education) occurs.@fceblog agreed, adding that VLEs are not about the tool so much as the teacher's responsibility in them.

Meanwhile, @BrunoELT asked "What does it take for a student to be a successful VLE learner? Is confidence with the medium important? @ShaunWilden added, "Is it different from being a successful learner fullstop?" before adding that "the teacher should make the medium as easy as possible to use." @NikPeachey offered "motivation and opportunity", while @teflgeek offered "engagement in the process". "Patience and lots of practice," offered @yorksensei.  @hoprea agreed that the teacher needs to offer guidance, just as in the physical world.  Some VLEs get created and not used (@mattledding).  Training and guidance was deemed important from the outset.  "If no training is given, students will be at a loss with the tool," said @hoperea. Furthermore, "a tool that could be a nice addition is dismissed out of hand."  @Marisa_C agreed and confirmed ground rules as essential to begin with. @HarrisonMike suggested some basic ICT skills must not be overlooked, while @PatrickAndrews stated that ground rules were important, before adding that students often feel mistakes are more permanent in VLEs than in the classroom.  @teflgeek admitted that his learning curve was steeper on some VLEs than his learners before adding that his VLE rules are similar to his classroom rules. @hoprea added that the teacher needs to know the VLE of his choice quite well as they will be involved in giving tech support to others.

Towards the end of the chat, both @mollybob and @PatrickAndrews asked if anyone was familiar with the 5 stage model of e-moderation.  More detail about this can be found here.  It is quite influential and often cited.  @ShaunWilden stated in the affirmative, saying that he "runs courses on e-moderation, so it comes up a lot." as well as doing a talk at IATEFL on the role of the teacher in a VLE context - see link below.

Gilly Salmond's 5 stages of e-moderation

The chat continued for a while on the theme of moderation.  Unless familiar with the VLE being used, a teacher may struggle to create enough motivation on the part of the learner.  For some, motivation, engagement and the ability to work independently - those features already described for 'Any Learning Environment' were key points.  There was some expectation expressed at teachers needing training rather than being left to get on with using the chosen VLE. "How can you expect teachers to use it ... when they don't even know how to use it themselves?" asked marcego03.  Meanwhile, some expressed reluctance on the part of students to use, for example, discussion boards (@PatrickAndrews) as this would 'expose' them.  Furthermore, if it doesn't work out, it was suggested that it easier to abandon a website, compared with a (paid-for) coursebook, stated @hoprea, who later concluded that "knowledge triggers creativity.  The more you learn about a tool, the easier it is for you to find different uses for it."

The chat carried on for another 30 minutes (12.50 - 1.20), drifting well past the normal hour given over to the chat. If you are interested in what was said then the transcript is still available to read here.


Links provided during the chat:

Wiggio - http://wiggio.com/
Nik's Screencast for Wiggio - http://screencast.com/t/d4MCLZbT
cybraryman1's Facebook page - http://cybraryman.com/facebook.html
5 stage model of e-moderation - http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml
Shaun's Role Changes in VLE Context (with further links) - http://t.co/A3O04Cfe
Vyew - http://vyew.com/s/
Marisa's Screencast on Vyew and Interview on Second Life - http://t.co/UmJj21m7
Chuck Sandy's Beautiful World - http://iamhappy.posterous.com/chucks-beautiful-world

and more links to the other VLEs/tools mentioned:

Moodle - https://moodle.org/
Edmodo - http://www.edmodo.com/
Ning - http://uk.ning.com/
Blackboard (Collaborate) - http://tinyurl.com/cjh33lo
English 360 - http://www.english360.com/
First Class - http://www.firstclass.com/
Second Life - http://secondlife.com/
Open Sim - http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page
WizIQ - http://www.wiziq.com/
Adobe Connect - http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html