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Корпусные инструменты, маршруты и эксперименты в современной лингводидактике
The article is a reflection of practice-related research that aimed at bringing together corpus linguistics tools and teaching in L2 classroom. The focus throughout is on exploring the relationship between corpus analysis and language acquisition practice and how far the usage of corpus tools can provide answers to the questions and issues that arise in practice of language teaching.
Structurally, the article gives a brief overview of corpora influence on language teaching over the recent decades, and then tries to elaborate on how it feeds into content selection, language teaching material as well as classroom techniques. Specifically, some attention is devoted to overwhelming contrast between spoken and written register, which was described by Biber et al [1999] as a result of a large-scale corpus-based analysis. The corpus study influences our understanding of both quantitative and qualitative implications for learner vocabulary, which are also discussed in the main body. In conclusion, we share some insights into how much corpus-based material is advisable to include as we develop our syllabi since we admit that it might be rather time-consuming to turn corpus examples into exercises and classroom activities.
The article states that the contribution of corpus research to understanding and describing the language we teach is hardly disputable. What is more, the superficial indication that a given course book has been corpus-informed is only the tip of the iceberg. As Scot and Tribble [2007] put it “the very foundations of Linguistics have been shaken; in some cases the movement of the
tectonic plates has thrust up new Himalayas where before there was apparently level ground.” [p. 4]. Thus, technological shift shook long held notions in language education, as seemingly explicit grammar rules gave way to less explicable authentic usage with a view to understanding the English outside the classroom.
On the practical side, the paper presents a set of corpus–based tasks, follow-up activities and expected results. These aimed at awareness-raising to register differences and sociolinguistic implications of hedging; additional practice for grammar patterns and idioms is presented. Within corpus-based activities learners are also presented with some contrasting statistics for cohesive devices use based on native speaker and non-native speaker writing. As a way of concluding remark, we suggest that corpus be used as a reference tool together with grammar books and dictionaries by both teachers and learners.