Sessions /
Teaching English for Special Purposes with (Self-Developed) Corpora #1116

Language for special purposes can pose a challenge on multiple levels. This workshop will introduce the potential, methods, and ease of applying both self-compiled and already-available (collections of) texts and concordancing tools in the language classroom. We will show how corpora can be easily and quickly analyzed with freely available software for in-class data-driven learning and informed materials development that can complement the language curriculum as well as self- and remedial teaching. Drawing on concrete examples from two genres, namely legal documents and cookbooks, we shall see how such tools can reveal a plethora of information about the lexis, grammar, information structure, and cultural associations in the genres investigated, which often differ from the conventions and principles of “general English." The concrete examples from culinary and legal English will demonstrate the pertinence and ecological validity of corpus-driven learning that can go far beyond the relevance of the coursebook.