| Exploring Corpora for ESP Learning |
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by Laura Gavioli John Benjamins Publishing Company 2005 90-272-2292-4
With the growing interest in corpus work, it is increasingly difficult for teachers to avoid the topic of this book. Gavioli’s work will help interested ELT practitioners understand the issues involved in using corpora for language teaching, but the book will also be a fascinating and inspiring read for those interested in learner autonomy, alternative views of grammar and the teaching of writing or translation. Teachers of ESP will equally find new perspectives. The use of corpora in ELT has traditionally been confined to the domain of materials production (dictionaries like the Cobuild Dictionary, other reference materials and, more recently, coursebooks, eg CUP’s Touchstones series). At times, teachers will have used corpora in lesson preparation or might have presented students with edited concordance lines. This book is not about any of these uses. Instead, Gavioli puts her students in the driver’s seat and lets them use corpora first hand with remarkable results. In the process she not only challenges the teacher’s and student’s role in the classroom but suggests a paradigm shift in how we view grammar. Gavioli starts off by providing an introduction and solid background to corpora and their use in the classroom. The book then looks at the kind of data gained from corpus analysis and challenges views of language as ‘purely or mainly a logical system’, suggesting that sociolinguistic conventions play an important role. After looking at specialised corpora and encouraging readers to build their own, we get down to practical application in the classroom. Gavioli goes through introductory tasks that will familiarise students with using corpora. This is followed by examples of classroom activities, such as discovering technical concepts and becoming aware of the conventions of a genre. In all of these, the author describes tasks that she has actually done with students and it becomes powerfully apparent how students ‘develop their autonomy as language learners’ and are placed ‘on an equal footing’ with the teacher. Finally, Gavioli draws together the themes developed in the preceding six chapters into a well-rounded conclusion. Included are comments on where to find useful resources (some complete with URL) and a look at possible future developments. She states that while considerable effort is necessary to implement corpus work in the classroom, it is worth it. By this point in the book it is difficult to disagree with her. Teachers interested in any of the topics the book touches upon will find Gavioli’s explorations both stimulating and inspiring. I have already ordered a copy of the BNC baby corpus used in one of Gavioli’s tasks and have started thinking about integrating corpus-based sessions into my technical writing course. The more practically-minded teacher will wish the author had included a little more practical information and advice on the set-up of class activities described. Student reaction to the approach also has to be read between the lines. In my opinion, a few comments on such details would not have gone beyond the scope of the book, but would have made application just a bit easier. Furthermore, the title is currently only available as a hardback with a rather hefty price tag. While the book won’t be immediately useful for your next lesson, it leaves you well-informed and itching to apply some of its concepts to your own classroom. Andy Burki Seoul, Republic of Korea |
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