Highlights the use of corpus linguistics--or the the study of language through the use of a large collection of naturally-occurring written and spoken texts. Discusses corpora with computers, applications of corpus linguistics, and the University of Pennsylvania's Linguistic data Consortium, which is conducting a speech study to support linguistic…

Explores the use of language corpora, focusing on the use of corpora in the classroom by students rather than as a background resource for teachers and materials designers. (Author/VWL)

Introduces and describes the functions of the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano (OVI) database, a powerful Web-based, full-text, searchable electronic archive that contains early Italian vernacular texts whose composition may be dated prior to 1375. Examples are drawn from scholars in various disciplines who have employed the OVI in support of their…

In response to the description of CANCODE, a new English-language corpus designed to reflect current English usage, it is argued that although a corpus my be an accurate record of language behavior, it is limited and must not be assumed to be complete or to prescribe for English-as-a-Second-Language teaching. (MSE)

In response to his article describing a new English-language corpus designed to reflect current usage, the author agrees that extreme forms of corpus-driven language teaching are inappropriate but also that more corpus-based language instruction is needed, and that the language teaching can only benefit from better language description. (MSE)

Describes a Middlebury College second language vocabulary learning database that goes well beyond flashcards, because it keeps track of what students learn. Discusses further expansion of the system through collaborative filtering software to establish learner profiles. A learner profile could then be used to create instructional materials just…

Presents four sets of natural language processing-based exercises for which error correction and feedback are produced by means of a rich database in which linguistic information is encoded either at the lexical or the grammatical level. (Author/VWL)

Investigates the roles of "just," a lexical item that is among the most frequent in distinguishing academic speech data from roughly comparable written data in the Michigan Corpus of Academic English. Concordance analysis showed that "just" frequently co-occurs with metadiscourse and hedging; a closer functional analysis in…

Corpus-based instruction, also referred to as corpus-based linguistics, is essentially the study of genre texts for the production of materials that fit a specific group of second language learners. For example, if a group of students is learning the language in order to read medical articles, a specific teaching program can be set up based on the…

Illustrates the problems inherent in an extreme focus on form and accuracy or meaning and fluency in English-as-a-Second-Language classes. Notes that current language teaching theory views a dual, simultaneous focus as desirable and proceeds to analyze the features of an authentic example of dual focus. (20 references) (Author/CK)

The diversity of cognitive style and learning strategies will become a guiding principle for the organization of language discovery environments that have a dynamic and adaptive learner profile as their core. This article describes a model for these environments and details the contents of a technologically based language learner profile.…

This article is divided into two parts. The first discusses theoretical issues related to the software program introduced, and the second deals with practical issues, including technical and pedagogical considerations in implementing the program. (Author/VWL)

Despite the evolution of software for computer-assisted language learning (CALL), teacher resistance remains high. Early software for language instruction was almost exclusively designed for drill and practice. That approach was later replaced by a model in which the computer provided a stimulus for students, most often as a partner in games.…

The value and role of concordancers (simple computer programs that can quickly analyze electronic texts to find occurrences of a given word, part of a word, or phrase and display it within its immediate context) in secondary school English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teaching are examined. First, their use in higher education is discussed,…