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Corpus Linguistics and Vocabulary Teaching

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Demystifying Corpus Linguistics for English Language Teaching

Abstract

Corpora reveal authentic language use in different contexts and are, therefore, indispensable for L2 vocabulary teaching. Considering the real needs of language teachers, this chapter shows how corpus tools can be employed in the classroom to enhance vocabulary teaching, firstly with regard to single words, their frequency and use, and secondly in relation to multi-word units or chunks. The chapter encourages teachers to consult frequency-based lists of both single words and multi-word items, and to step into the shoes of linguistic researchers by trying out a number of corpus tools and techniques. The suggestions presented in the chapter can be used by both teachers for lesson preparation and students themselves as part of classroom activities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There is another New General Service List compiled by Brezina and Gablasova (2015). To distinguish between the two, Browne’s list is usually referred to as NGSL and the latter as new-GSL.

  2. 2.

    Frequency bands (K1, K2 etc.) shown in brackets in this section are based on Nation’s BNC-COCA list. This list was found to be the most useful to L2 learners compared to new-GSL or NGSL (Dang et al. 2020).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. David Yellin College of Education, Jerusalem, Israel

    Leo Selivan

  2. Oranim Academic College of Education, Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel

    Leo Selivan

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  1. Leo Selivan
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Cultural Studies, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany

    Kieran Harrington

  2. Faculty of Cultural Studies, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany

    Patricia Ronan

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Selivan, L. (2023). Corpus Linguistics and Vocabulary Teaching. In: Harrington, K., Ronan, P. (eds) Demystifying Corpus Linguistics for English Language Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11220-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11220-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-11219-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-11220-1

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