Welcome again, forest dwellers!
Today we will talk about corpus-based language teaching and how we managed to create materials and a lesson plan based on corpus.
First of all, what is corpus? Well, it is a collection of texts and sometimes multimedia that is used to aid in education and research. Corpora can be very helpful when teaching things like collocations, common phrases etc.
Our task this week was to create a lesson plan following the ASSURE principles and corpus. We first decided on which grammar item we wanted to teach. We landed on "because/so". We also had to base our plan off of the MEB prep school units. We chose Detective Stories because it made a lot of sense with the grammar topic. We brainstormed various activities and decided on activities we thought would be cognitively challenging and still enjoyable. After our decision, we designed our materials on Canva. We then completed our lesson plan according to the template.
Here are our materials:
The design process was a bit challenging. We had to include both teacher-mediated and student-mediated corpus use. We had to not make our materials too hard but also not to make them too easy. We had to make them worth the effort of corpus use. It took us some time but I think we managed to create good materials.
Although, of course with everything, there is always a risk of problems occurring in the classroom while using these materials and doing the activities. Firstly, the students might think what they are doing is a waste of time and not find it enjoyable. We should ensure that they understand why they are doing these activities and using these worksheets. Secondly, students might have trouble understanding corpus even with our video and worksheet guides. If any students are still confused we should guide them. On the contrary, some students might think the activities are too easy. We can try to challenge these students by giving them new tasks.
In conclusion, corpora use is a great way to integrate technology, language and education. But we need to be careful when implementing in our classrooms.
What do you think, forest dwellers? Do you like using corpus? Have you ever tried it before? Do you think it is helpful in language teaching? Let me know!
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