Corpora for Language Learning

This book is a treasure trove of perspectives and purposeful chapters. Whether you are interested in researching data-driven learning or in using it in your classroom, this book will intrigue you. Not only does it curate a range of leading contributors in a volume that addresses research and practice, it goes far beyond by connecting the voice of the teacher, the researcher and the learner in the form of reflective discussions linked to each chapter.

Professor Anne O’Keeffe, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland

Corpora for Language Learning: Bridging the Research-Practice Divide represents a major new step in research on the use of corpus data in language learning and teaching, and I am happy to endorse it for publication. After the initial excitement generated by early publications in the 1980s, it soon became clear that the applications of real-life language data in the language classroom were largely limited to learners in higher education who were fortunate to have researchers in this area as their teachers. This book aims to change that narrow perspective, and to broaden this area of research to include voices from all stakeholders involved. The authors focus on enabling teachers and learners to have direct access to corpora and the software necessary to analyse them without substantial training, making it easy for teachers to integrate them in their classes and for learners to use them both inside and outside the classroom. This book thus has the potential to appeal not only to researchers in this field but also to those involved in language teacher education and to teachers. It is very likely to be widely cited as an important turning point in DDL research.

Professor Angela Chambers, Professor Emerita of Applied Languages, University of Limerick, Ireland