Concordance Programs in the EFL Classroom

Concordance Programs in the EFL Classroom
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Concordance Programs in the EFL Classroom
Context and EFL Learners’ Needs
This essay will discuss the use of concordance programs in the EFL classroom and the considerable differences between what textbooks teach and how native speakers apply language, as evidenced in the corpora. These two issues will form the discourse concerning EFL learners between the ages of 13 and 14 years old in a Chinese international school employing English as the language of instruction. The nature of instruction will be personal while the medium of instruction is face-to-face. On the other hand, the number of hours spent on working on concordance is two hours. All of the learners are relatively unfamiliar with corpus linguistics and the first half hour will be spent helping them familiarize with corpus linguistics. The students’ grammar, reading, writing, and vocabulary skills are slightly below those of their UK peers in year 8 of the UK national curriculum. Their speaking and listening skills are also at a lower level and, therefore, this essay will strive to consider these deficiencies, particularly by focusing on deepening reading comprehension, eliciting grammar rules, and expanding vocabulary competence to ensure that learners attain the proficiency levels needed to succeed in a British educational environment.
Developments in corpus linguistics over the past years, spurred by the progress and popularization of technology, have significantly affected language comprehension and operations thereby providing tools for language studies and language learners. Corpus use is an emerging promising field in second language acquisition, particularly as a reference tool in EFL instruction focusing on grammar and vocabulary (Kezhen, 2015, p. 61). The concordance can avail opportunities for EFL instructors to meet distinct language teaching goals and EFL learners to test their notions about language application. However, certain issues impede the application and potential of concordance in language learning including resistance from teachers, limited training among instructors, enduring controversies surrounding the use of invented or authentic data in the EFL teaching context, and learner problems in understanding authentic language as well as navigating concordance interfaces, among other practical issues. This essay will conduct a literature review of concordance programs in the EFL classroom as well as the teaching resources required in implementing a concordance program. It will also propose a suitable lesson exercise and then provide a rationale for the same.
Literature Review on Concordance as a Teaching Tool
Concordance refers to the process of accessing a corpus of text to analyze the usage of a particular word or phrase in the text as relates to context. This practice of examining the links between words and their correct application in texts is critical to understanding the application context of a word. The emergence of the computerized corpus as a useful tool in linguistic research is one of the many examples of how language studies integrate technology. As a result of the ra...