Abstract
This chapter attempts to draw conclusions about the extent and modality of corpora use in teaching less commonly taught languages, based on the teachers' experience with their foreign language students, their use of corpora and corpus tools to prepare teaching materials, and based on their use of the corpora in the direct teaching process. The advantages and challenges of using OERs in teaching less commonly taught languages across different language learning levels discussed in this chapter are the result of detailed analysis of the preferences and needs of teachers at Croaticum (Centre for Croatian as a second and foreign language – CFL at the University of Zagreb), which is considered the largest and central institution for teaching CFL. The results are also based on the analysis of existing Croatian language corpora and the literature about these corpora.
TopTheoretical Background Of Corpora As Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are defined as “any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation” (UNESCO, 2012).
The research on open educational resources has already revealed that OERs have many pedagogical and learning impacts. OERs can improve both teaching and learning of different subjects, personalize the learning experiences and promote active teaching approaches, while significantly reducing the time for preparing the lectures (Bliss et al., 2013; Farrow et al., 2015; Pegrum, 2016; Wenk, 2010).
Since language resources (such as online dictionaries and corpora) are both open and free resources and proved to be useful for pedagogical means and the development of the language awareness (Beaven, 2013; Thomas & Evans, 2014), they could be implemented as OERs to improve language teaching and learning.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Data-Driven Language Learning: Term refers to language learning approach in which students are learning foreign language by researching and studying language materials mostly using corpus or online language materials and databases.
Corpus Linguistics: Type of linguistic analysis that is conduct thru usage of corpus and corpus tools in purpose of linguistic researches, studies, and language learning.
Computer Corpora: A large collection of different texts types which can contain written or spoken language that is stored in digital format such like computer, online, cloud, etc.
Corpora or Corpus: A large collection of different texts types which can contain written or spoken language.
Open Educational Resources: Free learning and research materials that are available for everyone to use without paying it.
Corpus Tools: Different kind of software tools that help users and linguistic researchers to get the maximum usage of computer corpora. Tools which are used to search corpus database and conduct linguistic analysis.
Computer Literacy: Refers to the level of knowledge and skills about information and communication technologies and how to use it in your work and everyday life.