Corpus-Informed Pedagogy in a Language Course: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation

Introduction

Corpora, or large electronic collections of texts, have been used in language pedagogy since their inception in the 1960s. Corpus-based language learning and teaching methods and the associated research strand dedicated to exploring their effectiveness have also been known as Data-Driven Learning, or DDL, since Johns (1990) adopted this term from computer science. The body of work on DDL has grown exponentially over the last three decades and has by now convincingly shown that this method can be effective for different teaching targets in different teaching contexts. Nevertheless, DDL is still not widely used in regular classrooms for a number of reasons. One of them is that few workable pedagogical frameworks have been suggested for integrating DDL into language courses and curricula. Although many DDL researchers report on studies conducted within the framework of their own courses, it is impossible to provide details of a course design in a typical research article due to length limitations. This chapter aims to fill this gap by providing a report on a practical application of such a pedagogical framework to a language course with a significant DDL component. The chapter begins with a background section that presents a brief overview of empirical DDL research, including advantages and disadvantages of different types of corpora and DDL methods, thus explaining the rationale for selecting the DDL resources and the pedagogical approach for the course. Next, the study methodology is described. The Design-Based Research (DBR) approach was selected that has been broadly defined as “an emerging paradigm for the study of learning in context through the systematic design and study of instructional strategies and tools […, which] can help create and extend knowledge about developing, enacting, and sustaining innovative learning environments” (Baumgartner et al., 2003, p. 5). In the present study, this approach has been operationalized following ten steps suggested by Colpaert (2006) for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) courseware design. The bulk of the chapter presents a report on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a high-intermediate university-level German as a Foreign Language course with a substantial CALL (DDL) component that is mapped back onto these steps. In line with the DBR methodology, the chapter concludes with a reflection on how the affordances of the DDL technology were utilized for its meaningful integration into the focal language course, thus forming the basis for subsequent modifications to improve this specific instructional innovation.

The intended audience of this chapter includes language educators interested in implementing DDL in their courses as well as DDL researchers who plan to conduct classroom DDL research. Although the described course was designed and implemented in a specific language learning setting – teaching German as a foreign language at a US university – the suggested pedagogical framework and course design model are applicable to many different contexts with appropriate modifications.