The summer school in Corpus linguistics for language learning, teaching and testing is aimed at students, researchers and teachers who are interested in analysing language data using quantitative (corpus) methods research. The summer school focuses on using corpus methods to analyse learner language and on applying corpus findings in language teaching and assessment. Participants in this summer school are not expected to have any background in (corpus) linguistics, but basic computational skills are assumed.
The programme consists of a series of intensive sessions, involving lectures and practical sessions in which participants are trained in the use of corpus tools. The summer school has two main aims: a. to develop practical skills with using corpus techniques and software and b. to demonstrate how these methods can be applied to different topics related to language learning, teaching and assessment.
The topics include, for example:
- Building and analysing own corpora
- Introduction to corpus statistics
- Analysing and visualising collocations
- Corpus-based methods in language testing
- Developing corpus-based materials for language teaching
- Exploring spoken English with BNClab
- Analysing the British National Corpus 2014
- Developing wordlists
- Corpus methods in analysing learner language
- Analysing online communication
The sessions will be taught by the following speakers: Dr Raffaella Bottini, Prof Vaclav Brezina, Dr Luke Collins, Dr Dana Gablasova, Prof Paul Rayson, Dr Sally Ren and Prof Elena Semino. (Please note that there may be small changes to the programme of the summer school).
This summer school takes place under the aegis of The ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS), which is the recipient of The Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education. CASS is investigating the use of language related to important social topics such as healthcare, poverty, hate crime and language learning.