iWeb互联网语料库及其在英语教与学中的应用

The Internet-Based English Corpus iWeb and Its Application in Teaching and Learning English as a Second Language

语料库对外语教学有诸多益处,但其现实应用一直受到多种因素的制约。文章介绍了特别面向英语教学搭建的在线英语语料库——iWeb。除介绍其特色功能外,作者设计并展示了适用于不同水平学习者的教/学方案。文章旨在表明,以往语料库应用所面临的难题,如与语料库交互所需的技术能力、处理复杂真实文本的语言能力等,通过技术手段可找到一种解决的途径。同时,作者提出语料库的应用应强调学习者的主体性,此举有助于培养他们形成长期的自主学习习惯,最终达到较高的语言水平。

iWeb is an internet-based English corpus developed by COCA’s author. It is developed based on COCA but has made several important modifications to facilitate language learning. In this article,we propose i Web as a solution to maximally reap the benefit of language corpora in English learning and teaching.In this article,we first review the state of art of corpus application in English language teaching in China. Although language corpus is a familiar concept for English scholars and teachers here,its actual pedagogical applications are quite limited in EFL classes. Similar to corpus use in the wider ESL context,major hindrances include the difficulty in processing authentic data and in creating contentappropriate language corpora. We propose that these difficulties can be tackled by technical means and pedagogical creativity—by combining language corpora with more powerful functionalities and task-based language teaching. The goal of this article is thus to showcase i Web and pedagogical tasks developed around it as a possible solution.To better illustrate how i Web could be used in different teaching contexts and levels,we first introduce the functionalities of i Web,giving special attention to its new features such as Word, Virtual Corpora, and Browse. These new features allow users to conveniently tap into the i Web’s language data with more flexibility in interacting with the corpus. Among these features,Word is a dictionary-like page that integrates a wide rage of information of a given word, such as its definition,synonyms,pronunciation,relevant images,occurrences in film clips,as well as its usage information in the corpus, including clusters, collocates, related topics,related websites and concordances;Virtual Corpora is a function that allows users to create topic-focused subcorpora within i Web based on keyword searches;Browse is a wordlist generator that give users access to lists of vocabulary that meet different search criteria,including pronunciation,spelling, part of speech and frequency ranking. These functionalities integrate with one another seamlessly in i Web and it facilitates a seamless learning experience supported by searches and linked pages with organized information.Following the introduction,we share five languagelearning tasks using the aforementioned functionalities in i Web. These tasks are designed for learning spelling,vocabulary, and writing at different levels, both for general purposes and ESP. In each of these tasks,we include both the learning objectives and detailed description of the procedures,to demonstrate how tasks could be set to motivate autonomous learning with language corpora. In these tasks,we go beyond the canonical DDL methods that emphasize the role of frequency and bring in the dimension of ‘linguistic constructions’ in data-driven analysis,and we discuss how learning with language data in corpora corresponds to a usage-based view of language acquisition.To conclude, we hope that the convenience of i Web’s tools provides an incentive for the application of language corpora in teaching and learning English as a second language, but we have also pointed out that effective application of corpus requires the participation on the part of learners,which should be supported and guided by language teachers.