How Can Corpus Data Be Applied for EFL Learners and Teachers?

Corpora have been considered a source of native speakers’ language use. For this reason, they are often applied to language pedagogy under the assumption that learners can benefit from experiencing authentic language use. However, it is also true that EFL learners and teachers hesitate to use complicated and massive amounts of corpus data. Besides, the complex nature of such corpus data, another crucial reason for wavering is a lack of systematic methodology to guide learners and teachers in applying corpus data to language learning and teaching. In fact, many studies have focused on the positive potential and possibilities of corpus-based approaches in terms of how they contribute to developing learners’ awareness of how language is actually used. However, few studies have presented systematic guidelines for how corpus data can be used or analysed in EFL contexts. For this reason, the purpose of the study is to present guidelines which EFL learners and teachers adopt for their language learning and teaching from a theoretical perspective. To this end, the study first discusses pedagogically useful aspects of corpus data which represent authentic language use (language normality) in terms of ‘what to learn’. To do this, three aspects (collocation, colligation, and semantic prosody) are argued. Second the study presents specific methodologies for applying corpus data in terms of ‘how to learn’. For this, the study presents two specific examples of corpus-based methodologies which are based on guidelines for EFL contexts.