Corpora and Language Teaching

Corpora have changed our views on language and language use and we can also expect to find them in the class-room. It is not only ‘raw’ corpora which are of interest but corpora come with user-friendly programs and software which makes them suitable for the use by learners. However it is clear that there are also problems and that we do not know enough about how learners and teachers experience the use of corpora in the classroom. When should corpora be used as part of the teaching of a language? How should they be used? What should be the proper balance between the corpus-based approach and more traditional classroom methods? Are corpora good for all kinds of students?