nUmbEr FivE.......

Posting 5 : Dear students, for this week your posting 5 is about concordance. Please find 2 articles about concordance and its applications in language learning and provide the links for readers to get to the articles online. Then you need to post your summary of these two articles and add in your own personal view on what benefits concordance will give to language learning and language teachers. Have fun and dont forget to read Mr Afendi's and my lecture notes on concordance that I've prepared last semester.

First article
Using concordance programs in the modern Foreign Languages calassroom
By : Marie Moelle Lamy, Open University, Uk
Hans Jorgen Klarskov Mortensen, Vordig Vordingborg Gymnasium,Denmark.
Graham Davies, Thames Valley University, UK

This article is actually a module and it includes the aims, authors of this modul and the introduction of concordance. The modul starts with, what are concordancers and how can they help language teacher. Second, concordance software and corpora. Third, how does the use of concordance fit in with language teaching methodologies. Fourth, some practical illustrations. Fifth, preparing yourself and your students for working with concordancers. Last but not least, the future of concordancing in the classroom. This article tell us about the uses of concordancing for language teachers through some practical illustrations. Besides that, the teacher also can use a concodancer to find examples of vocabulary, typical collocations, a point of grammar or even the structure of a text. On the other hand, students can work out rules of grammar or usage and lexical features for themselves by searching for keywords in context.

For more information, click the link below :
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod2-4.htm#_Toc481294171


Second article
Building and Using Your Own Carpus and Concordance
By : Watson Todd

This article shown how both teachers and student can build and use their own corpora and concordances. Futhermore, using the approaches suggested in this article allows teachers and student outside to gain the benefits of using corpora and concordancing in learning and provides bountiful opportunities for students to discover the patterns of english. Besides that, this article explain more about the concordance and there are a lot of examples.

For more information, click the link below :
http://arts.kmutt.ac.th/call/doc/BuildingandUsingYourOwnCorpusandConcordance.pdf


My own personal view on what benefits concordance will give to language learning and language teachers are……..

Concordance programs are very useful to language lerning and language teachers. There are a lot of benefits that we can gain from concordance. First, the teacher can use a concordancer to find examples of authentic usage to demonstrate features of vocabulary, typical collocations, a point of grammar or even the structure of a text. Second, the teacher can generate exercises based on examples drawn from a variety of corpora, for example gap-filling exercises and tests. Besides that, students can work out rules of grammar or usage and lexical features for themselves by searching for key words in context and its depend on their level, they can be invited to question some of the rules, based on their observation of patterns in authentic language. On the other hand, students can be more active in their vocabulary learning. And its depend on their level, they can be invited to discover new meanings, to observe habitual collocations, to relate words to syntax, or to be critical of dictionary entries.

I think, that all for number five.....tQ