Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language Teaching

This article explores how the Web can serve as a resource for teaching modality in English to prospective teachers of ESL, EFL and ESP. The first section demonstrates how texts taken from two different registers on the Web can be used to teach epistemic modality (e.g. how modal verbs such as may and...

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Main Author: Charles F. Meyer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos 2006-10-01
Series:Ibérica
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.aelfe.org/documents/02-Meyer.pdf
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author Charles F. Meyer
author_facet Charles F. Meyer
author_sort Charles F. Meyer
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description This article explores how the Web can serve as a resource for teaching modality in English to prospective teachers of ESL, EFL and ESP. The first section demonstrates how texts taken from two different registers on the Web can be used to teach epistemic modality (e.g. how modal verbs such as may and could express notions of probability and certainty). The second section explores how the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) can be searched to study deontic modality, specifically how the expressions should and might want to are used by teachers and advisors to give advice to students. The discussion demonstrates that teaching grammar is most effective when it is based on real data rather than contrived and decontextualized examples in grammar books.
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spelling doaj.art-e8b775c42a67440e9f07d4145500130b2022-12-22T03:35:39ZengAsociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines EspecíficosIbérica1139-72412006-10-0112921Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language TeachingCharles F. MeyerThis article explores how the Web can serve as a resource for teaching modality in English to prospective teachers of ESL, EFL and ESP. The first section demonstrates how texts taken from two different registers on the Web can be used to teach epistemic modality (e.g. how modal verbs such as may and could express notions of probability and certainty). The second section explores how the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) can be searched to study deontic modality, specifically how the expressions should and might want to are used by teachers and advisors to give advice to students. The discussion demonstrates that teaching grammar is most effective when it is based on real data rather than contrived and decontextualized examples in grammar books.http://www.aelfe.org/documents/02-Meyer.pdfcorpus linguisticsthe World Wide Webdata-driven learningmodality
spellingShingle Charles F. Meyer
Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language Teaching
Ibérica
corpus linguistics
the World Wide Web
data-driven learning
modality
title Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language Teaching
title_full Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language Teaching
title_fullStr Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language Teaching
title_full_unstemmed Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language Teaching
title_short Corpus Linguistics, the World Wide Web, and English Language Teaching
title_sort corpus linguistics the world wide web and english language teaching
topic corpus linguistics
the World Wide Web
data-driven learning
modality
url http://www.aelfe.org/documents/02-Meyer.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT charlesfmeyer corpuslinguisticstheworldwidewebandenglishlanguageteaching