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INTEGRATION OF CORPUS LITERACY CONSULTATION INTO
LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION
Toshpulatova Mexriniso Kilichevna
Associated professor of Termez State University
PhD
toshplatovamehriniso@gmail.com
+998975537061
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16420002
The digital revolution has significantly influenced language education, and
one of its most notable effects is the growing use of language corpora. For years,
corpora have played an indirect role in areas such as reference publishing,
syllabus design, material development, language testing, and teacher training
(McEnery & Xiao, 2011). More recently, they’ve been used directly in
classrooms—to teach students about corpora, to show how to use them, and to
leverage them as tools for language learning (Fligelstone, 1993). Thanks to the
rise of free and accessible corpora, user-friendly concordance tools, and corpus-
informed teaching materials, corpus linguistics has shifted from a niche resource
to a central tool in language education.This shift has brought increased attention
to the integration of corpus linguistics in English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
teacher education. As a result, many teacher education programs now offer
training in
corpus literacy
—that is, the ability to use corpus tools to investigate
language and support student language development (Heather & Helt, 2012).
This skill is becoming an essential component of initial teacher education
(Chambers, 2019), offering pre-service teachers a foundational opportunity to
explore corpus-based learning (Farr, 2008).
Recognizing the pedagogical and linguistic benefits of this approach,
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) programs have begun adapting
to these advances (Callies, 2019; Frankenberg-Garcia, 2012; Heather & Helt,
2012; Leńko-Szymańska, 2014; Mukherjee, 2004; O’Keeffe & Farr, 2003). These
programs aim to not only introduce the concept of corpus use but also build
teachers’ language awareness and pedagogical competence.
However, research from various contexts shows that corpus literacy levels
remain low among pre-service teachers (Abdel Latif, 2020; Callies, 2019;
Heather & Helt, 2012; Leńko-Szymańska, 2014). For instance, Heather and Helt
(2012) developed a 15-week English grammar course in the U.S. for
undergraduate and graduate TESOL students. Surprisingly, only one of the 52
participants could define the term
corpus
, and just four had any prior experience
with corpora.
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Similarly, Callies (2019) found that 73.1% of 26 EFL teachers in Germany
had never heard of corpora before. In Germany, Breyer (2009) offered a
semester-long course to student teachers and found that working with corpora
sparked enthusiasm and enhanced their understanding of language. Likewise,
Zareva (2017), who added a corpus component to a TESOL grammar course in
the U.S., noted that the experience improved participants’ understanding of
teaching grammar with authentic language data.Despite the benefits, several
challenges have been identified. Leńko-Szymańska (2014) reported that
students struggled with using corpus tools and suggested integrating corpus
literacy across multiple courses to make the learning more practical. Zareva
(2017) also noted participants' difficulties in navigating corpus software.Abdel
Latif (2020), studying Arab EFL pupil teachers, found that although learners
appreciated corpora’s value, few used them in practice. Reasons included short
training durations, complex interfaces, and mismatches between the corpus
content and learners’ language levels. Similarly, Leńko-Szymańska (2017)
argued that a single semester is not enough for learners to develop strong
corpus skills. Ebrahimi and Faghih (2017), after incorporating an online corpus
literacy course in Iran, also recommended embedding corpus training
throughout the curriculum.
In summary, while there’s growing acknowledgment of the importance of
corpus literacy in pre-service teacher education, the level of integration is still
insufficient in many contexts (Chambers, 2019). This is particularly true in
Turkey, where although research on corpus linguistics is increasing (Aşık, 2017;
Çalışkan & Kuru Gönen, 2018; Girgin, 2019; Özbay, 2017), dedicated corpus
literacy courses in TEFL programs remain rare. One exception is Özbay (2017),
who introduced a course focusing more on linguistic research than language
teaching in an English Language and Literature Department. There is a clear and
pressing need for system. This study examined student teachers’ level of corpus
literacy before taking a dedicated corpus literacy course, and then explored their
reflections on this newly added component during and after a semester of
instruction. The findings clearly indicate that most of the prospective teachers
had little to no prior knowledge of corpora before the course. As highlighted by
participant P19, many students struggled with the technical aspects and content
of the course, reflecting their unfamiliarity with corpusatic, practical integration
of corpus literacy into teacher education programs.
References:
1.Abdel Latif, M. (2021). Corpus literacy instruction in language teacher
education: Investigating Arab EFL student teachers’ immediate beliefs and long-
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International scientific-online conference
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term
practices.
ReCALL,
33(1),
34-48.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958344020000129
2. Aşık, A. (2017). A sample implementation of corpus integration through
coursebook evaluation: Implications for language teacher education. Journal of
Language
and
Linguistic
Studies,
13(2),
728-740.
https://www.jlls.org/index.php/jlls/article/view/781/340
