Corpora are of Little Practical Value to Most ELT Practitioners Essay

Corpora are of Little Practical Value to Most ELT Practitioners - Essay Example Identifying the importance of language as an important means of communication and other language-related activities, language researchers and teachers use corpora as viable means of conducting practical classroom-centered research and meeting specific language teaching needs. Though the use of corpora in English language teaching has made a significant progress in recent times, it is assumed that corpora are of little practical importance to most ELT practitioners (Ghadessy, et al, 2001, p.208). Thus the present study is aimed to analyze the aforementioned statement with reference to corpus-based pedagogical activities. Languages evolve and develop over a period of time and they are used differently by various speakers. According to McDonough and Shaw (2003, p.4), the overall goal of the language teaching programme is mainly derived from an analysis of the reasons why a group of learners in a particular environment needs to learn English which can be stated in general, educational or specific norms. The curriculum for English Language Teaching may differ from country to country and in such circumstances, the ELT practitioner needs to develop a framework based on the language teaching, for a country, an age group, whole school, a class or an individual. It is further stated that teachers are affected directly and indirectly by various factors upon which the curriculum is prepared like the role of English in the country, school, materials, time, etc. which makes it clear that singular approach to English language teaching is not suitable in all conditions. According to Richards and Rodgers (2001, p.71 ), the quest for an alternative to grammar-based approach led to several other methods like communicative approaches as it didn’t focus on grammar as the core component of language instead focused on communication and making the classroom environment for authentic communication.