Speakers
Description
Mastering idiomatic collocations is necessary for English-major students striving towards fluency and proficiency (Sinclair, 1991; Nation, 2001; Durrant & Schmitt, 2010). The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) serves as a suitable tool in this pursuit, offering educators and students a wide array of resources for honing their language skills. Set within the dynamic environment of a Technology Fair, this presentation will demonstrate the multifaceted features of COCA and its potential in fostering idiomatic expressions. Attendees will explore six distinct methods of leveraging COCA’s vast database, ranging from pinpoint searches for phrases and strings to comprehensive text analyses. Emphasis will be placed on using COCA in activities that help generate idiomatic collocations, thereby enhancing students’ lexical repertoire. Additionally, insights will be shared on designing vocabulary activities that facilitate the cultivation of word phrases and collocations. Furthermore, this presentation will include a comparative analysis of COCA with available AI tools, specifically ChatGPT, evaluating their effectiveness and recommending optimal strategies for language instruction.
