Article Review

In Jennifer Thurstun and Christopher N. Candlin’s article titled “Concordancing and the Teaching of the Vocabulary of Academic English” (1998), they describe a project in which they use concordancing programs, which are specialized corpus programs, to design teaching materials for academic English vocabulary learning for native speakers and non-native speakers. According to the authors, using concordance-based material helps students not only to become familiar with academic vocabulary, but they find it easier to guess words from context, developing writing competence. I find it effective because I think that finding any word used in academic texts and familiarizing with its context, within academic texts, is useful for developing writing competence.

For their project, Thurstun and Candlin used concordances with English learners, in which they were exposed to academic vocabulary in context, followed by practice activities, and finally using them in their own text. With this particular learning technique, learners are expected to familiarize with the vocabulary in a cumulative way, until they are capable of using it appropriately for their own purposes. An example of this occurred with the word “issue”, which appeared once every 3019 words, along with other defining words, like “environmental” or “political”, as well as prepositions, which the learners could notice, mark and learn to use if they are to write the word “issue” in their work. This grammar in context method turns the teacher into a research organizer, and lets language itself do the teaching.

This particular method seems to have advantages and disadvantages: on the negative side, it is tiring for learners to stare into a computer for too much and expecting to learn from the concordances, especially if their learning styles are not compatible with this type of exercise. However, learning with the corpus is just one part of this method because the practice activities and the production stages reinforce what the exposure to the concordances has done. Another positive aspect is that it not only works for teaching vocabulary, but also grammar, writing and reading skills at the same time. I recommend there be more studies on this particular teaching technique, and given the technology of the XXIst century, there should be more sophisticated conocordancing programs.

In conclusion, I find concordancing a useful practice for the specific purposes that the authors mention: learning academic vocabulary in English that is not focused on a particular study field, but general academic expression. I think that concordancing could be a fresh change in English classes for specific vocabulary, grammar and reading comprehension all in one practice, but not for the whole course because the same activities and too much of the virtual world can be tedious. Therefore, I recommend more research to be made about this subject, especially with the technology from the present.

Reference:

Thurstun, J. & Candlin, C. N. (1998). Concordancing and the Teaching of the Vocabulary of Academic English. English for Specific Purposes 17(3), 267-280.