University Library News
Georgia State University

Using Corpora with ESL Students: Writing Studio Session Tuesday October 9th

Using Corpora with ESL Students, Taught by Dr. Eric Friginal, 12 pm, Tuesday, October 9th, Troy Moore Library–9th Floor General Classroom Building

What is corpus linguistics and how can corpora and corpus-based approaches be used by Writing Studio tutors? This presentation introduces corpus tools (e.g., concordancers, online taggers and parsers) and online resources in developing teaching and assessment materials that aid instruction in the Writing Studio. Sample activities, recent textbooks on corpora and pedagogy, and available freeware will be provided and discussed. Recent library resources on Corpora Linguistics include: Corpus linguistics: method theory and practice; Data and evidence in linguistics: a plausible argumentation model; and New trends in corpora and language learning. Other resources for researchers are Applied Linguistics databases such as Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts and Linguistics Abstracts Online . Dr. Friginal is the author of The Language of outsourced call centers: a corpus-based study of cross-cultural interaction.

Eric Friginal received his PhD in applied linguistics from Northern Arizona University (NAU) in 2008. He specializes in applied corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, cross-cultural communication, distance learning, discipline-specific writing, bilingual education, and the analysis of spoken professional discourse. Prior to joining the GSU faculty, he was a lecturer in the Literacy, Technology, and Professional Writing area of the English Department at NAU and an instructor at the NAU School of Forestry where he taught on-campus and online courses in technical and professional writing, professional editing, and rhetoric and writing in professional communities. He has also taught ESL/EFL classes and conducted training courses in business English in the Philippines, China, and India.