Some Lessons Students Learn: Self-discovery and Corpora

Abstract

As a spin-off to the process of compilation of the Spanish component of the The Louvain International Database of Spoken Language Interlanguage (LINDSEI) corpus, advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at the University of Murcia have been given the chance to explore their own speaking output through a corpus-aided methodology. This paper presents a glimpse of the materials which have guided our students through the process of self-discovery of their own spoken discourse. Similarly, special attention is devoted to the learning principles underlying our form-focused approach whose target is students of English in their third and final year.Preliminary evidence in the form of face-to-face feedback about the reception of the protocol among the students who completed it suggests that form-focused attention facilitatesnoticingof often-unnoticedfeatures of learner oral discourse.