Corpus-supported foreign language teaching of less commonly taught languages

Abstract

The study explores the implementation of corpora in teaching of the four courses of Croatian as a foreign language. Croatian, as a less-resourced and less commonly taught language, shares the same issues as other less resourced languages: studies about using corpus - are still missing. Student satisfaction and class engagement as well as teachers' course delivery methods (indirect and data-driven approach) were analysed in four groups of participants: two groups of beginner level of the foreign language learning (A1) and two groups of intermediate level (B1, B2) The experiment was conceived in three phases. In phase one, four teachers of Croatian as a Foreign Language (CFL) held an experimental lesson in their course groups. In phase two, the students were asked to complete a survey to examine degree of satisfaction with corpus-based approach in teaching CFL. In phase three, in-depth interviews were conducted with all teachers to examine their perceptions about the role of corpora in teaching, as well as their expectations regarding corpus-assisted language teaching. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that degree of students' satisfaction with experimental classes prepared using corpus was mostly positive. Experiment revealed that approach to language teaching depends largely on perception of teachers about integration and use of corpora in teaching. Corpora can be used directly in class of absolute beginners.