ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the issues involved in using corpora to inform the design of published and commercially successful English language teaching (ELT) courses. It addresses the questions of what types of corpora (including learner corpora) are needed, what aspects of the course a corpus can inform and how corpus data can be used in an ELT course. The chapter outlines the considerable benefits that a corpus, especially a spoken corpus, can offer the course writer to bridge the gap between textbook language and language outside the classroom. These benefits include information about grammatical and lexical frequency, patterns of language use and the realisation of discourse management strategies, which can contribute to more accurate descriptions and modelling of language for learners. Also addressed are various practical challenges in incorporating the findings of corpus research into materials. Examples include meeting the expectations and requirements of teachers and publishers and dealing with the apparently disjointed nature of real conversational transcripts. The reader is referred to published examples of how the benefits of corpus use can be implemented and how the challenges can be addressed in ELT course syllabus design and activities.
