On the Use of Corpora in Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The use of corpora in teaching Japanese as a foreign language has lagged behind that of English, but in the last few years improvements in the capabilities of personal computers and the construction of large-scale corpora have been accompanied by great advances in research, and now practical applications have been undertaken. This article provides an overview of what corpora are, and confirms their significance for Japanese language research and pedagogy. Then, discussing instances of the use of corpora, it demonstrates the potentials and issues in corpora use for four areas: 1) research on vocabulary and sentence patterns useful for syllabus design; 2) research on useful collocations for learner dictionaries and other reference works; 3) research on guidelines for determining proficiency levels based on learner corpora; and 4) corpus-based tools and reference works for assisting teachers and learners.