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5
Nota sugli Autori 7
Enrica Rossi 11
I CLA per una moderna glottodidattica: nuovi approcci, strategie
innovative e best practice
Elisa Bricco, Anna Giaufret, Laura Sanfelici, Simone Torsani 17
Le tecnologie come motore di innovazione e sinergia con il territorio
Cesare Zanca 35
Language Centres, Online Authentic Materials and Learners’ Needs:
Improving Autonomy and Discovery in Language Learning
Alice Edna Spencer 57
Using Drama in ESP: The Interdepartmental Language Centre
as a Learning Community
Elisabeth Ruth Long, Franca Poppi, Sara Radighieri 67
English as a Lingua Franca in the Academic Context: The Role
of University Language Centres
Linguæ &
Rivista di lingue e culture moderne
1
2019
Il ruolo e le sfide dei Centri Linguistici universitari – Parte prima
a cura di Enrica Rossi
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6
Questo fascicolo di Linguæ & è finanziato con fondi del Centro Linguistico d’Ateneo
dell’Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo.
In base alla classificazione dell’ANVUR, Linguæ & è collocata
nella classe A per tutti i settori dell’Area 10.
Irene Bonatti 83
Éveil aux langues per alunni della scuola primaria: il progetto
Musiche dal mondo del CLA-UniTO
Relazioni e Recensioni 101
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35
Cesare Zanca
Università degli Studi di Siena
Language Centres, Online Authentic
Materials and Learners’ Needs:
Improving Autonomy and Discovery
in Language Learning
doi: https:doi.org/10.7358/ling-2019-001-zanc cesare.zanca@unisi.it
1. introduction: online learning, self-access centres
and online resources
Most language centres in Europe are now implementing or at least consider-
ing the implementation of courses, activities or websites that imply or recom-
mend an autonomous use by the learner of authentic online materials in the
foreign language. Similarly, the use of online resources, Google and corpora
for language learning has been supported by many scholars and is at the core
of several approaches. Milton 2006, for instance, encourages the use of Google
searches by learners to check and refine their writing. Choi 2017 describes
how e-resources can be integrated in a traditional self-access centre and Choi
et al. 2018 describe examples of Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) of vocabulary.
Other similar studies explore a Google-Assisted Language Learning (GALL)
approach (Chinnery 2008). They investigate the advantages and possible
pitfalls of the use of Google in searching for foreign language related infor-
mation. Similarly, large collections of texts – both online and on personal
computers – have been considered by the Corpus Based Learning (McEnery
1990, 370) and the Data Driven Learning (DDL) approaches (Johns 1991;
1994) to be invaluable resources in order to explore the usage and the contex-
tual features of language items: teachers and learners observe concordances
and statistical information so as to explore authentic texts and analyse lexi-
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Cesare Zanca
cal features. Other studies consider the use of online resources and corpora
together (Conroy 2010; Shei 2008a, 2008b; Zanca 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018).
One common feature of these studies – one that this study considers
to be of paramount importance in the process involving an effective use
of authentic materials by learners both in self-access centres and online
courses– is that the learner is seen as an explorer, “a research worker whose
learning needs to be driven by access to linguistic data” (McEnery et al.
1990, 370). Nevertheless, a direct, unfiltered and autonomous exploration
and use of online materials might turn out to be to be extremely challenging,
even for advanced learners. The acquisition of autonomy and the ability to
explore require a certain amount of confidence and expertise in the tools of
the trade. Dealing with corpora, for instance, involves the ability to choose
the right corpus, formulate an effective query, read and interpret concord-
ance lines, frequency lists, collocation lists and so on. As argued in previous
studies (Zanca 2013; 2014), the ‘technicalities’ of corpus investigations are
probably the main reason why DDL activities and corpus-based learning is
still far from familiar to the vast majority of language teachers and learners
in schools and universities. When using Google or online tools, the learner’s
task may well appear more informal and straightforward as we all use Google,
online dictionaries, Google Translate or similar resources. However, when
applied to language learning even this kind of resource might be employed
in partial or inappropriate ways. Conroy, for instance, describes a research
project in which corpora and online resources were employed with Australian
EAL (English as an Additional Language) university students. He found that:
students typically used crude and often inappropriate search strategies. Many
students were, for example, unaware that they could use quotation marks to
focus their search onto specific and uninterrupted word sequences (e.g. a verb
and an associated preposition). Also, during training it was observed that several
students were often unable to search with sufficient critical skills to detect non-
native texts and the non-standard usage often contained therein. […] Thus, con-
trary to what is commonly believed, young university students, many from cul-
tures with a strong uptake of computer technology, do not appear to be skilled in
using the Internet to do anything more than content searches. (Conroy 2010, 879)
These remarks fully correspond to my personal experience with university
students: they are increasingly sophisticated in their use of online resources,
but when it comes to making the most of them for language learning purposes,
they need some guidance and training. Conroy concludes by arguing that:
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Improving Autonomy and Discovery in Language Learning
Internet-based corpus techniques offer a relatively new and under-used method
for EAL university students to independently enhance their academic literacy
and English language proficiency. At the moment however, this type of training
appears to be either limited or unavailable in many Australian universities, who
appear to have largely ignored these technologies. (Conroy 2010, 880)
A similar lack of training and awareness is likely to be experienced in most
language centres in Europe affecting both learners and teachers, tutors or
self-access advisers. An ‘intelligent’ use of Google search strategies, of other
online tools and of corpora can be, as clarified in the next sections, a very
helpful resource for the language learning process, but it is often disregarded
and requires some methodological consideration and training.
1.1. The specific role of corpora and GALL in language learning:
reducing the priming gap
One of the most relevant theoretical background studies into the opportunity
of introducing corpora in language teaching courses in classroom – and, by
extension, in online or blended courses and self-access centres – is Michael
Hoey’s idea of Lexical Priming, defined as:
the process whereby “[a]s a word is acquired through encounters with it in
speech and writing, it becomes cumulatively loaded with the contexts and co-
texts in which it is encountered, and our knowledge of it includes the fact that it
co-occurs with certain other words in certain kinds of context”. (2005, 8)
On the basis of theoretical assumptions shared by most corpus linguistics
scholars (e.g. Sinclair 1991; Partington 1998), Hoey argues that an important
aspect of language learning relates to: (a) the tendency of words to link with
other lexical items to create patterns and (b) to the distinctive use of lexi-
cal items in specific contexts, which might significantly modify their meaning
and interpretation. Combinations of words like hard rain, die hard, squeezed
hard, hard to believe, hard luck, or a whole clause like the time has come
create patterns (Hoey 2009, 1). The words in a pattern might be grammati-
cally and lexically separated, but when it comes to the use of language, they
can be considered as a single unit. This is evident for idiomatic expressions
and proverbs like “When the going gets tough” (Zanca 2017, 117) or in Italian
“Hai voluto la bicicletta, adesso pedala” (“You made your bed, now lie in it”,
Zanca 2014): when we hear the first part of the pattern we can predict the
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words to come. Another common example are multi word expressions and
the tendency to create acronyms like IDK (I Don’t Know) used informally
(e.g. in online chats) but also in more formal text types 1. As for context,
native speakers of English subconsciously know that a phrase like Kieren
Perkins of Australia (Zanettin 2001, 212) probably comes from the sports
section of a newspaper, where of + nationality patterns are more frequent
than in other textual contexts. According to Hoey, a native speaker’s fluency
derives precisely from a lifelong subconscious process of noticing grammar
and lexical features but also contextual features and lexical patterns:
Noticing all these things is what makes it possible for a speaker to use the right
phrase in the right context at the right time […] This is how native speakers are
able to be fluent and because the things they say are subconsciously influenced
by what everyone has previously said to them, it also explains why they almost
always sound natural. (Hoey 2009, 1)
Accordingly, many of the linguistic limitations of non-native speakers derive,
primarily, from their limited exposure and insufficient priming in the uses of
the foreign language in context and, secondly, from the interference of their
first language priming (ibid.). This dimension of linguistic performance goes
beyond the ability to convey a message and ensure mutual comprehension as
emphasized by the traditional communicative approach to language learning.
The stress is on acquiring fluency, phraseology and on cultural, pragmatic
and discourse appropriacy. A great deal of what non-native speakers say or
write is not grammatically, semantically or lexically wrong, but simply ‘doesn’t
sound right’. For instance, Italian learners of English, prompted by their first
language priming, might opt for Can you make me a favour? which is gram-
matically feasible and is perfectly understandable, but is not used and some-
thing ‘you do not say’ because a native speaker’s priming suggests alternative
patterns (such as could you do me a favour?). In order to enhance fluency and
reduce the ‘priming gap’ Hoey suggests that teachers should help learners
acquire the means to (1) explore authentic texts and (2) focus their attention
on the linguistic context and patterns because
1
It appears, for instance, in an article published in the Art and Design section of The
Guardian: “So Frieze is like, definitely a Thing™ isn’t it? Some ppl hate it, some ppl live
for it (idk anyone that actually lives for it, but if it’s still goin, they must be out there...)”,
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/05/the-five-best-and-worst-things-
at-frieze-2018-according-to-the-white-pube.
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Improving Autonomy and Discovery in Language Learning
Native speakers have acquired a large corpus of examples of the words of
English in their typical contexts, and from this they learn how the words are
used. […] learners need to be exposed to as much authentic material as possible
and teachers need to find ways of accelerating the priming processes by drawing
attention to the patterns of use that a text (or conversation) reveals. (ibid.)
Learners do not possess an extensive internal corpus of patterns in context,
therefore they should be guided in the use of external resources and data-
bases – such as online resources and corpora – to try and compensate for their
‘priming gap’. How can this be done? The following section suggests some
practical ideas.
2. discovery activities and autonomous ‘intelligent’ use
of online resources
As mentioned above, Hoey and Conroy suggest that, in the definition of
linguistic educational goals, university advisors and teachers should help
learners use online resources and corpora, authentic materials and language
discovery strategies to improve their foreign language skills. Unfortunately,
most teachers are still not aware of such studies or trained in this field. The
approaches outlined in section 1 of this study are not well known and school
courses are usually based on a traditional, fixed syllabus that leaves little room
for creativity. In this respect, language centres could play an important and
pioneering role: online tutors and language/self-access centres are usually
more flexible and could easily devise activities based on language discovery,
suggest methodologies, offer lists of sites, training and information with an
aim to foster language exploration and awareness.
A detailed guide to all possible procedures, activities and materials in
this field is beyond the scope of this paper but the following sections outline
a series of resources – both simple and more complex – I have experimented
in my university courses, and of some practical examples derived from my
students’ writing and translation activities. The suggestion is that corpus lin-
guistics tools and methodology and frequently used online resources can be
integrated and included in language courses.
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Cesare Zanca
2.1. Google and search engines
We may feel that we do not need to tell our students how to use Google, but,
as mentioned above, this is often not the case: many learners do not know
how to use more advanced Google searches or how to select some areas from
its endless database of materials. The following are some suggestions from my
courses (see also Zanca 2018).
2.1.1. Search Engines and spelling or syntax mistakes
A common yet simple way to search Google for reliable and quick answers
is to check the spelling of words, or the structure of some fixed phrases like
phrasal verbs. If we type mispelt* in Google rather than misspelt, we imme-
diately get links to grammar pages indicating a possible mistake. A similar
outcome follows a search for rather then*, pronounciation*, look this car* and
the like. If learners still have doubts about the reliability or quality of Google’s
suggestions, they should employ an online checking routine, as described
later in this paper.
2.1.2. Google advanced searches
Better and more reliable results are obtained by using more advanced Google
searches. Not all users know, for instance, that if we enclose our search string
in quotation marks, Google tends (in my experience it does not always work
properly) to display exact matches for the string. If we type I took up it, for
instance, we get a series of results relating to the individual words, but if
we type “I took up it” in quotation marks, the results will signal that it is
a common mistake made by learners of English. The asterisk in a string in
quotation marks stands for ‘any word or phrase in that position’. So if we
type “I’m looking * to” we’ll find that the most frequent word used in that
position is forward; if we find a headline like Panetta’s Mission: Can He Cut
the Pentagon? 2 and want to discover the meaning of the second clause we
can type “Can he cut the *” in Google to understand that it is an idiomatic
expression and that the following word is usually mustard. We can also use
2
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ext/2011/04/28/9376/panettas-mission-
can-he-cut-the-pentagon/.
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Improving Autonomy and Discovery in Language Learning
other search operators like OR to search for X or Y or both (“can OR cannot
cut the”), – or + to exclude or necessarily include the following word (“cut
the + mustard” or “cut the – mustard”) and round brackets to group multiple
terms or search operators. A full list of operators and advanced search tips is
available at https://www.google.com/advanced_search.
Another useful feature of search engines is that they usually work by
considering the most likely relations among the searched for items in a query.
In a sense, they consider the possibility that they might be part of a pattern in
a particular context and show different results if we search for a word on its
own or together with other words from different contexts. The example of cut
the together with mustard illustrates this circumstance, but learners could also
try searching for the word badger on its own and then for badger him, badger
vehicle and badger Wisconsin to see how the relational system works. Finally,
by adding the terms definition, synonyms or traduzione to a fairly obscure
word such as ashen, learners can obtain more relevant information about its
meaning, synonyms and translation in Italian and fewer results concerning a
popular video game: adding contextual elements to our search is definitely
useful to explore language in context.
2.1.3. Limiting the research field in Google
The advanced use of Google queries outlined above is discussed in more
detail by many scholars (see for instance Chinnery 2008; Conroy 2010; Eu
2017; Geiller 2014; Sha 2010; Wu et al. 2009), but search engines can also be
used in a more reliable and more corpus-like way by limiting the search field
to some of its sections. This can sometimes be necessary, because one of the
main differences between a linguistic corpus and Google’s database is that
we do not know anything about the latter’s extension or the kind of texts it
uses: this means that we cannot always trust the reliability of the results, as
they may be written by non-native speakers or inaccurately. Our learners can
obtain far more reliable information by confining their searches to smaller and
more dependable sections, such as Google Scholar, Google News or Google
Books 3. If we search for the string “I’m looking * to” in one of these sections,
the number of results will be far smaller, but much more accurate and we will
find valid linguistic observations like, for instance, that the expression is com-
3
https://scholar.google.com; https://news.google.com; https://books.google.com.
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monly followed by a present participle, a noun or a pronoun. By exploring the
idiom made your bed “now * in it” (Zanca 2014) in Google News, the learner
can explore its variations in authentic texts and find that sometimes instead
of lie we can find other options such as sleep, you can lie and you have to lie.
Sometimes it may be useful to limit the search to a defined period of time.
Zanca 2014, for instance describes how a student who thought the expres-
sion you made your bed, now lie in it might be obsolete and outdated, was
prompted to reconsider by searching the previous three months of Google
News texts and finding hundreds of occurrences of the idiom or its variants.
A further useful way to control Google searches and explore more
appropriate contexts can be obtained by employing the site: operator. For
instance, learners might try and see the different results they get by typing
thongs site:.uk or thongs site:.au.
2.1.4. Google images
Surprisingly, many of the students in my courses – including teachers in train-
ing courses – are not aware of the fact that Google images can be a very
effective and often amusing way to explore language. The aforementioned
search for thongs site:.uk or thongs site:.au is much more effective using
Google Images. Some clearly culture-bound expressions, like playing conk-
ers, Shepherd’s Pie or Toad in the hole 4, are much easier to understand if
learners can see what they look like and images are excellent ways to add
context to the lexical priming process. Also the consequences of some syn-
tactic and lexical choices can become ‘visible’: if our learners do not know
whether they should write “phone card” or “card phone” or think that a
“high window” and a “tall window” are the same thing. the difference will
immediately become clear when consulting Google Images.
2.1.5. Wikipedia and other encyclopaedic or specific sites
Linguistic exploration may also require encyclopaedic information or the con-
sultation of sites dedicated to the linguistic items we are dealing with. Asked
4
These and other examples mentioned in the study are not invented, but emerged
during classroom activities.
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to translate into Italian the expression “Simon Stevens, the NHS England
chief executive, told the Public Accounts Committee on Monday…” 5 one of
my students realized he lacked some information about the British cultural
context: in Hoey’s terms, his priming was not as accurate as that of an aver-
age British native newspaper reader. He had to find information about the
NHS (using Wikipedia and the NHS site), Simon Stevens (Wikipedia) and
the Public Accounts Committee (Wikipedia and PAC site), in order to com-
pensate for his priming gap.
2.1.6. Blogs, online forums and interactive apps
A number of students have informed me that they use interactive blogs and
online forums to ask native speakers and translators about the interpretation
and translation of textual elements, as in the case of the previously mentioned
proverb “you made your bed, now lie in it” 6. Some apps, like hinative 7, might
also be worth considering for future consultation.
2.1.7. Dictionaries, glossaries, Google translate and online parallel
translation corpora
As mentioned above, online dictionaries are fundamental resources for
learners. Unlike traditional paper-based dictionaries, they allow for complex
searches, including multi-word unit queries, links to translations, synonyms,
encyclo pae dic information, images, sounds and sometimes even concord-
ances and colloca tions 8. Online translators, such as Google translate are very
popular, and can be considered as important and serious commercial projects
which can prove to be very useful, when we have no idea about the meaning of
a term or a text in a foreign language. However, if we try and insert Toad in the
hole, playing conkers or Faculty of Public Health Medicine into Google trans-
late, we get, at least in Italian, literal and highly unsatisfactory translations.
5
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/11/nhs-england-chief-executive-
simon-stevens-funding-theresa-may-public-accounts-committee.
6
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/hai-voluto-la-bicicletta-e-allora-
pedala.714846/?hl=it.
7
https://hinative.com.
8
See for instance http://nav4.stringnet.org/.
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Cesare Zanca
Reverso Context 9, Linguee 10 and other online resources based on parallel
translation corpora allow for similar considerations: students often use them
without realising that some of the translations, may be inaccurate and might
lead to inappropriate choices. Automatic translators and web based transla-
tion corpora are not always reliable or offer solutions that are appropriate to
the learners’ needs and need to be thoroughly verified (see section 4).
2.1.8. Other online resources
Innovative online resources appear every day. Learners engaged in specific
tasks may garner useful information from online Thesauri, like the Visual the-
saurus 11, terminological data-banks 12 and glossaries 13, grammar websites 14,
phraseological tools 15, text analysis tools like The Compleat Lexical tutor 16,
sites that bring together many different tools such as The Language Toolbox 17
and many others. We cannot predict what kind of online resources will be
available in the future, but all of them, if our goal is an ‘intelligent’ use of the
internet, require a certain amount of training.
3. from gall and online resources to corpora
Although specific training is needed, the tools, websites and resources out-
lined above are fairly simple to use and in many cases they allow for an effec-
tive exploration of linguistic items in context and reliable solutions to the
learners’ needs. As mentioned above, they can help reduce the priming gap
by exploring and observing lexical patterns, images and other paralinguistic
9
http://context.reverso.net.
10 https://www.linguee.com/.
11 https://www.visualthesaurus.com.
12 E.g. http://iate.europa.eu.
13 E.g. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/nomenclatures/index.cfm.
14 E.g. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/home.htm.
15 https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/; https://www.wordandphrase.info/academic/x.
asp.
16 https://www.lextutor.ca/.
17 http://itools.com/language.
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features, variation in time, places and culture, and provide valid explanations.
Why, therefore, should language learners turn to more technical, unfamiliar
and professional tools such as corpora?
Corpora, both online and stored on personal devices, are collections
of searchable texts that have been selected according to defined criteria.
This latter feature makes them usually more reliable in terms of the quality
of the linguistic information they can offer as compared with other online
resources 18. They have been considered for many years a potentially extraor-
dinary resource for language learning and teaching, but, as reported by many
studies (e.g. Boulton 2010; Meunier 2011; Römer 2008), teachers and learners
are still far from familiar with them, probably because some of their more
technical features – such as frequency lists, keyness value, collocation lists
and concordances – are considered too challenging for non-specialist users.
Nevertheless, this paper outlines three main reasons why online corpora can
and should be used.
The first is that many corpora are now easily available online and their
use is, at least for basic queries, not significantly different from the tools out-
lined previously. In my teaching experience, learners are now less intimidated
by the more technical aspects of corpora mainly because they are used to
searching the web, but also because the idea of tags (e.g. for online images)
and the relevance of statistics and quantities (e.g. because of the number of
likes or followers in social networks) are more familiar than before (see also
Zanca 2017).
The second pertains to the previously mentioned risk that many online
resources might be linguistically inaccurate and misleading: linguistic features
need to be evaluated and considered in a specific context and corpora can
provide information about the kind of texts and contexts used (see the ‘check
online procedure’ suggested next).
The third is that the investigation of corpora allows for queries and
explorations that are impossible with other online tools. For instance, by using
a specific software like AntConc (Anthony 2019), dedicated websites like
Mark Davies’ corpora at Brigham Young University 19 or the Sketch Engine
for Language Learning 20 sites, learners can (a) use the asterisk operators to
18 Such as search engines or unmonitored corpus based resources. See also Zanettin
2012, 13 for considerations in terms of reliability among different types of corpora.
19 https://corpus.byu.edu/.
20 http://skell.sketchengine.co.uk/run.cgi/skell.
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replace initial or final characters of a word (e.g. type divers* and get results
including diverse, diversity and diversities); (b) restrict the query through
part-of-speech tags (e.g. search any adjective followed by eyes or any adverb
preceding unsatisfactory – as I did to choose, a few lines above, between
extremely and highly unsatisfactory 21 –); (c) compare or search different
sections or different corpora (e.g. compare English and American English);
(d)read and sort the concordance lines to observe specific patterns (e.g. by
sorting the expression can’t cut to the right we can reveal that can’t cut it can
be used as an alternative to can’t cut the mustard); (e) query words only when
they co-occur in a span of X words (e.g. cut only when used with mustard),
(f) generate collocation lists (e.g. the collocates of dog’s day); (g)for more
expert users generate wordlists or cluster lists of different corpora and com-
pare them to reveal diverse linguistic patterns 22. If some of these functions,
and others not mentioned here, are probably still perceived as too technical
and challenging, others, like the use of wildcards, the use of part-of-speech
tags and collocations or concordance lists need little training and learners
soon realize that by using corpora they can observe, explore and produce
results that are often better tailored to their specific needs.
Summing up, corpora should be introduced in learning processes
because they are now easily available online, in much the same way as other
more familiar resources. They offer types of queries that are not available
with other resources and their putative technical complexity is mitigated by
online support web pages and the learners’ increased familiarity with online
searches. The use of corpora allows for more detailed exploration of linguistic
patterns and contexts and this appears particularly relevant when discuss-
ing the need for autonomous access to authentic online materials by learners
in blended/online courses and self-access language centres. In such circum-
stances, students are often working on their own and it is virtually impossible
to foresee the contexts of use and language problems they are going to come
across.
It must be said that in traditional DDL or corpus based learning studies,
corpora are usually considered the only tool for exploration and other online
resources are ignored or criticized. This may well be rather limiting as the dif-
21 The query string _r* unsatisfactory was used in the NOW corpus site: https://
corpus.byu.edu/now/.
22 For a more detailed guide see: https://corpus.byu.edu/queries.asp and https://
www.sketchengine.eu/quick-start-guide/.
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ferent online tools can be used in combination to achieve different purposes:
learners may well find instant, more accessible and useful information by
using Google images, Wikipedia, Reverso Context or other online resources,
as in the example presented in section 2 above and these findings can be
profitably used as a starting point for corpus queries.
4. a guide to an autonomous exploration of language
in context: the ‘check online routine’
As suggested in previous studies (Zanca 2014; 2017), meaningful linguistic
explorations of words and patterns using online tools and corpora can be
introduced by asking our students to engage in traditional activities, such
as reading comprehension, writing or translation tasks. Generally speaking
asynchronous activities of this kind are particularly appropriate because they
are normally focused on accuracy rather than on more general communicative
outcomes and allow time to go online, to explore contextual features and to
consider alternative linguistic options. Nevertheless, as mentioned previously,
some of the outcomes of these explorations using online resources are likely
to be inaccurate and/or misleading, so ‘explorers’ should learn how to verify
their accuracy and check if the context of use is appropriate or not. The fol-
lowing simple verification procedure could be adopted (see Zanca 2013, 328):
a) Define linguistic problem / research question (e.g. translate agency work 23
in Italian.
b) Use online resources to obtain possible solutions (e.g. lavoro di agenzia in
google translate).
c) Check solutions in context by observing them in relevant corpora or reli-
able online resources (e.g. comparing agency work and lavoro di agenzia in
English and Italian newspaper articles using Google News or online cor-
pora 24: the latter expression is almost never used in Italian newspapers).
23 From a text used for a translation activity: “I’ve been a chef for eight years and
have had to walk out of two jobs. My last workplace, before I switched to agency work,
was a bar, restaurant and club”, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/18/
manager-selling-coke-staff-restaurants-tips-pay-chefs.
24 For instance using the BYU NOW corpus and the La repubblica online corpus, https://
www.english-corpora.org/now/; https://corpora.dipintra.it/public/run.cgi/first_form.
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d) Possible emergence of alternative solutions (e.g. agency work collocates
with and is often preceded by temporary, so a possible translation could
be lavoro temporaneo or lavoro interinale).
e) Check these new solutions going back to point b of the routine (in the
Italian corpus and Google news interinale is frequently used in similar
contexts).
This routine fosters the exploration of language in context and brings
to the fore different possible usages of words. For example, by browsing
through the list of collocates and concordances of agency work our learners
can observe a different use of the expression when preceded by nouns such
as estate or environmental.
A more detailed example of an exploration activity, the translation of
the headline of a newspaper article, might clarify how this routine can be
applied and lead to an effective, autonomous and unconstrained exploration
of online resources. The headline is: “I’ll happily take the credit for a dog day
afternoon” 25. The subhead outlines the main theme of the article: “A few
weeks ago I took my dog to the dog beach. The public beaches in Southern
California are beautiful, but they are also highly-regulated…”, however the
interpretation and translation of the second part of the headline still creates
some problems. When I asked my students 26 to translate it, some initially
opted for the solution ‘un pomeriggio a spasso con il cane’ (An afternoon
spent walking my dog). But this did not match the first part of the headline,
why should one “happily take the credit” for something as ordinary as walking
one’s dog? The first part of the sentence seems to imply a negative, contrast-
ing ensuing statement. Of course they all knew the meaning of the individual
words (I, happily, take, credit, dog, day, afternoon), the real meaning had to
depend on their combination in a pattern which matched the priming of native
speakers, but not that of learners. The course explicitly asks the students to
use online resources to accomplish the writing or translation tasks and the first
resources normally used are online dictionaries. Learners can easily find pren-
dersi il merito as a credible equivalent for take the credit, but when they look
for dog day the results are less straightforward. Most online dictionaries do not
provide any solutions for the two words together, others show some results,
25 https://www.thenational.ae/i-ll-happily-take-the-credit-for-a-dog-day-after-
noon-1.241348.
26 I used this text with first-year Italian Literature university students with a mixed
level of English, from B1 to B2.
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Improving Autonomy and Discovery in Language Learning
but they are not very clearly relevant to our context. The Cambridge Online
Dictionary redirects users to the expression every dog has its days, which is not
very useful in our context: “‘every dog has its day’: saying; said to emphasize
that everyone is successful or happy at some time in their life”.
The Dictionary.com site offers a more interesting solution, which to
some extent corresponds to the Italian negative expression da cani:
dog days plural noun
- the sultry part of the summer, supposed to occur during the period that Sirius,
the Dog Star, rises at the same time as the sun: now often reckoned from July3
to August 11
- a period marked by lethargy, inactivity, or indolence.
We get something similar from the Online Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Definition of dog day
1 a: dog days plural: the period between early July and early September when
the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs
1 b: a day in dog days: a hot sultry day
2 dog days plural: a period marked by dull lack of progress // the dog days fol-
lowing any major upheaval
We infer that dog days are probably something negative that could be related
to the Italian giornate da cani, but the British Online English dictionary does
not seem to acknowledge this interpretation and the learners were still doubt-
ful. And what about afternoon? In this case Google can be revealing: if we
search for a dog day, amongst the first five results we get one definition from
Wikipedia which bears a resemblance to the Dictionary.com one 27, a reference
to a TV programme, a third one which advertises dog services and two refer-
ences to a dog day afternoon (see Fig. 1).
We can even see an indication of the Italian title of the 1975 American
movie: Quel pomeriggio di un giorno da cani: the cultural connection with
the movie is presumably something native speakers are aware of and some-
thing the writer intentionally refers to. Our learners could gather even more
evidence by searching for dog day afternoon in Google images(see Fig. 2) 28.
27 Results of Google searches are different for different users and times. These results
were obtained on May 2017 and are very different at the time of writing this paper: this
usually has little impact on the efficacy of the autonomous discovery process, but should be
considered in the case of previously prepared activities.
28 The query of “dog day” in Google images offers very different results, all relating to
National Dog Days.
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Conversely, the query of just dog day offers very different results in Google
images, showing that the expression might also bring to the mind of native
speakers another context of use: National Dog Day events. It is possible that
the author of the headline intentionally played with the priming of his readers
and these two cultural suggestions in order to create a contrast between posi-
tive and negative references (see Fig. 3).
Finally, as the routine used in the course suggests the use of more reli-
able linguistic tools, the learners also searched the expression in online cor-
pora. In the Corpus of Contemporary American English 29, for instance, dog
day appears 77 times and it collocates 55 times with afternoon, 4 times with
care, 3 times with National and 3 times with August. These results suggest
that the expression creates a pattern linked with different priming dimensions
and that the association with “a hot sultry day” found in dictionaries is by no
means the predominant one. A brief analysis of the concordances confirms
the strong association of dog day with afternoon and the 1975 movie, some-
thing the learners would not have easily uncovered using traditional reference
tools (see Fig.4). By means of just a few clicks, the learners were able to access
and discover a whole new aspect of the original text suggesting that the writer
played with the reader’s cultural familiarity with the celebrated movie and
the less frequent reference to National dog days and dog care activities. By
adopting the suggested procedure and by using additional online resources
in order to verify the initial interpretation offered by dictionaries, learners
were led to new and unexpected associations. Different tools revealed dif-
ferent information and only their combined exploration allowed learners to
share some of the multifaceted priming of native speakers. Their translation
options were now very different: they could refer directly to the Italian title of
the movie with ‘Mi prendo volentieri il merito di un pomeriggio di un giorno
da cani’ or more creatively with something like: ‘Un pomeriggio o un giorno
da cani? Me ne assumo volentieri la responsabilità’. What is crucial here is
not the final translation, but the exploration, the priming process the learners
have gone through and the opportunity to experience a deeper awareness of
the foreign language.
The dog day example of language exploration is just one brief illustra-
tion of what learners can and should be encouraged to do. Other similar
activities are described in Zanca 2013, 2014 and 2017.
29 https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.
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Improving Autonomy and Discovery in Language Learning
5. conclusions
Assuming that one of the aims of contemporary self-access centres and
blended/online courses activities is to train learners to use the countless
authentic materials and resources available online in a profitable manner, this
paper argues that this should include the exploration of linguistic patterns and
contextual features. The examples and experiences described suggest that our
learners, who are today more familiar with online queries, can, in just a few
minutes, autonomously access linguistic and contextual features that might
compensate for their lower lexical priming and lack of cultural background
in the foreign language. An advanced use of online resources combined with
the use of corpora and training provided by a class teacher, or by an online
or self-access tutor, can convert the learner into a language researcher. This
study maintains that the opportunity to explore, carry out research and verify
results against authentic, reliable data, enhances the learner’s confidence in
autonomously dealing with problematic elements in the foreign language and
culture and grants her/him the ‘tools of the trade’ to independently accelerate
her/his lexical priming. The introduction of a training process in language
centres along similar methodological guidelines requires more research, but
the practical indications, examples and suggestions mentioned in this study
might become an integral part of our centres’ activities or constitute the con-
tent matter of specific training courses.
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abstract
Unlike a few decades ago, using our phones, tablets, phablets or comput-
ers, all sorts of foreign language authentic materials are now easily available
and accessible outside our language centres. Nevertheless, learners might
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Cesare Zanca
find it difficult to select what is more effective for their learning process and
be daunted by some complex features of naturally occurring language. This
paper draws on previous studies and personal teaching experience to suggest
that, in order to fully exploit these resources, language centres should aim at
helping learners increase their ability in dealing with online authentic materi-
als inside and outside the centre’s premises. In this perspective, they might
consider the introduction of a relatively new approach based on corpora and
online resources to enhance the learner’s autonomy and confidence when
dealing with online authentic and unfiltered materials in a foreign language.
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