CORPUS-BASED METHODS IN TEACHING ENGLISH FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES: THE CASE OF STUDENTS OF ECONOMICS

The essential purpose of our study is to show the efficiency of the corpus-based methodology applied to creating both the ready-made exercises for standard language practice and the tasks to involve students into the research process.

Considering the fact, that we teach not only highly qualified professionals, but also the future scientists and creators, we must be sure in their ability to conduct the research analysis and to use the international scientific sources to the proper extent.

The methods were applied in the group of students of Economics having a different level of English fluency. The data for study are the essays, compositions, the samples of cover letters, CVs, and recommendation letters presented in the written form as well as the audio recording of students’ speech in forms of monologues and dialogues. All materials have been collected according to the curricular programs based on “Economics” by С.St.J. Yates and the Study Guide to Economics by Belilovskaya N.A., Nikolayeva N.E. and Tolstikova I.E.

The following fundamental tasks have been set:

1) Making a set of exercises based on a respectable parallel corpus or subcorpus.

2) Teaching students how to manage a linguistic corpus.

3) Developing creative thinking by introducing the idea of a language as the united and consistent structure.

4) Determining the frequency list of significant economic terms and grammatical rules.

First, we created some additional studying materials for students, that helped them to analyze which opportunities and methods, based on the corpus approach, they may involve into their individual research work. The most efficient methods proved to be a sampling method and a statistical method.

According to the survey after the year of using the corpora of language for their individual purposes, the most students noticed the fact that they had been used to analyzing all language structures and making systematic connections among them. Afterwards, that academic group of students took part in our further research and helped to create the frequency list of the most common phonetic and grammar mistakes based on their own written and oral answers. The results of that research led to introducing of some additional rules into the curricula of the next academic groups, what correspondingly contributed to their further success in studies.

Keywords: corpus of language, corpus-based methods, parallel corpora, English for special purposes, frequency list