The use of concordancing programs in ELT

Abstract

Concordance programs have been used in literary and mostly religious text analysis for decades. They aim to count and define the frequency and function of a word or word groups in a given text. The aim is to give an inductive understanding of the word/structure and its use in authentic texts. Concordancers are now in computer software for the quick and reliable use for the studies. As many lexis come first advocators still exist in language teaching discipline, it is inevitable to use concordancing programs in English language Teaching. Computers are used in language teaching very frequently but they do not take much place in the teaching of lexis with regard to concordancing dimension. This study first details the use of concordancing programs in general and gives techniques that can be applied in ELT and illustrates some sample uses after describing the literature view of the use of concordance programs in ELT.