‘What do you call the dull words?’ primary school children using corpus-based approaches to learn about language

Sealey, Alison and Thompson, Paul (2004) ‘What do you call the dull words?’ primary school children using corpus-based approaches to learn about language. English in Education, 38 (1). pp. 80-91. ISSN 0425-0494

Abstract

This article reports on a study in progress which is exploring the potential for teaching Key Stage 2 pupils about the grammar and vocabulary of English with materials based on an electronically stored corpus of texts and associated software. It includes examples of the teaching activities used and extracts of discussions between the researcher and two groups of pupils. It illustrates children beginning to explore the distinction between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ classes of words.