CONCORDANCE

WHAT IS CONCORDANCE
Concordance is a tool that can examine a text for pattern and occurrences of particular words or phrases. The database of occurrences are analysed and taken from a variety of sources including written and spoken collection such as from newspapers, journals, radio and television. It could also be from people's conversation on the street. The suggested website which could be used as resources are:
# British National Corpus
# BYU Interface  
# Academic Word Lists


FACTORS TO CONSIDER
# Age of learners - Thirteen and above
# Level of learners - All level of students (lower, intermediate and advanced) because I believe that all level of students would need to write an essay.

HOW TO USE CONCORDANCE 
Simply type the word that you want to search in the box provided. For example, you search the word 'cheeky'. Then, the lists of words that can go together with 'cheeky' will appear with the examples as well. Below is the example of searching the word 'cheeky' by using 'BYU Interface':

By looking at the example of the sentences, you would be able to understand the context in which the word is suitable to use.


HOW TO USE IN THE CLASSROOM
Few examples are:

1. Writing - students could use this tool to edit and check their grammar, collocation and and meaning of the words in the essay.
2. Could be used for pre-listening or pre-reading activity. The teacher could use this tool to introduce the set of vocabulary which might be difficult for the students to understand.
3.  Learning grammar - when students learn a new part of speech (e.g. adjective), students can have a look the example of sentences in this tool and from the examples, they can try to workout the rules.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS TOOL

1. It is free!
2. Could motivate the students to learn English
3. Provides better preparation for the students to face the written or spoken English language 
4. Authenticity in the learning context - students are given the example from the real conversation/sentence.
5. Learning become more effective - learners are introduced to the words in context. 
6. Save time - You do not have to look it up in the dictionary

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS 

1. There are a lot of examples provided. Students might not understand some of the examples provided since it is taken from British context. 
2. Students might get distracted from the unfamiliar words that they find in the example of sentences.