Effects of Corpus-Aided Language Learning on EFL Elementary School Students: An Empirical Case Study

Corpus-aided language learning has gained widespread recognition in many EFL (English as a foreign language) classrooms. However, most research on this approach has focused on mostly adolescents or adult students (e.g., senior high school or college students), leaving its effects on relatively younger learners largely unexplored. Given this gap, the present study aimed to investigate the pedagogical impact of corpus-aided language learning on the learning of English by elementary school students. Two groups of students, aged 10 to 12, thus participated in the study. One (i.e., the corpus group) learned grammar using the corpus approach, while the other (the control group) received instruction through a conventional method commonly exercised in the experimental site. Both groups’ performance in English language use and learning attitudes were investigated before and after the experiment. This was done by means of pre-and-post achievement tests and entry-and-exit surveys. To complement the results of quantitative inquiry, in-depth interviews were performed on several participants from the corpus group. The quantitative findings revealed that although both groups significantly improved their language use in English, the corpus group had statistically significantly higher scores than their counterparts did. However, even though both groups changed their learning attitudes toward learning English after the experiment, their improvements were non-significant, and so were the differences between the groups. Finally, interview accounts indicated that most of the corpus participants found the corpus approach engaging and effective for acquiring language use in English. Collectively, the results of the study shed new light on the potential of expanding the application of corpus-aided language learning to a new cohort of learners, such as those in this study. Finally, this study will conclude with suggestions for future studies.