Using corpora for English language teaching and learning

© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Dan McIntyre and Hazel Price; individual chapters, the contributors. The Englicious website provides school teachers with innovative, interactive English language and English grammar teaching materials. The resources are based on research conducted within the Survey of English Usage (SEU) at the University College London and make use of three major corpora of natural English language data, compiled at SEU since the 1950s. The corpora were not originally intended to have any specific impact outside of academia. However, in response to the new Higher Education impact agenda and the renewed emphasis on the study of language, especially grammar, in the 2014 U.K. Primary and Secondary National Curriculums, we sought and successfully gained funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to develop Englicious as a means of providing much-needed support for teachers. In this chapter, we measure and evaluate the impact of Englicious on teaching practice and consider how further feedback on impact could be gathered. We also discuss the steps we have taken to generate and boost impact, such as through social media and marketing events, and the challenges we have faced relating to time investment, funding and resources. One funding solution has been the development of two Continued Professional Development courses, which have subsequently not only become a means of measuring and increasing the impact of Englicious but have also become ‘impactful’ in their own right. Overall, the Englicious project has had a measurable impact and has led to unforeseen and exciting opportunities, though delivering the impact agenda has been challenging at times and further support, particularly administrative and marketing support, is required to continue generating impact.