The CATESOL Journal

Increased trade, commerce and business transactions at the international level are placing a substantial demand upon working professionals and college students who must learn English, the lingua franca of international business, in order to thrive in a competitive global workplace. Learning English as a second language (L2) can be a daunting task for many reasons. For instance, how does a student or teacher really know which words or phrases are the most practical to focus upon when learning or teaching? With expanding technology and tech tools (e.g., computer software, apps, etc.) widely available, more modern approaches to learning authentic discourse can increasingly be developed. Lexical chunks, or bundles, i.e., the building blocks of oral discourse, may be analyzed via corpus concordance software and serve as a useful pedagogical tool for teachers and a practical learning tool for students in the L2 classroom. Anyone today can access online corpora, making it an easy resource for L2 teachers and learners to utilize. Teachers may draw content that is suitable for the unique needs of their class, and students can form novel and autonomous linguistic conclusions instead of being spoon fed fixed textbook content. Geared towards L2 educators, this paper more specifically illustrates how corpus-based tools can be utilized to augment second language learning, helping L2 college students achieve communicative competence in their academic and professional lives.