With the support of the EU Lifelong Learning ProgrammeGrant 143502-DE-2008-KA2-KA2MP

The Backbone Project:Online Materials for Language

Learning

Backbone: bringing corpus data to the language classroom

A two-year European project involving the creation of pedagogic corpora in 6 European languages plus English as a Lingua Franca

Theoretical and pedagogic basis in the use of corpora in language learning

BACKBONE addresses language learning needs with regard to pedagogically neglected languages and varieties lesser taught languages regional & socio-cultural varieties of more frequently taught

languages European non-native speaker manifestations of English as a

lingua franca

Stages in the Project

1. Data collection: audio visual recordings of interviews around a range of topics determined through an initial needs analysis of all partner institutions

2. Transcription and thematic annotation, using the tools developed for the project (freely downloadable from the project website)

3. Development of pedagogic tasks using TELOS software

4. Piloting and evaluation of the corpora and pedagogic tasks

UL’s part icipation

Collection, transcription and annotation of 50% of the English Corpus (25 interviews)

Development of 50% of the pedagogic tasks (100 TELOS activities & 100 communicative tasks)

Piloting the French Corpora and pedagogic activities in 2nd and 3rd level CLIL contexts

Pedagogical Resources/Tools

TELOS Activities Communicative / explorative activities The Corpus Search Tool The Virtual Resource Pool

TELOS Activities

Software allows picture, sound and video to be embedded

Create a variety of activity types – gap-fill, MCQs, text production, explanation, drag and drop exercises

These activities are designed for self-study learning and may be combined with direct teaching

TELOS Activities

TELOS Activities

Camogie

Communicative and Explorative Activities

These activities are designed for collaborative work within a classroom setting

Students use the search tool and Moodle activities Topic-oriented tasks (comprehension, topic exploration

and topic related Webquests) Vocabulary development through concordance and co-

occurrence Grammar Communicative functions Spoken discourse and regional varieties

Communicative and Explorative Activities

Corpus Search Tool

Browse ModeSection SearchCo-occurrenceConcordancesView Lists

Resources From the Virtual Resource Pool - allows the management of

corpus-related sets of resource references

Search Tool

Freely available resources http://www.um.es/backbone/

Transcriptor Annotator TELOS software

Annotator

Achieving the project aims

Improves language competence and communication skills Opportunity to study content through different perspectives Diversifies methods of classroom practice Development of intercultural knowledge and skills Provides a data set of languages and varieties to be further

researched and analysed

http://u-002-segsv001.uni-tuebingen.de/backbone/moodle/