The introductory book Language Corpora in German Language Education was developed by the working group “Language corpora as digital educational technologies,” led by Eva Gredel and Michael Beißwenger and funded by the CAIS in 2022/23. During the funding period, the members met several times – in person at the CAIS in Bochum as well as virtually. The goal was to bridge the previously weakly connected fields of language education and corpus linguistics and to strengthen the exchange between school practice, language technology, and computer science. The authors of this book bring together expertise from both areas as well as from related disciplines and professional fields.
Abstract
Digital language corpora offer a wide range of innovative and exciting opportunities for the exploration of language. In German language education, corpora can be used to help students develop knowledge about the structure and use of language based on authentic language data, and to practice gaining insights into language functions and usage contexts through data-driven, empirical activities. For the German language, a number of excellent corpus resources are available online. With appropriate guidance from teachers, students in secondary education can learn to use these tools effectively.
This volume shows teacher trainees and in-service teachers how corpora can be used in German classes to investigate language and its usage. In addition to an introduction to the basics of corpus-based language analysis and an overview of relevant German corpora suitable for use in schools, the book presents six detailed teaching models that demonstrate how corpora can be integrated into classroom practice. The guiding didactic principle is the concept of inquiry-based learning, which is exemplified through topics such as word formation, spelling, pragmatics, language change, the study of word meanings, and the evaluation of different phrasing options in writing tasks. Furthermore, an advanced chapter illustrates how teachers can compile their own corpora and use them for analyzing text data.
The teaching models are aligned with competency expectations outlined in current educational standards and selected curricula. Additionally, the book highlights the contribution that inquiry-based work with language corpora can make to cross-curricular educational goals such as fostering data and digital literacy.
The monograph is available here:
Beißwenger, M., Gredel, E., Bartz, T., Flinz, C., Hamdi, A., Herzberg, L., Lemnitzer, L., Lüngen, H., Radtke, N., Rebhan, L., Rüdiger, J. O., Schmidt, T., & Steinsiek, S. (2025). Sprachkorpora im Deutschunterricht. Sprachlich-Literarisches Lernen und Deutschdidaktik (SLLD). https://doi.org/10.46586/SLLD.390
More information about the working group: https://www.cais-research.de/en/ags/language-corpora-as-digital-educational-technologies/