O n f e r e n c e

Corpus 
of 
Contemporary 
American
 
English 
(http://corpus2.byu.edu/coca/), containing about 385 mln words. There are two 
extremes in using COCA: Despite the multitude of examples of single frequent words 
usage (e.g., the number of tokens in COCA is 2048 for 
turbine
and 175604 for 
head)
there are no examples of the two-word terms from the specialist field (e.g. 
turbine head
which is the difference between the static head and the losses through the installation) 
(Almazova & Kogan, 2014). We think that search for collocations based on 
part-of-
speech
feature could result in fruitful discussions. Students can experiment with the 
syntax of the query. If they are given the task “to find typical collocations of the noun 
results
with adjectives and verbs”, the results will differ depending on the query formula. 
For example, if the query is a one string expression in 
word(s)
slot looking like this 
[v*] 
[j*] results
, where [v*] stands for any verb and [j*] stands for any adjective preceding 
results
in COCA examples they will receive the table with the most frequent 
expression FOUND SIMILAR RESULTS (53) on the top. A slight change of the query with 
the definite article 
the
inserted before an adjective will change the picture dramatically. 
The most frequent phrase this time is NARROW THE CURRENT RESULTS (286). If the 
query is formed using 2 slots: 
word(s) 
and 
collocates
with 
[j*] results
expression in the 
former and 
[v*]
–
in the latter with a default setting within the range of 4 words on the 
left and 4 words on the right they will see a new expression with SET on the top having 
the stunning frequency 1483. If the query is constrained by Academic genre only 
expressions with set disappear from the list at all, which means that this collocation is 
not used in scientific publications.
Further analysis of the verb list will reveal a lot of interesting points about well-known 
words. The students can be asked to make up a list of adjectives (from concordance 
examples) preceding 
results
, which authors prefer to use with that or this verb from the 
list. For a different verb, e.g. 
yield
and 
obtain
the lists will be different. The discussion at 
this point can not only be focused on the differences in lists of 
adj+results
collocations 
but in answering the question: “Which adjectives would you use to describe the results of 
the latest laboratory experiment (
satisfactory, useful, valid, certain
, etc), results obtained 
by researchers in your field (
similar, conflicting, significant, promising, unexpected,
etc.), 
the results you hope to get working on your master thesis (
statistically significant, valid 
and reliable, meaningful, unanticipated
, etc.)?” Such gradual introduction of this complex 
and comprehensive linguistic resource will hopefully allow students to develop a steady 
interest in the resource and the wish to use it in future, meanwhile shaping their 
communicative skills through the discussion of their findings. 
The above examples of CALL tasks were used in various ESP courses in different 
academic groups. Each time our motivation for including them resulted from different 
circumstances: lack of communicative tasks in the textbook for Complex Safety students 
could be compensated by preparation to playing Stop disasters! computer game and 
discussion of the results; complex lexical items in the accounting textbook led us to the 
integration of the use-proven word game approach adapted for the digital age; repetitive 
student mistakes in collocations of frequent words (
obtain
vs 
receive
results) made us 
take the challenge of adopting DDL approach.
As a conclusion, we should say our attempt to exemplify alternative approach 
principle drawing on our teaching practice in postgraduate groups of linguists and 
technically oriented students is valid. Our observation on foreign language learning 
process is to be continued, and further examples of the relevant CALL-tasks are to be 
found in order to improve higher education teaching methodology aimed at developing 
professionally-oriented communication among learners. The latter is, in our opinion, a 
significant asset for our graduates to become successful communicators in the future. 

---

-207- 
2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
Knowledge of computer-assisted foreign language learning possibilities will definitely 
stimulate postgraduates in their scientific search and improve their career opportunities.