This corpus-driven approach tries to raise the students’ consciousness of learning English vocabulary innovatively with the RIPE model: resource-providing, information-inputting, paradigm-setting and evaluation-enhancing. The application of RIPE model is encouraging in the way that this method has not only aroused the students’ motivation in learning, but also their critical thinking.
For most Chinese students in the English program at tertiary level, the mere input of lexicological knowledge is neither successful in making them enlarging their vocabulary, nor fueling their enthusiasms for trying their own innovative research. In this study, a corpus-driven approach is tried, with the purpose of raising the students’ consciousness of learning English vocabulary innovatively. The corpus-driven vocabulary learning process is implemented in the RIPE model: resource-providing, information-inputting, paradigm-setting and evaluation-enhancing. The resources include but not limited to the use of several corpora, including COCA, COHA, CLEC(a Chinese English learner corpus with the size of about one million tokens), together with self-built a longitudinal learner corpus (with the size of ten thousand tokens). Some online resources, such as http://www.wordspy.com, http://www.lextutor.ca are also employed. The information concerning English word formation and semantic changes in English vocabulary is inputted in class. The often-used corpus-based research paradigms, like frequencies, concordances, are taught and practiced by using some research samples. In the last step of the model, evaluation-enhancing, a formative evaluation (accounting for 60 percent of the whole assessment) is carried out, in the different patterns of in-class discussions, research presentations, and research reports. The results from the questionnaires and interviews with the students show that the application of RIPE model is encouraging: this method has not only aroused the students’ motivation in vocabulary learning, but also their critical thinking in the learning process. Practical considerations are provided for the integration of corpus tools into class teaching.
