Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Ramesh Krishnamurthy: Electronic resources for language teaching and learning: cornucopia or information overload?

Several of these courses were conducted with co-tutors: several colleagues from Cobuild, Patrick Hanks (Chief Editor, Current English Dictionaries, Oxford University Press), Gregory Grefenstette (Project Leader, Rank Xerox Research Centre, Grenoble), Tamas Varadi (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), and Bela Hollosy (Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of Department, Debrecen University). The addition of co-tutors can obviously increase the breadth and depth of the treatment of course topics. In the 1995 Debrecen course, Patrick Hanks dealt with the broader theoretical and philosophical aspects, as well as the publishing issues (Practical Issues in Dictionary Publishing), Gregory Grefenstette focussed on the computational methodology and technicalities, and I gave a more practical view of the lexicographer's task in trying to balance the demands of theory and the commercial publishing world against the wealth of linguistic description which corpus analysis can generate. The Budapest course in 1996 allowed me to take over some of the discussion of theory, with Gregory Grefenstette once more dealing with the programming side of corpus computational techniques, and Tamas Varadi giving a concentrated tutorial on the PERL programming language. The 1997 Debrecen course saw Bela Hollosy taking the tutoring role for computational methods, and a more thematic approach to the sessions. In the 1998 Madrid course, I tried to focus on the use of corpora and other computational resources for research and teaching, with special reference to scientific and technological discourse. The 1998 Sogndal course included a session on computer text analysis (looking closely at newspaper articles, poetry, fiction, and dictionaries), and one on exploiting a corpus for classroom uses. 4. Course Presentation techniques and problems: from OHP to computer cluster Initially, my course sessions were presented entirely on OHP transparencies, sometimes accompanied by some printed handouts, and sometimes making use of a blackboard/whiteboard. It has always seemed somewhat of a mockery to be illustrating the power of a huge computer corpus and sophisticated analytical software through static displays on overhead projector slides. However quickly I changed the slides to simulate the rapid display sequences of a computer screen, I always had to say vat the press of a button/at a single keystroke, my computer would show you this...'. 20