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From http://blog.britishcouncil.org/2014/03/12/how-to-teach-which-words-go-together-corpora-in-english-language-teaching

How to teach which words go together: Corpora in English language teaching
by Adam Kilgarriff
March 12, 2014

A corpus is a collection of texts. We call it a corpus (plural: corpora) when we use it for language research.

… Dictionary-makers were leaders in corpus use. Following on were people writing language courses. They wanted to make sure that the facts they were teaching about the language were in fact true (!), and to teach common patterns before rare ones, and to use authentic examples of the patterns.

So, in English language teaching, there is plenty of indirect corpus use, via dictionaries and course books. What about direct corpus use, by teachers, even students? Should you use corpora?

My answer is: yes – if the dictionary does not tell you enough.

Read the full article at http://blog.britishcouncil.org/2014/03/12/how-to-teach-which-words-go-together-corpora-in-english-language-teaching