Lesson 3 development
Shall we talk about criminal vocabulary?
Introduction
15 mins 
Teacher-Learners
Teacher raises students’ prior knowledge of the criminal field and how this field is portrayed in the various TV series about the topic.
10 mins Learners-Learners
Teacher invites learners to look for the target vocabulary in the grid.
Development (exploring COCA)
40 mins Teacher-Learners
Learners get to know how to use COCA. Teacher explains and shows how to use the tool. If needed, students can also watch the demo video (from Lesson 3 Description) to learn how to use COCA more effectively.
Guided by the teacher, learners use COCA to explore the concordance lines.
20 mins Learners-Learners
In groups, learners use COCA to explore the concordance lines on their own.
Application (corpus research)
20 mins Learners-Learners
Teacher asks learners to use the words found in activity 1 to generate the concordance lines on COCA and observe the given examples so that they can select the phrases that will make up activity 2.
10 mins Teacher-Learners
Guided by the teacher, learners discuss the different contexts of use for the criminal field words found on COCA.
Development (presentation of the concept of collocation)
20 mins Learners-Learners
In groups, learners compare the examples they will select in Activity 2 with the excerpts presented in Activity 3. Then, they discuss the similarities and differences between them.
20 mins Teacher-Learners
Teacher introduces learners to the concept of collocations, giving examples in learners’ first language before moving on to examples in English. General language collocations will be explored first, leading to the collocations presented in the excerpts of activity 3.
Application (collocations practice)
20 mins Learners-Learners
In groups, students complete activity 4. Then, they access COCA again and check how often the collocations they have formed occur in the corpus.
20 mins Teacher-Learners
The teacher then holds a discussion to explain the use of frequency as one of the indicators of the conventionality of collocations in the language and the target field. This discussion aims to help learners realise that, although it is possible to form different collocations, the ones that will be used are those that are already conventionalised in the language and in the target field.
Conclusion
30 mins Teacher-Learners
Learners share their activities with the whole class.
Teacher holds a whole-class discussion about what students have learned and how they can use such data in other contexts.
Assessment
The assessment will be formative-focused and occur throughout all the activities, aiming to identify learners’ understanding as they complete the activities and use the target tool.
