The Cambridge Learner Corpus:

A typology of exercises

How the Cambridge Learner Corpus can be used in

Cambridge ELT materials

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 The Cambridge Learner Corpus

A typology of exercises based on the CLC

The Cambridge Learner Corpus (CLC) contains student answer papers from Cambridge ESOL exams.
Every type of mistake that a learner makes has been given a code or tag. Once these tags are applied
to the exam scripts, we can see which learners make which mistakes at which exam or CEF level. We
can see the problem areas for learners from a particular first language or nationality, or at a certain
age. The result is that, using the Corpus, you can make sure your books target the language your
market most needs and focus on real learner errors.

The CLC shows you:

 What students can achieve at each exam or CEF level
 What students at these levels find difficult, and where they commonly make errors
 Mistakes specific to students who speak a particular L1

The CLC can be used in Cambridge publications to:

 Show real life examples of the mistakes that students actually make, in the contexts that
they are made
 Highlight a particular mistake by taking a single sentence with an embedded error on its
own
 Train students in identifying errors in a passage by using a longer extract or whole
candidate answer, containing multiple mistakes
 Teach students to evaluate other candidates’ work, and to look for similar mistakes in their
own work

The following pages show a range of examples of the types of exercises that have been created using
the CLC, from a variety of list areas. They give an idea of the wide use that the CLC can be put to, but
they are by no means exhaustive. They can be loosely broken down into the categories:

 Correcting highlighted errors ...................................................... p4

 Identifying errors ...................................................... p6
 Spotting and correcting errors ...................................................... p7
 Choosing the right correction ...................................................... p9
 Gap-fill exercises ...................................................... p11
 Model answer exercises ...................................................... p13

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 Exercises in Correcting Highlighted Errors
The Cambridge Learner Corpus can easily be used to create simple exercises in correcting real student
errors. Using the error-coded Learner Corpus, you can search for examples of a certain mistake. The
error tags flag up the mistake in the learner’s sentence and give the correction alongside it.

e.g. I was offered a part-time job as a housekeeper in a <#S> beatiful | beautiful </#S> house in the
north of London
You can then extract the sentence from the Corpus, remove the tags and the correction, and highlight
or underline the error for the student to correct.
You can also choose to expand the example, to see more of the student’s answer and give more
context to the error. It is possible to view a longer passage or even a whole answer to an exam
question.

You can create exercises by...

1) Extracting single sentence examples from the

CLC

Complete CAE

2) Focussing on areas of common difficulty for a

particular grammar point

Here the CLC also functions as a body of texts

for examples of error-avoidance. The student
hasn’t made a mistake as such, but has found
ways around using the grammatical features
they are not sure of using correctly in an exam
situation.

Objective IELTS Advanced Student’s Book

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3) Taking an exam answer or longer passage
so that learners can study the mistakes in
context

First Certificate Trainer

Here the student has to identify, as well as correct, errors

Objective IELTS Intermediate Workbook

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 Exercises in Identifying Errors

Exercises where the student has to pick out the error, either from a single sentence example or from a
longer extract, can be created by searching the Learner Corpus for a particular error code. The text can
be extracted and the error codes removed to create exercises very quickly.

Exercises may aim to:

1) Target one particular common error e.g. a

grammatical mistake

English in Mind
Student’s Bk 1

2) Focus on identifying the different types of

errors made e.g. punctuation, grammar or
spelling.

Complete PET Workbook

Complete PET Workbook

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 Exercises in Spotting and Correcting Errors

The Cambridge Learner Corpus can easily be used to create simple exercises in finding and correcting
real student errors. Using the error-coded Learner Corpus, you can search for examples of a certain
mistake connected to the grammar point or vocabulary that you are teaching. Or, using a Top Error List
generated from the CLC, you can target the most frequent mistakes for your market, and use the CLC’s
error codes to pull out real-life examples.

Exercises can be organised...

1) By exam level

Complete First Certificate

2) By a particular common learner error

Complete First Certificate

3) To fit in with a topic or unit

Interactive Student’s Book 2

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4) By a specific exam task

First Certificate Trainer

Here example sentences have been taken

from exam tasks that focus on interpreting
and presenting data from charts and graphs.

Objective IELTS Intermediate Workbook

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 Choosing the Right Correction

The CLC can be used to see what words or phrases learners commonly substitute incorrectly for certain
words. This enables you to create exercises in which learners can choose between the correct phrase
and one that it is commonly confused with.

Create exercises for....

1) Particular vocabulary that commonly

causes confusion for your learners

Complete First Certificate

Objective PET

2) A frequent grammar trouble spot

English in Mind
Student’s Book 1

3) Vocabulary for a specific topic

Objective PET

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4) A particular text type, e.g. academic
English

The Academic English Corpus can be

combined with the Learner Corpus to
produce exercises like this, by searching
the Learner Corpus for the grammar
points and phrases that learners
struggle with that are found in
academic English. Examples of their
correct usage can then be taken from
the Academic English Corpus.

Objective IELTS Advanced

Student’s Book

5) Commonly substituted verbs or

collocation errors

First Certificate Trainer

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 Gap-fill exercises
Gap-fill exercises can be created from examples from the CLC which either use the particular word
correctly (simply search for the word in the CLC), substitute an incorrect word for the chosen word
(search for the word as a correction) or misuse the word (search for the word as incorrect, along with
the corresponding error tag).

Create exercises...

1) Using Top Error Lists to target the

most frequent grammar errors

Here a combination of gap-fill and

correction exercises has been combined.
The correction exercises can be lifted
straight from the CLC, and the gap-fills
only need the erroneous word or phrase Objective IELTS Intermediate
removing.

English in Mind
Student’s Bk 1

2) Selecting specific verbs or vocabulary

linked to a topic

Complete CAE

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3) Integrating common errors from the Learner
Corpus into new, longer texts.

English in Mind Student’s Bk 1

4) Selecting sentences that use or confuse a

specific set of words or constructions.

(This is similar to choosing the right correction,

and is more structured than the other gap-fill
exercises.)

Objective PET

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 Model answer exercises
The CLC can be used as a bank of texts to provide the basis of model answer exercises. Exam scripts
can be selected from the CLC according to:

 Exam  Question number

 CEF level  Style of question
 Whether the candidate passed or failed  Format of question
 Year  Formality of question
 Age of candidate  Gender of candidate
Using real exam answers allows students to evaluate the work of other students at a similar level, and
to identify mistakes which they can correct or avoid in their own work. They can furthermore identify
points of strength in others’ answers and see constructions, vocabulary and stylistic points in a context
parallel to that which they will be writing in.

Students can assess

real answers against
the exam criteria

Genuine candidate
answers contain errors
and stylistic issues
that learners can look
out for and learn from

First Certificate Trainer

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Written by a non-native
speaker of English so
has the right level of
vocabulary and
structures realistically
expected at this exam
level, and contains
mistakes or areas for
improvement which can
lead to discussion.

Allows annotation of
real scripts to highlight
strengths or teaching
points

First Certificate Trainer

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