Collins ELT

Tips on how to use Collins Work on Your Accent in the classroom

Tips on how to use Collins Work on Your Accent in the classroom

Accents are muscular habits. As such, learning a new accent is like learning a gymnastic move, and any teacher should aim to balance the teaching need for muscular repetition with the learner’s need to feel they are making progress.

3 min

Problematic Sounds For Many Non-native Speakers

Problematic Sounds For Many Non-native Speakers

One of the most challenging sounds for non-native speakers of English is actually the most common sound in the English language! That sound is The Schwa. The schwa is a very subtle, quiet sound – you may barely have noticed it,...

2 min

COBUILD: The Evolving Corpus – How corpus use has changed over the years

COBUILD: The Evolving Corpus – How corpus use has changed over the years

Size matters when it comes to corpora. At 220 million words of text, the corpus used to create the second edition of the COBUILD dictionary in 1995 was over ten times the size of the one used for the first...

4 min

COBUILD: Shifting senses – How the meanings of words change

COBUILD: Shifting senses – How the meanings of words change

In the 30 years since the publication of the first COBUILD dictionary, a whole flurry of new words has come into the language and as they’ve caught on and become part of everyday usage, they’ve been added to the dictionary.

2 min

COBUILD Part 2: The Early Years – A dictionary from a corpus

COBUILD Part 2: The Early Years – A dictionary from a corpus

By the time I arrived at COBUILD as part of the 1993 intake recruited to work on the second edition of the dictionary, the whole project had been fully computerised for several years. This meant working on screen at terminals...

3 min

COBUILD: Design and Layout – Changes over the last 30 years

COBUILD: Design and Layout – Changes over the last 30 years

Where were you 30 years ago? I was in the middle of my university studies, still to embark on my ELT career, and as such, a smidgin too late to be part of the intrepid and free-spirited COBUILD dictionary team....

4 min

COBUILD Part 1: The Early Years - Where it all began

COBUILD Part 1: The Early Years - Where it all began

I have always counted myself as incredibly fortunate to have worked as part of the COBUILD team at the time that I did, between October 1983 and the end of 1986. I was not quite 24 when I arrived in...

3 min

Encouraging IELTS students to read beyond the course book

Encouraging IELTS students to read beyond the course book

It comes as no surprise that reading widely is proven to increase reading fluency. However, many students are still in need of a little encouragement and guidance to build the skills required to read confidently outside of the course book....

4 min

Exploring language change

Exploring language change

When a new edition of a grammar is launched, teachers and students may well wonder what can be new about a grammar. We all know about new words, which grab the headlines at every new edition of a big dictionary, but...

10 min

Nonstandard usage or error: where should we draw the line?

Nonstandard usage or error: where should we draw the line?

This article has been written by Penny Hands, who is one of the contributors to the Collins COBUILD English Grammar. If we’re going to talk about nonstandard English, it’s a good idea to start by asking what Standard English (SE)...

7 min

Modality and conditionals

Modality and conditionals

Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can? Sun Tzu The quote above, attributed to an ancient Chinese military strategist, is often used in leadership training to encourage people to act on their ideas...

7 min

Understanding academic grammar

Understanding academic grammar

For students new to dealing with academic texts in English, they can seem daunting; full of long words and long complex sentences. Are academics just trying to show off how clever they are and confuse their poor readers? Well, maybe...

6 min