In-service language teachers’ familiarity with corpora: Are they mere acquaintances or close friends?

Abstract Incorporating corpus literacy into teacher education is emphasized as a vital step for increasing the use of corpora in language instruction. Although several studies with promising results show its rising popularity in teacher education programs, being introduced to corpora remains uncommon among in-service language teachers. This study primarily aims to assess the level of corpus literacy among Turkish in-service EFL teachers and their experiences with corpora. It also examines the relationships between variables such as age, the school level at which teachers work, and their familiarity with corpora. This descriptive study uses an online survey as its primary data collection tool. The findings indicate that corpus literacy levels are promising and that younger teachers tend to be more familiar with corpora; however, the corpus literacy interventions conducted in initial and in-service education do not have the expected impact on the teaching practices of in-service teachers. Additionally, it was found that teachers rarely receive training on using corpora as part of their ongoing professional development. As a result, the use of corpora in instruction is mainly limited to simple frequency and acceptability queries. The study’s results provide valuable insights into how to integrate corpus literacy components into teacher education processes effectively.