Erik Castello and Katherine Ackerley are tenured researchers and lecturers in English language and linguistics at the University of Padua, Italy, while Francesca Coccetta is a researcher and lecturer in English language and linguistics at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Their research interests include corpus linguistics and computer and Internet technology for language teaching and assessment. They currently use computer learner corpora to inform both their research and teaching.

The 18 chapters of the volume explore the potential of using both cross-sectional and longitudinal learner corpora to investigate the interlanguage of learners of English, Italian and Spanish from various L1 backgrounds. The chapters also discuss possible applications to foreign language teaching and assessment.

Contents: Marcus Callies: Using Learner Corpora in Language Testing and Assessment: Current Practice and Future Challenges - María Belén Díez-Bedmar: Dealing with Errors in Learner Corpora to Describe, Teach and Assess EFL Writing: Focus on Article Use - Mick O'Donnell: Using Learner Corpora to Order Linguistic Structures in Terms of Apparent Difficulty - Marta Guarda: Focus on Form in Computer-Mediated Communication: Using Written Learner Data to Foster Language and Pragmatic Skills in Communicative Contexts - Tim Marchand/Sumie Akutsu: The Compilation and Use of a CMC Learner Corpus for Japanese University Students - Fanny Meunier: Introduction to the LONGDALE Project - Pieter de Haan: Nouns and Noun Phrases in Advanced Dutch EFL Writing: From Quantitative to Qualitative Longitudinal Data Analysis - Caroline Gerckens/Anne Gans: I didn't really *understood what it was about, but it really *made fun: A Longitudinal Corpus-based Study of Tense/Aspect and High-frequency Verbs in Learner English - Pascale Goutéraux: Assessing Advanced EFL Students' Proficiency at Producing Affect-laden Discourse - Erik Castello: Towards a Longitudinal Study of Metadiscourse in EFL Academic Writing: Focus on Italian Learners' Use of it-extraposition - Katherine Ackerley: Short-term Effects of Students' Exploration of Corpora: A Longitudinal Study of Pre- and Post-modification of Noun Phrases in Learner English - Francesca Coccetta/Silvia Samiolo: Analysing the Language of Interpersonal Relations in Corpora of Elicited Learner and Native Interactions in English - Conor Geiselbrechtinger: From Learner to Expert: Using a Corpus to Analyse the Use of Must by German Advanced Students of English - Ventura Salazar-García/Abbas Farhan Eliwey: Spanish Copulas and the Interlanguage of Iraqi University Students - Stefania Spina: Phraseology in Academic L2 Discourse: The Use of Multi-words Units in a CMC University Context - Andy Cresswell: Representing Learner English in a Specialized Corpus: Genre and Proficiency Level in the Advanced Learner Corpus of Argumentative Student Essays (ALCASE) - Luisa Bozzo: Connecting Data Elicitation and Pedagogical Practice in Learner Corpus Design: The Case of TILCE - the Turin Italian Learner Corpus of English - Lionel Nicolas/Egon Stemle/Aivars Glaznieks/Andrea Abel: A Generic Data Workflow for Building Annotated Text Corpora.

This volume explores the potential of using both cross-sectional and longitudinal learner corpora to investigate the interlanguage of learners with various L1 backgrounds and to subsequently apply the findings to language teaching and assessment. It is made up of 18 chapters selected from papers presented at the international conference «Compiling and Using Learner Corpora», held in May 2013 at the University of Padua, Italy. The chapters discuss current issues and future developments of the use of learner corpora, present case studies based on teaching and assessment experiences in various contexts, and longitudinal corpus-based studies conducted within the Longitudinal Database of Learner English (LONGDALE) project. Other chapters report on investigations of specific aspects of the interlanguage of a variety of learner populations, and the last ones address issues of corpus compilation and representativeness. The majority of the contributions draw on data produced by EFL learners from Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the Netherlands, while others concern learners of Italian and Spanish as Foreign Languages.