What this paper is meant to do is share illustrations and insights into how English learners and teachers alike can benefit from using corpora in their work. Arguments are made for their multifaceted possibilities as grammatical, lexical and discourse pools suitable for discovering ways of the language, be they regularities or idiosyncrasies. The reader will be able to reflect on the great potential of electronic corpora in learning English, and draw on illustrations from a specific online venue where such explorations can take place at the user’s convenience — the ideal user being preferably an advanced student taking on the role of a young researcher. Corpus-driven learning is seen as an inspirational, resourceful and intelligent way of exploring English as it accompanies and reinforces traditional styles of teaching and learning. When advanced students embark on this journey, which is both linguistically and cognitively challenging, they will encounter ample linguistic evidence and contextual information offering guidance and precision often greater than that found in textbooks. The application of corpora deserves no less than to stand side-by-side with other tried and tested methods of teaching and learning English at university level.
