Constructicons as resources for language pedagogy — and vice versa

This article addresses the usefulness of constructicons, and of the Swedish Constructicon (SweCcn) in particular, in application to (additional) language teaching. We present a number of small case studies on pedagogical application of SweCcn: some of which are classroom studies of construction-based teaching of Swedish as an additional language, and others concerned with identification of pedagogically relevant constructions by text analyses of teaching aids. The combined overall outcome of these case studies is one of mutual benefit: constructicons may, indeed, be a valuable resource for construction-oriented language pedagogy, and the experiences from teaching application, in turn, feed back into further development of the resource. The text analyses also highlight the importance of not only treating individual constructions, but also addressing the interplay between constructions in combination.