Proficiency-rated learner corpora. A promising resource or data-driven learning

In this position paper, I argue that proficiency-rated learner corpora should gain a more prominent role in data-driven learning (DDL). With specific reference to DDL, proficiency-rated learner corpora can provide typical, atypical and erroneous target language data at different levels of proficiency, which can be meaningfully used in the design of learning activities. This makes them pivotal in expanding the scope of DDL to include mid- and lower-level proficiency learners more extensively. Although the field of learner corpus research has been promoting learner corpus use in DDL for a long time, only a small fraction of DDL studies make use of a learner corpus. As a contribution to overcome this hiatus, I will demonstrate how using a specific proficiency-rated learner corpus (i.e., the CELI corpus; Spina et al., 2022, 2023) can enrich the design of DDL activities, making them more adaptable to a wider range of learner needs.