ICLE

The International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) is a corpus of essay writing by upper intermediate and advanced learners. Founded and coordinated by Sylviane Granger of the University of Louvain, the corpus is the results of over 30 years of collaborative activity between a large number of universities internationally.

The third version, published in 2020, differs from the previous ones in two major ways. Firstly, it is even larger than the previous versions, as it includes data from 25 mother tongue backgrounds, amounting to over 5.5 million words. In addition, unlike the preceding versions – which were both distributed on CD-ROMs – ICLEv3 is hosted on a web-based interface, which allows for easier and more flexible access. Based on the abundant feedback that we have received over the years from scholars using the corpus, the functionalities that were already available in the previous versions of the ICLE have been enhanced significantly. The enhancement of the concordance tool and the corpus download facilities, for instance, is intended to answer the growing concern for the study of internal variability and individual differences in learner data.

The ICLE  has been used in a wide range of research projects internationally, served as the basis from many MA and PhD theses and generally played a key role in promoting the field of learner corpus research.

Please note that we had hoped to make ICLEv3 freely available to all users from September 15, 2026. However, the release is taking longer than anticipated. We will announce the new release date as soon as we have a clearer timeline.

• Project director: Prof. Sylviane Granger
• Contact: sylviane.granger@uclouvain.be

Trial interface: A trial version allows you to try all the functionalities of the interface on the basis of a limited number of texts (100): https://corpora.uclouvain.be/cecl/icle/trial/

Handbook: The ICLE handbook published by Louvain University Press contains a detailed description of the corpus, an overview of the ELT situation in the countries of origin of the learners and a user’s guide to the web interface. It can be downloaded from https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:229877

How to cite : Granger, S., Dupont, M., Meunier, F., Naets, H. & Paquot, M. (2020) The International Corpus of Learner English. Version 3. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain. https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:229877