Though concordancing is widely acknowledged to be a tool of some potential in the hands of second language learners, there is little, if anything, in the literature to suggest how such a tool can be introduced to learners unfamiliar with computers and/or unschooled in basic research methods. This article demonstrates how concordances can be used to prepare classroom vocabulary materials which are both authentic and, assuming the databases used are ones pertinent to the students, relevant. It also shows how concordance-based exercises can be used to enhance student competence in both semantic and syntactic elements of the language they are studying.