Taking English synonyms as the learning objective, this study adopted the guided inductive approach to an 18-week DDL instruction design in the form of a learner-centered “mini-lecture”. This design covers three main phases: pre-task guidance, during-task practice and presentation, and post-task exercises and feedback. We investigated learners’ perceptions of the learning model and corpus use in general, and also the relationship between learners’ learning styles and their perceptions. Data collected from questionnaires and interviews showed that learners generally hold a positive attitude towards both the mini-lecture and corpus use; their difficulties include instability of the website, time consumption, and the analysis of the querying results. Besides, the results showed no significant correlation between learners’ perceptions and their learning styles, and that reflective, sensory, verbal, and sequential learners were more sensitive to the advantages of DDL. Sequential learners perceived the difficulties more significantly, but they still kept open to DDL, which was presumably due to the scaffolding and guidance in the instruction design. These findings have some teaching implications: the guided DDL learning model can be an effective alternative to traditional EFL teaching and it helps promote learners’ autonomy.