Generating intelligent tutoring systems for teaching reading: combining phonological awareness and thematic approaches

The objective of this thesis is to investigate the use of computers with artificial intelligence methods for the teaching of basic literacy skills to be applied eventually to the teaching of illiterate adults in Brazil.In its development many issues related to adult education have been considered, and two very significant approaches to the teaching of reading were focused on in detail: Phonological Awareness (PA) and Generative Themes. After being excluded from literacy curricula for a long time during the ascendancy of the "Whole Word" approaches, activities for the development of phonological awareness are currently being accepted as fundamental for teaching reading, and are being incorporated in most English literacy programmes. Generative Themes, in turn, were first introduced in Brazil in a massive programme for teaching reading to adults, and have since then been used successfully in a number of developing countries for the same purpose. However, these two approaches are apparently conflicting in their principles and emphasis, for the first (PA) is generally centred on the technical aspects of phonology, based on well controlled experiments and research, whereas the second is socially inspired and focused mainly on meaning and social relationships.The main question addressed in this research, consequently, is whether these two apparently conflicting approaches could be combined to create a method that would be technically PA oriented but at the same time could concentrate on meaning by using thematic vocabularies as stimuli for teaching. Would it be possible to find words to illustrate all the phonological features with which a PA method deals using a thematic vocabulary?To answer this question diverse concepts, languages and tools have been developed as part of this research, in order to allow the selection of thematic vocabularies, the description of PA curricula, the distribution of thematic words across PA curricula, the description of teaching activities and the definition of the teaching strategy rules to orient the teaching sequence.The resultant vocabularies have been evaluated and the outcomes of the research have been assessed by literacy experts. A prototype system for delivering experimental teaching activities through the Internet has also been developed and demonstrated

Dyslexia and EFL

Legasthenie bei SchülerInnen ist einer der Ursachen für soziale und psychologische Probleme, welche gelöst werden kann. Die Problematik mit Lese- und Schreibmängel in Verbindung mit Legasthenie, könnte dazu führen, dass viele Kinder ihre Möglichkeiten, eine höhere Ausbildung und damit einen besseren Lebensstandard zu erlangen, nicht ausschöpfen können, falls die Legasthenie von den LehrerInnen, den Eltern und den Gesetzgebern unbeachtet, und ignoriert wird. Die darauf resultierenden Folgen wären keine Förderung der Begabungen, und die Einstufung der Betreffenden als behindert oder als Problemkinder. Weder gibt es eine eindeutige Erklärung für die Ursache der Legasthenie, noch ein Heilmittel dafür. Dadurch wäre das Ziel, bestmögliche Definitionen und mögliche Ursachen in Bezug auf die Entstehung der Legasthenie zu erläutern, und sie dann erfolgreich durch den Lehrkörper mit Lösungen, Konzepten und Strategien im Englischfremdsprachenunterricht umsetzen lassen. Dabei dürfe man im Gegensatz zu Mathematik und Kunst die Wichtigkeit von Rechtschreibung und Lesen nicht außer Acht lassen, was eine große Herausforderung für SchülerIn und LehrerIn mit sich bringt. Als erstes werden Hypothesen wie die Phonologische-Defizit-Hypothese und die cerebelläre Defizit-Hypothese in Zusammenhang mit einer genetischen Störung als mögliche Ursachen für Legasthenie erläutert. Diese sind die Grundlagen für Argumente, wie man die soziale Interaktion des/r legasthenischen Schülers/Schülerin aus psychologischer und sozialer Sicht begründet. So entscheidet sich, welche Methoden und Konzepte sich erfolgreich im Englischfremdsprachenunterricht bezüglich LehrerIn/SchülerIn-Beziehungen durchsetzen. Die in meiner Arbeit angeführten Methoden beinhalten Metakognition, Metalinguistik und Mnemonik, welche sich durch Theorien und Beispiele den besten Weg der Motivation, Integration und bessere Zukunftsaussichten der Legastheniker in den normalen Schullehrplan erweisen.Dyslexia is one of the causes of social and psychological problems among pupils at school that can be solved. The dilemma of reading and spelling deficits associated with dyslexia, if not dealt with by teachers, parents and policy makers can result in many not being able to benefit from their potential for entering higher education and indeed a better life, since their talents go unnoticed and they are sadly ‘shoved by side’ as retarded and/or problematic youngsters. There is no direct answer why dyslexia exists, neither is there a cure. The aim is thus to find and present the best definitions of dyslexia, why it exists and use them to find methods, concepts and strategies for teachers to successfully put into use in EFL learning where spelling and reading is crucial, as opposed to Mathematics and the Arts, and thus a great challenge for both pupil and teacher. At first hypotheses such as the Phonological Deficit Hypothesis and the Cerebellum Deficit Hypothesis are explained in connection with a genetic disorder that could be the cause of the deficits. These form the basis of reasoning how the dyslexic pupil interpells with his/her surroundings from a psychological and social point of view. Teacher/pupil relation will then decide which approaches, concepts, and methods can ensure success in teaching EFL to dyslexics. The methods presented are meta-cognition, meta-linguistics and mnemonics which through theories and examples will prove the best way of motivating and thus integrating dyslexics into the normal school curriculum with better prospects of a successful future

Typographic emphasis and contrastive focus: an eye tracking study

Two eye tracking experiments investigated whether italicising contrastively focused words facilitates processing. In speech, pitch accents can mark focus, signalling that there exist alternatives to the marked element which are relevant to interpreting the expression. In writing, typographic emphasis (italics, bold, etc.) can be used in a similar manner, particularly to mark contrastive focus (asterisks delimit italicisation here): ‘We expected Mark to bring *Mary* to dinner. However, when he arrived, he was with *Ellen*.’ Previous studies have shown that processing is facilitated by congruent marking of information structure with pitch accents, and impeded by incongruent marking. This study sought similar effects for typographic emphasis. Eye movements of participants were tracked as they read short texts (dialogues in Experiment 1, narratives in Experiment 2) in which a contrastively focused target word was italicised, or not. Experiment 2 also manipulated contrast on the target word. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first eye tracking study that investigates the interaction of these factors within continuous text. Incongruence, where a non-contrastive word was typographically emphasised, or a contrastive word was not emphasised, was predicted to cause processing difficulty manifesting as re-reading. Results did not suggest that incongruence had a processing cost, although some effects were found, including (amongst more subtle effects) longer overall fixations on target words, and higher likelihoods of them being fixated at all. These results are discussed from several perspectives, including a ‘zero-impact’ account, which holds there to be no linguistic effect of typographic emphasis, and a more probable ‘effects elsewhere’ account, which suggests the type of re-reading examined here may not have been the correct place to look. The possibility that the visual contrast inherent in typographic emphasis may simply ‘catch the eye’ rather than have a linguistic effect is also investigated, and assessed as being unlikely

Syntaktická komplexnost anglického jazyka nerodilých mluvčích a její operacionalizace

The thesis analyses syntactic complexity of monologic tasks of 10 B2 and 10 C1 speakers of English with Czech as their L1. The data derives from LINDSEI_CZ (Gráf 2017). The transcripts of the recordings were segmented into AS-units (Foster et al. 2000) and adapted for the purposes of the analysis. Syntactic complexity was calculated using following measures: mean length of AS-unit, mean length of clause, clauses / AS-unit. These were complemented by fine-grained indices of structural complexity, comprised of ratios of subordinate clause types and coordinate verb phrases per total number of clauses (Vercellotti & Packer 2016) and a weighted complexity scale designed by Vercellotti (2018). The results of the quantitative analysis showed no significant effect of proficiency on syntactic complexity of the speakers. In fact, all speakers irrespective of language proficiency level produced very similar complex structures as opposed to lower-proficiency structures. This indicates that more fine-grained indices should be incorporated into spoken complexity research. At the same time, scores of each measure varied considerably within groups, pointing at the importance of inter-speaker variability in this research. The thesis thus produced outcomes that are largely methodological, in that it has identified...Práce analyzuje produktivní a strukturní syntaktickou komplexnost monologů vyprodukovaných dvaceti nerodilými mluvčími angličtiny na úrovních B2 a C1. Data pocházejí z LINDSEI_CZ (Gráf 2017). Přepisy nahrávek byly rozděleny do AS-units a upraveny pro analýzu syntaktické komplexnosti podle instrukce Foster et al. (2000). Zhodnoceny jsou zároveň problematické případy v analýze mluvených dat, které Foster et al. (2000) neuvádějí. Produktivní syntaktická komplexnost byla změřena pomocí následujících metrik: průměrná délka AS-unit, průměrná délka klauze, počet klauzí / AS-unit. Metriky produktivní komplexnosti byly doplněny specifickými indikátory strukturní komplexnosti, kterými byly poměry výskytů několika druhů vedlejších vět a souřadných slovesných frází k celkovém počtu klauzí (Vercellotti & Packer 2016) a vážená škála strukturní komplexnosti navržená Vercellotti (2018). Výsledky kvantitativní analýzy neprokázaly signifikantní vliv jazykové úrovně na syntaktickou komplexnost měřených monologů. Tato práce tedy doporučuje začlenění specifičtějších strukturních indikátorů do výzkumu mluvené komplexnosti. Variace ve skórech mezi řečníky, která byla v práci zjištěna, naznačuje, že důležitou roli ve výzkumu hraje idiosynkrasie. Výstup této diplomové práce je zároveň metodický, jelikož jsou identifikovány...Ústav anglického jazyka a didaktikyDepartment of the English Language and ELT MethodologyFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult

The effects of direct instruction in phonological skills on L2 reading performance of Chinese learners of English

Phonological skills are found to be highly predictive of children's reading achievement in the English LI context. Chinese ESL learners are found to be weak in phonological skills because of their logographic Ll background. They often have difficulties in decoding English words, and thus affect their L2 reading development. \ud LI training studies showed that improvement in phonological skills will lead to improvement in reading performance. But no similar training study for Chinese ESL learners is found. This thesis reports three studies which aim at (i) confirming the relationship between phonological skills and reading development in the L2 context of Chinese learners, (ii) identifying the effects of phonological skills training on reading performance, and (iii) determining the effective level or age for receiving the training.\ud The first study compared two groups of Chinese ESL learners, one with phonological skills training in their LI literacy experience and the other without. Results indicated that better phonological skills had led to more effective L2 reading development of the former group. The second and third studies are phonological skills training experiments conducted to Hong Kong students at primary and secondary school levels. The studies found that training at primary level was effective in improving the students' phonological skills, decoding efficiency and reading performance. However, the phonological skills training at secondary level produced no significant effect.\ud Results of the three studies together add positive evidence to research related to phonological skills and reading development, especially in the L2 context. Results of the two training studies conducted at different levels indicate that phonological skills training can be effective if given at early stage, to support L2 literacy development and to counteract interference from Ll. The participants' age and the length of the programme could be determining factors for the effectiveness of the training.\u

An exploration of the rhythm of Malay

In recent years there has been a surge of interest in speech rhythm. However we still lack a clear understanding of the nature of rhythm and rhythmic differences across languages. Various metrics have been proposed as means for measuring rhythm on the phonetic level and making typological comparisons between languages (Ramus et al, 1999; Grabe & Low, 2002; Dellwo, 2006) but the debate is ongoing on the extent to which these metrics capture the rhythmic basis of speech (Arvaniti, 2009; Fletcher, in press). Furthermore, cross linguistic studies of rhythm have covered a relatively small number of languages and research on previously unclassified languages is necessary to fully develop the typology of rhythm. This study examines the rhythmic features of Malay, for which, to date, relatively little work has been carried out on aspects rhythm and timing. The material for the analysis comprised 10 sentences produced by 20 speakers of standard Malay (10 males and 10 females). The recordings were first analysed using rhythm metrics proposed by Ramus et. al (1999) and Grabe & Low (2002). These metrics (∆C, %V, rPVI, nPVI) are based on durational measurements of vocalic and consonantal intervals. The results indicated that Malay clustered with other so-called syllable-timed languages like French and Spanish on the basis of all metrics. However, underlying the overall findings for these metrics there was a large degree of variability in values across speakers and sentences, with some speakers having values in the range typical of stressed-timed languages like English. Further analysis has been carried out in light of Fletcher’s (in press) argument that measurements based on duration do not wholly reflect speech rhythm as there are many other factors that can influence values of consonantal and vocalic intervals, and Arvaniti’s (2009) suggestion that other features of speech should also be considered in description of rhythm to discover what contributes to listeners’ perception of regularity. Spectrographic analysis of the Malay recordings brought to light two parameters that displayed consistency and regularity for all speakers and sentences: the duration of individual vowels and the duration of intervals between intensity minima. This poster presents the results of these investigations and points to connections between the features which seem to be consistently regulated in the timing of Malay connected speech and aspects of Malay phonology. The results are discussed in light of current debate on the descriptions of rhythm

Proceedings of the Seventh Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CLiC-it 2020

On behalf of the Program Committee, a very warm welcome to the Seventh Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2020). This edition of the conference is held in Bologna and organised by the University of Bologna. The CLiC-it conference series is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC) which, after six years of activity, has clearly established itself as the premier national forum for research and development in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, where leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry meet to share their research results, experiences, and challenges

Script Effects as the Hidden Drive of the Mind, Cognition, and Culture

This open access volume reveals the hidden power of the script we read in and how it shapes and drives our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures. Expanding on the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (i.e., the idea that language affects the way we think), this volume proposes the “Script Relativity Hypothesis” (i.e., the idea that the script in which we read affects the way we think) by offering a unique perspective on the effect of script (alphabets, morphosyllabaries, or multi-scripts) on our attention, perception, and problem-solving. Once we become literate, fundamental changes occur in our brain circuitry to accommodate the new demand for resources. The powerful effects of literacy have been demonstrated by research on literate versus illiterate individuals, as well as cross-scriptal transfer, indicating that literate brain networks function differently, depending on the script being read. This book identifies the locus of differences between the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and between the East and the West, as the neural underpinnings of literacy. To support the “Script Relativity Hypothesis”, it reviews a vast corpus of empirical studies, including anthropological accounts of human civilization, social psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, applied linguistics, second language studies, and cross-cultural communication. It also discusses the impact of reading from screens in the digital age, as well as the impact of bi-script or multi-script use, which is a growing trend around the globe. As a result, our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures are now growing closer together, not farther apart. ; Examines the origin, emergence, and co-evolution of written language, the human mind, and culture within the purview of script effects Investigates how the scripts we read over time shape our cognition, mind, and thought patterns Provides a new outlook on the four representative writing systems of the world Discusses the consequences of literacy for the functioning of the min

Essential Speech and Language Technology for Dutch: Results by the STEVIN-programme

Computational Linguistics; Germanic Languages; Artificial Intelligence (incl. Robotics); Computing Methodologie