Exploring Automated Essay Scoring for Nonnative English Speakers

Automated Essay Scoring (AES) has been quite popular and is being widely used. However, lack of appropriate methodology for rating nonnative English speakers' essays has meant a lopsided advancement in this field. In this paper, we report initial results of our experiments with nonnative AES that learns from manual evaluation of nonnative essays. For this purpose, we conducted an exercise in which essays written by nonnative English speakers in test environment were rated both manually and by the automated system designed for the experiment. In the process, we experimented with a few features to learn about nuances linked to nonnative evaluation. The proposed methodology of automated essay evaluation has yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.750 with the manual evaluation.Comment: Accepted for publication at EUROPHRAS 201

Computational Sociolinguistics: A Survey

Language is a social phenomenon and variation is inherent to its social nature. Recently, there has been a surge of interest within the computational linguistics (CL) community in the social dimension of language. In this article we present a survey of the emerging field of "Computational Sociolinguistics" that reflects this increased interest. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of CL research on sociolinguistic themes, featuring topics such as the relation between language and social identity, language use in social interaction and multilingual communication. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential for synergy between the research communities involved, by showing how the large-scale data-driven methods that are widely used in CL can complement existing sociolinguistic studies, and how sociolinguistics can inform and challenge the methods and assumptions employed in CL studies. We hope to convey the possible benefits of a closer collaboration between the two communities and conclude with a discussion of open challenges.Comment: To appear in Computational Linguistics. Accepted for publication: 18th February, 201

The Global People competency framework: competencies for effective intercultural interaction

This Competency Framework explains the competencies that are needed for effective intercultural interaction. In contrast to the Life Cycle Model for Intercultural Partnerships (see the Global People Toolbook) which presents the competencies by stage (i.e. key competencies are identified for each stage of a project life cycle), the Competency Framework presents them by clusters. Intercultural competencies can be grouped into four interrelated clusters, according to the aspect of competence they affect or relate to: - Knowledge and ideas - Communication - Relationships - Personal qualities and dispositions We overview these four clusters in Section 2. In Sections 3 – 6, for each competency cluster, we list the key component competencies, along with descriptive explanations of each of them. We also provide case study examples from the eChina-UK Programme to illustrate one or more of the following: - How the competency manifests itself; - Why the competency is important or is needed; - How the competency can be displayed in behaviour; - What problems may occur when the competency is not present. The Competency Framework is thus useful for those who wish to gain a systematic, in-depth understanding of intercultural effectiveness and the competencies need to achieve it

Design-Build-Write: Increasing The Impact Of English For Specific Purposes Learning And Teaching In Aeronautical Engineering Education Through Multiple Intelligences Task Design

This article presents an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) task developed for teaching aeronautical engineering students. The task Design-Build-Write rests on the assumption that engineering students are skilled at mathematical reasoning, problem solving, drawing and constructing. In Gardner’s 1983 Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory, these skills strongly correspond to the logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic and spatial intelligences. The current task combines creativity, innovation and problem solving with the description of technical concepts. An enthusiastic learner response in class suggests that the target group of aeronautical engineering students could be engaged and captivated by this assignment.

An analysis of typing errors by JFL learners and the causes of those errors.

The present study investigated the tendency of common typing errors by JFL (Japanese as a Foreign Language) learners, focusing on errors that relate to long vowels and the causes of those errors. With the widespread use of computers and the Internet, communication through "typing" such as e-mailing and social networking has increased more than ever. Also, activities and assignments which require skills of Japanese word-processing have been increasing in Japanese courses. To maximize the benefit of those new types of language tools, accurate typing skills are essential. The present study examined the following hypotheses. 1) JFL learners make typing errors because they are unable to perceive Japanese duration contrast and thus cannot spell words accurately. 2) JFL learners make typing errors because they are unable to use appropriate romaji or Roman alphabet to input Japanese words correctly to computers. Forty-two JFL learners (21elementary and 21 intermediate learners of Japanese) and eight Japanese native speakers participated in this study. Three tasks were conducted in order to test the hypothesis: the mora counting task, the romanization task, and the hiragana transcription task. The results indicated that the problem of perceiving duration contrasts mainly affected the accuracy of transcribing words with long vowels. On the other hand, the inability of romanization affected the scores of all of the word types regardless of the presence of long vowels. Another finding was that romanization skills improve according to the amount of experience of typing Japanese, i.e., the intermediate group (IG) did better than the beginner group (BG) in the romanization task, whereas the perception of the duration contrasts does not develop greatly even as the learners' proficiency level advances, i.e., there was no significant difference between the BG and the IG in the score of the mora counting task. The error analysis of the learner groups' answers revealed that the most common error of the transcription tasks was the wrong spelling of long vowels. Both the BG and the IG showed similar tendencies in this error type, though the error ratio was higher in the BG. Over all the results imply that it is easier to acquire the romanization of Japanese than the perception of Japanese duration contrasts. Therefore, introducing common errors in romanization in the early stage of Japanese typing instruction will let the JFL learners be aware of those errors and prevent them from occurring

Investigating the use of stance markers in Egyptian and American MA theses: A corpus-based study

This is a corpus-based study that investigates the use of stance markers in MA theses written by Egyptian and American graduate students. It is a descriptive and exploratory study, utilizing a quantitative and qualitative design. A compiled corpus of 15 Egyptian theses was examined and compared to that of 15 American theses in terms of the writers\u27 use of stance markers. The study explored the use of self-mention through utilizing first person pronouns I, my, and me, and the more impersonal “it…that” structures and detected the patterns of the frequency and function of their use in both corpora. The findings of the study suggest that Egyptian thesis writers tend to be more distant and cautious in their writings. They prefer to employ more detached linguistic strategies to express their stance. This is illustrated in their avoidance of the use of first person pronouns and their high frequency of utilizing the impersonal “it…that” structures, passive constructions, and doubt adverbs. Another finding is that Egyptian thesis writers display a great deal of linguistic competence in utilizing “it…that” structures; however, they show a lack of variety in their choice of lexical items and syntactic structures in this stance feature. Differences in the use of stance markers in both corpora were highlighted and patterns of the “it…that” use, represented in The American Thesis Corpus (ATC), were listed in order to help Egyptian thesis writers voice their views in a more confident manner so as to gain acceptance in their disciplinary communities