Supporting Collocation Learning

Collocations are of great importance for second language learners. Knowledge of them plays a key role in producing language accurately and fluently. But such knowledge is difficult to acquire, simply because there is so much of it. Collocation resources for learners are limited. Printed dictionaries are restricted in size, and only provide rudimentary search and retrieval options. Free online resources are rare, and learners find the language data they offer hard to interpret. Online collocation exercises are inadequate and scattered, making it difficult to acquire collocations in a systematic way. This thesis makes two claims: (1) corpus data can be presented in different ways to facilitate effective collocation learning, and (2) a computer system can be constructed to help learners systematically strengthen and enhance their collocation knowledge. To investigate the first claim, an enormous Web-derived corpus was processed, filtered, and organized into three searchable digital library collections that support different aspects of collocation learning. Each of these constitutes a vast concordance whose entries are presented in ways that help students use collocations more effectively in their writing. To provide extended context, concordance data is linked to illustrative sample sentences, both on the live Web and in the British National Corpus. Two evaluations were conducted, both of which suggest that these collections can and do help improve student writing. For the second claim, a system was built that automatically identifies collocations in texts that teachers or students provide, using natural language processing techniques. Students study, collect and store collocations of interest while reading. Teachers construct collocation exercises to consolidate what students have learned and amplify their knowledge. The system was evaluated with teachers and students in classroom settings, and positive outcomes were demonstrated. We believe that the deployment of computer-based collocation learning systems is an exciting development that will transform language learning

Can humain association norm evaluate latent semantic analysis?

This paper presents the comparison of word association norm created by a psycholinguistic experiment to association lists generated by algorithms operating on text corpora. We compare lists generated by Church and Hanks algorithm and lists generated by LSA algorithm. An argument is presented on how those automatically generated lists reflect real semantic relations

A Blended Cognitive, Linguistic, and Vygotskian Approach for Teaching and Learning the Prepositions in, on, and of in the Advanced ESL Classroom

Despite a plethora of new approaches in ESL writing and grammar instruction that were introduced in the twentieth century, ESL students and instructors continue to struggle with the teaching and learning of English prepositions. The members of this small class of high-frequency words are noted for their polysemy and varied contexts of uses as well as their multiple syntactic functions. This research is based on O’Dowd’s (1993) argument that a semantic unity holds for English prepositions across their syntactic constraints—a factor that was developed in the instructional materials of this research. Cognitive linguistics (CL) and sociocultural theory (SCT, as developed by Gal’perin, 1969, 1992c) from his mentor, Vygotsky (1978, 1986), are two areas of research which apply full linguistic expression of word sense to their applications in ESL pedagogy. The combined principles of these two compatible theories were applied to the teaching and learning of three targeted prepositions, in, on, and of, in an experimental ESL advanced grammar class. Results were compared to the results of an additional ESL advanced grammar class, a control in the quasi-experimental study. This study is distinguished by its application of recent cognitive linguistic insights (Jang & Kim, 2010) in regard to the preposition of to ESL pedagogy and the inclusion of this highly frequent preposition in the targeted learning items. Statistical significance was found in the gains achieved in the accurate use of the targeted prepositions for both classes, the with-in subject factor; yet, while the experimental class clearly outperformed the control class during the short duration of the instruction (75 minutes), the study failed to find statistical significance for the curriculum, the between subject factor. The study is one of a very few which have attempted to apply CL and SCT insights to ESL teaching and learning of English prepositions, has pioneered classroom research with the preposition of—one of the three most frequent English words, and suggests the need for additional ESL classroom research with longer time frames and a more robust application of these encouraging results for longitudinal validation

Addressing the grammar needs of Chinese EAP students: an account of a CALL materials development project

This study investigated the grammar needs of Chinese EAP Foundation students and developed electronic self-access grammar materials for them. The research process consisted of three phases. In the first phase, a corpus linguistics based error analysis was conducted, in which 50 student essays were compiled and scrutinized for formal errors. A tagging system was specially devised and employed in the analysis. The EA results, together with an examination of Foundation tutors’ perceptions of error frequency and gravity led me to prioritise article errors for treatment; in the second phase, remedial materials were drafted based on the EA results and insights drawn from my investigations into four research areas (article pedagogy, SLA theory, grammar teaching approaches and CALL methodologies) and existing grammar materials; in the third phase, the materials were refined and evaluated for their effectiveness as a means of improving the Chinese Foundation students’ use of the article. Findings confirm the claim that L2 learner errors are systematic in nature and lend support to the value of Error Analysis. L1 transfer appears to be one of the main contributing factors in L2 errors. The salient errors identified in the Chinese Foundation corpus show that mismanagement of the article system is the most frequent cause of grammatical errors; Foundation tutors, however, perceive article errors to be neither frequent nor serious. An examination of existing materials reveals that the article is given low priority in ELT textbooks and treatments provided in pedagogical grammar books are inappropriate in terms of presentation, language and exercise types. The devised remedial materials employ both consciousness-raising activities and production exercises, using EAP language and authentic learner errors. Preliminary evaluation results suggest that the EA-informed customised materials have the potential to help learners to perform better in proofreading article errors in academic texts

AVOIDANCE OF ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS AMONG SAUDI ESL STUDENTS

Students of English as a second language (ESL) are often perplexed by English phrasal verbs (PVs) and must seek aid to understand the meanings of such phrases. Understanding an independent verb is simple, but the meaning of a verb can change depending on the context in which it is used as well as its object(s). In other words, since PVs using the same verb or particle do not correspond semantically, many English learners struggle with understanding some sentences. For example, when a preposition (as a particle) is used with a verb to form a PV, the meaning of the sentence could completely change. This transformation of meaning unfortunately leads to miscommunication and misinterpretation in many cases. Additionally, the amount of PVs in English only exacerbates the difficulty of learning vocabulary and contextual meanings, such as with the multiple interpretations of the PV put up.To examine this hypothesis, I collected data from 53 undergraduate native speakers of English as well as 60 Arabic-speaking Saudi undergraduate and graduate ESL learners. The sample utilized an objective test and a 20-question Likert-scale test. The Saudi ESL students were interviewed with semi-structured questions, and a demographic survey of all participants was also collected.The analysis showed that native English speakers were significantly more familiar with the given verbs and their meanings than Saudi ESL students were. According to the study, 78% of ESL students knew what get up meant and what type of phrase get up was, 73% had already studied PVs, 60% used PVs at least half the time, 67% did not feel that PVs caused a problem when they communicated with native English speakers, and 85% communicated with native English speakers at least once a week.The analysis of the 15 multiple-choice test questions adopted by Liao and Fukuya (2004) showed that the most common PVs chosen by participants were get up (88%), showed up (84%), brush up on (63%), let down (52%), hold on (83%), put out (75%), made up (96%), turn down (59%), run into (66%), show off (71%), go away (60%), take away (67%), and come in (63%), as well as the one-word exploded (50%) and surrender (54%). Statistical testing showed that native English speakers were significantly more likely to prefer using rise, went off, brush up on, put out, give in, turn down, run into, boast, remove, and come in than native Arabic speakers. Native Arabic speakers, in turn, were significantly more likely to prefer get up, improve, exploded, surrender, refuse, meet, show off, take away, and enter than native English speakers