Towards Personalised Simplification based on L2 Learners' Native Language

We present an approach to improve the selection of complex words for automatic text simplification, addressing the need of L2 learners to take into account their native language during simplification. In particular, we develop a methodology that automatically identifies ‘difficult’ terms (i.e. false friends) for L2 learners in order to simplify them. We evaluate not only the quality of the detected false friends but also the impact of this methodology on text simplification compared with a standard frequency-based approach

Teaching strategies in motivating global English learners : The Adaptive Relatability Motivation Framework

English has undoubtedly become a global language. Within the last decades, however, societies and individuals have changed, became more complex, and identities, emotions and social spaces have been dramatically affected and re-negotiated by globalisation (Heyward, 2004; Tanu, 2016). This opinion article focuses on the author’s researches and experiences in Central Asia and Eastern Europe as a teacher and lecturer. Based on her previous researches and observations the author offers a new framework that addresses students’ needs and preferences for learning Global English. According to the Adaptive Relatability Motivation Framework, learners should be provided with culturally less invasive, identitysafe and emotionally more accommodating learning environment, where they can become more engaged, autonomous and adaptive in their own learning processes. Thus, learners will be able to continually relate their needs, social spaces and motivations to the successful use of the target language. The framework’s concepts are summarized in four points that give a more pragmatic view on its use. These four points are further detailed, offering how these ideas can be implemented in an empirical fashion by educators and students

Learner Modelling for Individualised Reading in a Second Language

Extensive reading is an effective language learning technique that involves fast reading of large quantities of easy and interesting second language (L2) text. However, graded readers used by beginner learners are expensive and often dull. The alternative is text written for native speakers (authentic text), which is generally too difficult for beginners. The aim of this research is to overcome this problem by developing a computer-assisted approach that enables learners of all abilities to perform effective extensive reading using freely-available text on the web. This thesis describes the research, development and evaluation of a complex software system called FERN that combines learner modelling and iCALL with narrow reading of electronic text. The system incorporates four key components: (1) automatic glossing of difficult words in texts, (2) individualised search engine for locating interesting texts of appropriate difficulty, (3) supplementary exercises for introducing key vocabulary and reviewing difficult words and (4) reliably monitoring reading and reporting progress. FERN was optimised for English speakers learning Spanish, but is easily adapted for learners of others languages. The suitability of the FERN system was evaluated through corpus analysis, machine translation analysis and a year-long study with second year university Spanish class. The machine translation analysis combined with the classroom study demonstrated that the word and phrase error rate generated in FERN is low enough to validate the use of machine translation to automatically generate glosses, but is high enough that a translation dictionary is required as a backup. The classroom study demonstrated that when aided by glosses students can read at over 100 words per minute if they know 95% of the words, whereas compared to the 98% word knowledge required for effective unaided extensive reading. A corpus analysis demonstrated that beginner learners of Spanish can do effective narrow reading of news articles using FERN after learning only 200–300 high-frequency word families, in addition to familiarity with English-Spanish cognates and proper nouns. FERN also reliably monitors reading speeds and word counts, and provides motivating progress reports, which enable teachers to set concrete reading goals that dramatically increase the quantity that students read, as demonstrated in the user study

Modelling speaker adaptation in second language learner dialogue

Understanding how tutors and students adapt to one another within Second Language (L2) learning is an important step in the development of better automated tutoring tools for L2 conversational practice. Such an understanding can not only inform conversational agent design, but can be useful for other pedagogic applications such as formative assessment, self reflection on tutoring practice, learning analytics, and conversation modelling for personalisation and adaptation. Dialogue is a challenging domain for natural language processing, understanding, and generation. It is necessary to understand how participants adapt to their interlocutor, changing what they express and how they express it as they update their beliefs about the knowledge, preferences, and goals of the other person. While this adaptation is natural to humans, it is an open problem for dialogue systems, where managing coherence across utterances is an active area of research, even without adaptation. This thesis extends our understanding of adaptation in human dialogue, to better implement this in agent-based conversational dialogue. This is achieved through comparison to fluent conversational dialogues and across student ability levels. Specifically, we are interested in how adaptation takes place in terms of the linguistic complexity, lexical alignment and the dialogue act usage demonstrated by the speakers within the dialogue. Finally, with the end goal of an automated tutor in mind, the student alignment levels are used to compare dialogues between student and human tutor with those where the tutor is an agent. We argue that the lexical complexity, alignment and dialogue style adaptation we model in L2 human dialogue are signs of tutoring strategies in action, and hypothesise that creating agents which adapt to these aspects of dialogue will result in better environments for learning. We hypothesise that with a more adaptive agent, student alignment may increase, potentially resulting in improved engagement and learning. We find that In L2 practice dialogues, both student and tutor adapt to each other, and this adaptation depends on student ability. Tutors adapt to push students of higher ability, and to encourage students of lower ability. Complexity, dialogue act usage and alignment are used differently by speakers in L2 dialogue than within other types of conversational dialogue, and changes depending on the learner proficiency. We also find different types of learner behaviours within automated L2 tutoring dialogues to those present in human ones, using alignment to measure this. This thesis contributes new findings on interlocutor adaptation within second language practice dialogue, with an emphasis on how these can be used to improve tutoring dialogue agents

Working with online communities: translating TED Talks

This project aimed to explore how online open communities and resources could be used for language learning in a higher education context. Advanced language learners were introduced to translation and subtitling, and the use of open content to maintain their language skills post-graduation whilst engaging in a meaningful activity, namely sharing knowledge through translation in a volunteer project. Students were asked to translate the subtitles of a Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) or TEDx Talk of their choice and to review and provide feedback on two of their peers’ translations. Most students enjoyed the activity, particularly being able to choose the talk they would be translating and having access to other students and volunteers to ask questions and get support with the linguistic and technical aspects of subtitling. A small number of students found the technical aspects of the activity challenging and did not enjoy the unpredictability of working in an open community

Simplification of open educational resources in English

Open Educational Resources (OERs) aim to provide equal access to education to all. Yet, the language level used in OERs in English was found to require native speaker or advanced English language proficiency. There is a call to make these resources more comprehensible, yet, few previous studies have explored the effects of simplifying OERs for non-native English speakers (NNES). This study aims to address this gap by testing whether text simplification of OER reading materials facilitates text processing. To that end, eye-tracking stimulated recall interviews were conducted with nine NNES at lower levels of English proficiency reading authentic and linguistically simplified OERs in English. Content analysis of participants’ thought processes during each eye fixation and look-back in the texts suggested that text simplification led to a reduction in cognitive load and the increase in the usage of higher-level processing. Both findings provide some emerging evidence in support of the use of simplification when adapting OERs to the global audience of NNES. These findings are further discussed in the light of their practical applications for online teaching with OERs

Giftedness and language teaching: a case study.

La plusdotazione si è rivelata un fenomeno costantemente emergente nel corso degli ultimi anni. Tuttavia, nello scenario educativo italiano sono presenti ancora alcune lacune nella formazione del corpo docenti sulla tematica. Ciò causa incuria verso i giovani talenti, che sono pertanto portati a non sviluppare le proprie capacità e, al contrario, a percepire un senso di distacco e disconnessione dal contesto scolastico e sociale. L’obiettivo di questo studio è approfondire l’aspetto psicologico e didattico della plusdotazione, esaminando le principali teorie e strategie per l’insegnamento delle lingue straniere e, nello specifico, della lingua inglese, proponendo infine un’attività didattica personalizzata per uno studente gifted, frequentante una scuola secondaria di II grado italiana

Breaking Traditional Ways of Teaching: Communicative Second Language Teaching

This portfolio is a collection of the author’s beliefs about second languageteaching that represent the change of the author’s views about teaching. The first sectionof this portfolio contains the author’s teaching philosophy statements, which include adescription of a communicative classroom, the role of input, and brain-based research.Three artifacts support the teaching philosophy and reflect what the author had learnedduring the MSLT program. First, the language artifact is a collection of technologicalideas that can be helpful in teaching Russian to different level students. Second, theliteracy artifact is a literature review regarding benefits of authentic materials indevelopment of language skills, cultural awareness, and critical thinking. Last one, thecultural artifact provides research on declining an offer in a polite way. The last section isthe annotated bibliography which presents the main themes of this portfolio