Design of a Learner Corpus for Listening and Speaking Performance

A learner corpus is a useful resource for developing automatic assessment techniques for implementation in a computer-assisted language learning system. However, presently, learner corpora are only helpful in terms of evaluating the accuracy of learner output (speaking and writing). Therefore, the present study proposes a learner corpus annotated with evaluation results regarding the accuracy and fluency of performance in speaking (output) and listening (input).

シャカイジン ニオケル ドウイツセイ チイ ト シンリテキ ストレス ハンノウ トノ カンレン

The purpose of the present study is to examine a status distribution of the working people and to clarify the relationship of psychological stress response with life style， the type and position of occupation and developmental state of ego-identity The subjects are 347 working people such as salesclrk， office worker， the teaching staff of school and researching staff of the company. The iterns of the questionnaire are age，sex，educational qualification，life style both in child hood and in the present. We also used identity-achievement scale and PSRS(psychological stress response scale) by Niimi et.al. (1990). From the result obtained by identity-achievement scale， subjects were categoliged the following 6 groups: Identity Achievement Status(IAS)， Identity Achievement-Forclosure Intermadiate status(AF)， Identity Foreclosure Status(FS)， Moratorium Status(MS)， Identity Diffusion-Moratorium status(DM) and Identitity Diffusion Status(DS). The main results are as follows:(1) DM represented about 45％ in 20-30 age group and 39％ in 31-40 age group. (2) DS that may related with the apathetic symdrome， was about 8％ in the two age groups. (3) The level of psychological stress response was related significantly with the type of occupation and its position， and identity status. The mean value of psychological stress response was highest on IDS. (4) There was no significant correlation between life style in child hood(about 10 years old) and the level of psychological stress level， although in our previous studies with students of junior high school and university， the correlation between the two parameters was significant

Prediction of General ESL Proficiency Considering Learners’ Dictation Performance

This study analyzes the extent to which dictation performance and linguistic features (linguistic difficulty of sentences during dictation) can predict general proficiency in English as a second language (ESL) learners. To this end, this study constructed a multiple linear and a non-linear regression models that predict general ESL proficiency (in which independent variables were the dictation performance scores and the linguistic features of sentences) and verified the correlation between the predicted and observed general ESL proficiencies. The results showed that general ESL proficiency could be predicted by dictation performance and linguistic features. Furthermore, the results indicated significant effects on dictation accuracy, sentence length, and mean word length

A Corpus of Writing, Pronunciation, Reading, and Listening by Learners of English as a Foreign Language

In order to develop effective teaching methods and computer-assisted language teaching systems for learners of English as a foreign language who need to study the basic linguistic competences for writing, pronunciation, reading, and listening, it is necessary to first investigate which vocabulary and grammar they have or have not yet learned. Identifying such vocabulary and grammar requires a learner corpus for analyzing the accuracy and fluency of learners’ linguistic competences. However, it is difficult to use previous learner corpora for this purpose because they have not compiled all the types of linguistic data that we need. Therefore, this study aimed to solve this problem by designing and developing a new learner corpus that compiles linguistic data regarding the accuracy and fluency of the four basic linguistic competences of writing, pronunciation, reading, and listening. The reliability and validity of the learner corpus were partially confirmed, and practical application of the learner corpus is reported here as case studies

A Listenability Measuring Method for an Adaptive Computer-assisted Language Learning and Teaching System

In teaching and learning of English as a foreign language, the Internet serves as a source of authentic listening material, enabling learners to practice English in real contexts. An adaptive computer-assisted language learning and teaching system can pick up news clips as authentic materials from the Internet according to learner listening proficiency if it is equipped with a listenability measuring method that takes into both linguistic features of a news clip and the listening proficiency. Therefore, we developed a method for measuring listening proficiency-based listenability. With our method, listenability is measured through multiple regression analysis using both learner and linguistic features as independent variables. Learner features account for learner listening proficiency, and linguistic features explain lexical, syntactic, and phonological complexities of sentences. A cross validation test showed that listenability measured with our method exhibited higher correlation (r = 0.57) than listenability measured with other methods using either learner features (r = 0.43) or other linguistic features (r = 0.32, r = 0.36). A comparison of our method with other methods showed a statistically significant difference (p < 0.003 after Bonferroni correction). These results suggest the effectiveness of learner and linguistic features for measuring listening proficiency-based listenability.

Automatic Classification of Language Learner Sentences into Native-like or Non-Native-like Based on Word Alignment Distribution

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