A Language Environment for Second Language Writers Ola Knutsson KTH Nada

Outline Computer Assisted Language Learning Second Language Learning Language Technology in CALL A Field Study Grim – a language environment Discussion

Why use computers in language learning? Old things with new tools? Warschauer & Healey (1998): multimodal practice with feedback individualization in a large class variety in the resources available and learning styles used exploratory learning with large amounts of language data

Basic Components in Second Language Acquisition (Gass 1997, Chapelle, 1998) Input (of target language) Apperception (noticing aspects in TL) Comprehension (+semantic -syntax) Intake (+semantic +syntax) Integration (into learners’ interlanguage) Output (L2 production)

Possibilities and Risks with Language Technology Language technology can provide relevant feedback on the user’s unconstrained speech- or writing production. False feedback can fool the user Lack of feedback can mislead the user

Point of departure Study the use of the grammar checker Granska Study the use of language technology Second Language Learners (students), in collaboration with teachers.

Why focus on errors? “The learners’ errors are a register of their current perspective of the target language” (James, 1998). “Noticing a problem ‘pushes’ the learner to modify his/her output” (Swain & Lapkin, 1995): – syntactic processing mode – important for the development of IL

Granska Is a Swedish grammar checker developed at our department. Combines statistical and rule based methods. Contains a lot of opportunities for new applications. Different user interfaces

detection diagnosis correction

Language Tools for Learners How can we support second language learners’ writing with other technology than a robust grammar checker? What functionality is important in a learning environment for second language learners of Swedish?

User studies at a Swedish University Study 1  Students: ”Swedish as a foreign language”, 7 users, argumentative texts, 2 months Study 2  Students: ”Swedish as a foreign language”, 10 users. Different kinds of text genres, 4 months.

“Use Granska whenever you want, and when you find it appropriate” Classroom observations Collecting students’ texts Collecting students’ judgments and comments on the feedback from Granska Questionnaires Interviews with students and teacher Final Workshop

Some Insights One group of students wants to learn from the program. Another group of students wants to succeed in their writing. The teacher is very important as a mediator of the program’s behavior and content.

How should we design an environment supporting learning activities? Our proposal is a program called Grim. Grim is a environment with several language tools. Grim gives feedback on different aspects of the learners’ language.

Functionality in Grim Grim includes a simple word processor. Grim gives feedback on errors by using Granska. Grim provides grammatical information by using Granska Text Analyzer. Grim has an interface for concordances in 20 million words corpus. Grim includes a dictionary with 8 language pairs.

Concluding remarks It is important to support different aspects of language learning. One robust grammar checker is not enough A ensemble of tools reduces the limitations of the individual tool

Discussion Is Grim a learning environment? Should pedagogical packages be included in the environment? Why are computer underused in language teaching? How can we study the use of Grim in naturalistic settings without promoting it?