ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
EFL Students' Perceptions of Corpus-Tools as Writing References
Author: Lai, Shu-Li
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Student Attitudes,Computational Linguistics,Bilingualism,Phrase Structure,Indexes,Language Processing,Vocabulary Development,Writing Instruction,Recall (Psychology),Writing (Composition),Monolingualism,Dictionaries,Electronic Publishing,Teaching Methods,Qualitative Research,Information Sources,Introductory Courses,College Students,Chinese,Positive Attitudes,Internet,Semi Structured Interviews

A number of studies have suggested the potentials of corpus tools in vocabulary learning. However, there are still some concerns. Corpus tools might be too complicated to use; example sentences retrieved from corpus tools might be too difficult to understand; processing large number of sample sentences could be challenging and time-consuming; also, not all English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners know how to induct and deduct information from the concordance lines. So far, not much is known regarding how EFL writers actually perceive such tools as writing aids. To better understand this question, building on the same data set as the one published in 2015 (Lai &amp; Chen, 2015), this study investigated students' perceptions of corpus tools right after they applied such tools to three writing tasks. Four online corpus tools, including monolingual and bilingual concordancers and collocation retrieval systems were provided along with two online dictionaries. After tool-training sections, students performed three timed-writing tasks online in three consecutive months and received individual recall interviews after each writing task. The interviews served as the major source of data. The analysis of the qualitative interview data revealed how the students perceived (1) the corpus tools as writing references, (2) the roles of the authentic example sentences, (3) the bilingual feature of the corpus tools, (4) the presentation of the corpus results, and (5) the features of the collocation retrieval system. Overall, the 14 students greatly valued corpus tools as writing references. The data also revealed how consulting the corpus helped the students to increase their confidence in writing, particularly in terms of wording. By eliciting students' perceptions and comments right after they integrated these tools into their writing tasks, the results obtained revealed not just writer perceptions but also on-site empirical data regarding how corpus tools contribute to EFL writing. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
I'm a Useful NLP Tool--Get Me out of Here
Author: Ward, Monica
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Irish,Natural Language Processing,Computer Assisted Instruction,Student Needs,Student Centered Learning,Assistive Technology,Technology Integration,Orthographic Symbols,Pronunciation

Irish is a compulsory subject in Irish schools. However, there are several pedagogical issues with teaching and learning the language. Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is under-utilised in schools in Ireland and even more so in the case of Irish, as there are very few CALL resources for the language. This paper looks at the lessons learnt from other Natural Language Processing (NLP)/CALL projects, and tries to apply them to build Intelligent CALL (ICALL) resources for Irish. It shows that a focus on the learner needs and smart use of existing resources can produce useful NLP/CALL resources for language learners. Close collaboration between NLP specialists, CALL researchers, linguists, pedagogical specialists and learners is important in order for a project of this type to be successful. Abair is a useful text-to-speech (TTS) synthesiser for Irish that is relatively unknown outside the TTS/Irish language community. This is a pity as it is a high-quality NLP resource with potential to enhance CALL resources. This paper reports on the integration of Abair into a CALL resource for Irish orthography and pronunciation. While it was developed specifically for Irish, the system is modular in design, and could be adopted for other languages. Furthermore, the lessons learnt are applicable to other languages, not just Irish. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Practical Evaluation of a Mobile Language Learning Tool in Higher Education
Author: Kétyi, András
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Higher Education,Handheld Devices,Teaching Methods,Courseware,Second Language Learning,Language Acquisition,Language Tests,Questionnaires,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Participant Satisfaction,Gender Differences,Time on Task,Student Motivation,Business Administration Education,Usability,Achievement Gains,Technology Integration,Foreign Countries

Following on preliminary research (Kétyi, 2013), in this project we looked for a mobile language learning solution, which combines computers and mobile devices. Our main idea was to explore whether by integrating mobile devices in our language teaching practice, our students at the Budapest Business School would gain valuable additional learning time outside school and whether that would improve their language learning efficiency. The mobile language learning application that was chosen for the project was busuu (https://www.busuu.com/ enc/). The participants (N = 94, M = 20.77 years) were studying four different foreign languages (German, English, Spanish, Italian). The findings of this exploration show that busuu and other similar language learning apps are still new and unknown to the students, only one of them had used busuu before. The use of busuu was easy and simple, the app worked smoothly on the students' devices; during the study, the experimental group increased their performance (+2.2%) according to the language test results while the control group decreased it (-3.1%) and the difference at the post measurement is statistically significant (p = 0.013). An analysis of the results across gender showed that the female students performed at the post measurement significantly better than the male students (p = 0.032), and according to the students' opinions, busuu provides limited help concerning the language skills. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Set Super-Chicken to 3! Student and Teacher Perceptions of Spaceteam ESL
Author: Cardoso, Walcir
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Educational Games,Video Games,Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Technology Uses in Education,Student Attitudes,Teacher Attitudes,English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,Teaching Methods,Oral Language,Language Proficiency,College Students,Foreign Countries,Asians,Surveys,Likert Scales

Digital gaming in education is an area that has been rapidly expanding in popularity and is gradually being applied to second language (L2) contexts (Godwin-Jones, 2014). Mobile gaming in particular offers the benefits of digital gaming while also offering the portability and accessibility of mobile devices (Ogata &amp; Yana, 2003; Stockwell, 2010). This pilot study examines student and teacher perceptions of a mobile team-building game entitled Spaceteam ESL. Although not created as an educational game, Spaceteam ESL allows students to interact in the target L2 (English) while providing a comfortable and enjoyable environment to practice the language. We hypothesize that its regular use may contribute to the development of oral fluency in the target language, as it engages learners in an activity that encourages them to reuse the language that they already know in an automatized (fast) but comprehensible manner. In general, our analyses indicate that users and their instructor perceive Spaceteam ESL positively, as a fun and effective way to practice English. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Training ELF Teachers to Create a Blended Learning Environment: Encouraging CMS Adoption and Implementation
Author: Cote, Travis
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Blended Learning,Technology Uses in Education,Electronic Learning,Educational Technology,Technology Integration,English (Second Language),Foreign Countries,Official Languages,Computer Software,College Faculty,Questionnaires,Integrated Learning Systems,Correlation,Hypothesis Testing

E-learning has become a crucial component of most tertiary institution's education initiatives (Park, Lee, &amp; Cheong, 2007) and core to most e-learning strategies is the institution's Content Management System (CMS). A CMS has the potential to enhance language courses by facilitating engagement with class content, providing students with opportunities to communicate, promoting student confidence during virtual interactions, fostering deeper connections between teachers and peers, and creating more personalized learning activities. However, getting faculty to use a CMS proves to be challenging (Black et al., 2007). As part of a study by the authors to learn how they might encourage teachers in a campus-wide English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) program to adopt a CMS, this paper reports on results from a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) analysis (Alharbi &amp; Drew, 2014). [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Exploring Collaborative Writing in Wikis: A Genre-Based Approach
Author: Coccetta, Francesca
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Collaborative Writing,Web 2.0 Technologies,Electronic Publishing,Writing Assignments,Hypermedia,College Freshmen,Communicative Competence (Languages),Teaching Methods,Online Courses,Electronic Learning,Foreign Countries

While CALL research into collaborative writing in the L2 using wikis has mainly focused on the texts written by learners in terms of their grammatical accuracy (e.g. Mak &amp; Coniam, 2008; Lee, 2010), the purpose of the present study is to draw attention to these texts as instances of a given genre. It reports on a small-scale experiment investigating a collaborative writing assignment using wikis focusing on the narrative genre. Specifically, it explores the extent to which first-year students in the Degree Course in Linguistic and Cultural Mediation at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Italy) used wikis to include hypermedia objects such as audios, videos, images and hyperlinks when engaging with this genre online. The study draws on Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday &amp; Matthiessen, 2004) theory and its extensive research into genre analysis, in particular Hasan's (1984) Generic Structure Potential (henceforth, GSP) and its application to nursery tales. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
VISP 2.0: Methodological Considerations for the Design and Implementation of an Audiodescription Based App to Improve Oral Skills
Author: Ibáñez Moreno, Ana
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Oral Language,Skill Development,Outcomes of Education,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Guidelines,Teaching Methods,Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Audio Equipment,Video Technology,Computer Software,Questionnaires,Tourism,Hospitality Occupations,Student Attitudes,Foreign Countries,College Students

In this paper the methodological steps taken in the conception of a new mobile application (app) are introduced. This app, called VISP (Videos for Speaking), is easily accessible and manageable, and is aimed at helping students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to improve their idiomaticity in their oral production. In order to do so, the app invites the user to make the Audio-Description (AD) of a clip, as part of a communicative task. This paper gives an account of the processes followed after creating and testing VISP, until arriving at the conception of its second version, VISP 2.0. This was accomplished by carrying out several empirical tests to evaluate the app and the learning outcomes it contributes to achieve. The data obtained to date have led to the proposal of some pedagogical guidelines that can be applied to a Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) app in order to make it enjoyable and, above all, effective. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Implementing an Online Vocabulary Training Program
Author: Robertson, Charles E.
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Vocabulary Development,Program Implementation,Online Courses,Courseware,Second Language Programs,Handheld Devices,Teaching Experience,Usability,Training Methods,Multimedia Materials

Although vocabulary acquisition research has shed much light on practical methods for increasing lexical knowledge (Nation, 1994), many foreign language teachers hesitate to implement focused vocabulary-training programs in their classrooms. The reasons most often cited for this hesitation are associated with the difficult tasks of creating, managing and disseminating vocabulary sets. Luckily, an online-based solution has emerged, i.e. Quizlet® (https://quizlet.com/). Quizlet® is a free online flashcard program that supports various vocabulary training approaches. Originally created by a high school student as a means to learn French vocabulary items, Quizlet® has grown to become the most popular online flashcard system in the world with over 20 million registered users. Moreover, Quizlet® continues to add functionality to the website and its excellent mobile applications. According to quantcast.com, more than 20 percent of Quizlet® page views originate from mobile device browsers. Of particular interest to foreign language instructors is Quizlet®'s capability to support vocabulary terms in multiple languages (through its audio and auto-define functions) and create class and individual student progress reports. The author has successfully integrated Quizlet® into a variety of university-level English courses in Japan and hopes to introduce this powerful teaching and learning resource to other foreign language instructors. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
How Can We Use Corpus Wordlists for Language Learning? Interfaces between Computer Corpora and Expert Intervention
Author: Chen, Yu-Hua
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Word Lists,Second Language Learning,Computational Linguistics,Phrase Structure,Second Language Instruction,Word Frequency,Computer Assisted Instruction,Vocabulary Development,Computer Software,Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Academic Discourse,Teaching Methods

With the advances in technology, wordlists retrieved from computer corpora have become increasingly popular in recent years. The lexical items in those wordlists are usually selected, according to a set of robust frequency and dispersion criteria, from large corpora of authentic and naturally occurring language. Corpus wordlists are of great value for language learning because words occurring with high frequency are very likely to be encountered in real life. Very little, however, has been reported regarding the applications of corpus wordlists in a Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) context. A vocabulary-building app, ColliCrush, is currently being developed on the basis of the Academic Collocation List (Ackermann &amp; Chen, 2013), which consists of 2,468 of the most frequent and pedagogically relevant entries extracted from a 25-million-word academic corpus. Collocation is one of the areas that pose great challenges for second language learners, even at advanced levels. Explicit learning through Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) would therefore contribute to the acquisition of collocation competence outside of the classroom. In this paper, the rationale and design of this project will be described. Future direction for further development will also be discussed. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Is Mobile-Assisted Language Learning Really Useful? An Examination of Recall Automatization and Learner Autonomy
Author: Sato, Takeshi
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Computer Assisted Instruction,Technology Uses in Education,Second Language Learning,English (Second Language),Personal Autonomy,Educational Technology,Hypothesis Testing,Undergraduate Students,Foreign Countries,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Vocabulary Development,Conventional Instruction,Memorization,Questionnaires,Essays

The aim of this study is to examine the advantages of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL), especially vocabulary learning of English as a foreign or second language (L2) in terms of the two strands: automatization and learner autonomy. Previous studies articulate that technology-enhanced L2 learning could bring about some positive effects. The use of technological functions in a mobile device, for example, might activate learning processes, resulting in the easier recall of the target vocabulary. In addition to this, mobile-assisted L2 learning could also facilitate learners' agency or autonomous learning in that successful MALL should rely largely on the agency (Pachler, Bachmair, &amp; Cook, 2010) as an autonomous learner. While engaging in L2 learning with mobile devices, L2 learners should be expected to be autonomous agents not only by receiving knowledge and messages from peers and teachers but also by responding to them. These processes differ from those such as passively listening to the teacher and receiving knowledge from the teacher. From this standpoint, empirical and questionnaire studies are conducted to verify that MALL could enhance the recall of the target phrases for L2 writing and also learners' autonomy, in comparison with paper-based vocabulary learning. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Future Language Teachers Learning to Become CALL Designers--Methodological Perspectives in Studying Complexity
Author: Keisanen, Tiina
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Second Language Instruction,Instructional Design,Research Methodology,Teacher Education Curriculum,Preservice Teacher Education,Difficulty Level,Expertise,Comparative Analysis,Educational Practices,Teaching Methods,Computer Assisted Instruction

Language teachers of the future, our current students, live in an increasingly technology-rich world. However, language students do not necessarily see their own digital practices as having relevance for guiding language learning. Research in the fields of CALL and language education more generally indicates that teaching practices change slowly and the integration of technologies into pedagogic practices needs to be developed. This sets challenges for language teacher education: we should be able to educate language teaching professionals who are agile (but responsible) in adapting their pedagogic practices in response to the changes in society. To meet this challenge, we have been developing an approach for university language students to strengthen their expertise in designing theoretically informed CALL pedagogies. However, these attempts have not been fully successful as the development of pedagogic expertise involves a complex rhizome of factors and issues reaching from the participants' early language histories to current practices in the field. In order to shed light on this complexity, three different research approaches are compared for their suitability to explore developing pedagogic expertise, i.e. nexus analysis, conversation analysis and multimodal (inter)action analysis. The analysis focuses on multiple data from the university course, used as a case example. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
The Effects of Video SCMC on English Proficiency, Speaking Performance and Willingness to Communicate
Author: Iino, Atsushi
Date: 2015-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Videoconferencing,Computer Mediated Communication,Synchronous Communication,Second Language Instruction,Foreign Countries,English (Second Language),Language Proficiency,Technology Uses in Education,Pretests Posttests,Language Fluency,College Students,Role Playing,Second Language Learning,Language Tests

This paper introduces a case course with videoconferencing as a way of Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (SCMC) for foreign language education in Japan. Research questions were to see the effects of videoconferencing on the learners' speaking ability and general English language proficiency, and also to see how the learners' international posture changed over time. Eight pairs of Japanese university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners experienced two semesters of 9-10 videoconferencing sessions per semester with an English teacher living in the Philippines. The task for the pairs was to discuss a social issue together with the teacher once a week. Their goal was to exchange mutual ideas on the designated topic. To lower the anxiety of speaking English as well as to practice discussion with fellow Japanese students, there was a 90-minute preparation period prior to each videoconferencing session. Pre-tests and post-tests results showed significant improvement in fluency, particularly in the amount of speech, and complexity of their speaking abilities. The learners also demonstrated progress in English proficiency. Their international posture stayed at a high level, but did not change much. However, their increased interest in working or participating in volunteer activities overseas was observed. The results indicated that the instruction based on videoconferencing helped improve learners' language and their global mind as a part of international posture. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]
Reference Framework for Active Learning in Higher Education
Author: Naithani, Pranav
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Higher Education,Active Learning,Educational History,Curriculum Implementation,Performance Factors,Best Practices,Problem Based Learning,Definitions,Lecture Method,Teacher Student Relationship,Cooperative Learning,Assignments,Multiple Intelligences

The work presented in this paper traces the history of active learning and further utilizes the available literature to define the meaning and importance of active learning in higher education. The study highlights common practical problems faced by students and instructors in implementing active learning in higher education and further identifies a set of individual practices being used worldwide to overcome the obstacles. The expectations and responsibilities of students and instructors are also specified to enhance the efficiency of active learning environment. The paper also traces the importance of student and instructor rapport for a successful learning environment.
Foreign Higher Education Institutes in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries
Author: Naithani, Pranav
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Higher Education,International Schools,Universities,Educational Quality,Quality Assurance,Private Colleges,Barriers,Educational Assessment,Educational Development,Foreign Students,Foreign Workers,Teacher Salaries,Educational Research

Gulf cooperation council (GCC) countries are witnessing an exponential growth in new foreign higher education institutions on account of government policies which promote setting up of local campuses of renowned foreign universities. But GCC countries have not been able to adequately address key quality related issues in higher education domain resulting into poor participation of local workforce in the private sector. This paper presents key issues in private higher education in GCC countries which need to be addressed on a priority basis by the local governments to help improve the quality of higher education.