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摘要：This paper reports on the development of a prototype tool which shows how learners can be helped to reflect upon the accuracy of their writing. Analysis of samples of freely written texts by intermediate and advanced learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) showed evidence of weakness in the use of tense and aspect. Computational discourse modelling techniques were applied to the data to generate semantic models of fragments of the narratives with particular focus on their temporal structure. These models have been converted into dynamic graphical representations of the temporal relationships between discourse events as the narratives are written. The system also provides access to the ontology devised to model individual events and this offers learners insights into the events' semantic properties. These techniques provide the basis for a stimulating learning tool capable of capturing key elements of written narratives, and prompting learners' awareness of language use, particularly tense and aspect. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper explores the motivation and prerequisites for successful integration of Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) tools into current foreign language teaching and learning (FLTL) practice. We focus on two aspects, which we argue to be important for effective ICALL system development and use: (i) the relationship between activity design and restrictions needed to make natural language processing tractable and reliable, and (ii) pedagogical considerations and the influence of activity design choices on the integration of ICALL systems into FLTL practice. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The authors present a model of lexical proficiency based on lexical indices related to vocabulary size, depth of lexical knowledge, and accessibility to core lexical items. The lexical indices used in this study come from the computational tool Coh-Metrix and include word length scores, lexical diversity values, word frequency counts, hypernymy values, polysemy values, semantic co-referentiality, word meaningfulness, word concreteness, word imagability, and word familiarity. Human raters evaluated a corpus of 240 written texts using a standardized rubric of lexical proficiency. To ensure a variety of text levels, the corpus comprised 60 texts each from beginning, intermediate, and advanced second language (L2) adult English learners. The L2 texts were collected longitudinally from 10 English learners. In addition, 60 texts from native English speakers were collected. The holistic scores from the trained human raters were then correlated to a variety of lexical indices. The researchers found that lexical diversity, word hypernymy values and content word frequency explain 44% of the variance of the human evaluations of lexical proficiency in the examined writing samples. The findings represent an important step in the development of a model of lexical proficiency that incorporates both vocabulary size and depth of lexical knowledge features. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Ltd., copyright holder.]

摘要：We begin by considering how the recent phenomenon of English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF) fits in with the older notion of lingua francas in general as well as with older versions of ELF. We then explore the beginnings of ELF in its modern manifestation, including the earliest ELF research, and tackle the thorny issue of defining ELF. After discussing the main locations and domains in which ELF research has been carried out to date, we move on to examining research into three linguistic levels, lexicogrammar, phonology and pragmatics, concluding with a discussion of very recent findings revealing ELF'S linguistic fluidity. Next, we discuss research into two domains where ELF has proved especially prevalent: business English and academic English. This is followed by a consideration of ELF as a globalized and globalizing practice. We end the article by exploring the implications of ELF research for ELF-oriented English teaching and the role that attitudes are likely to play in this. We conclude that while the relaxed attitudes towards ELF of younger people are promising, strong resistance is still felt by many others, and that the major challenge remains in convincing the examination boards that they should take account of ELF. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The concept of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has recently caused a great deal of controversy, much of it based on a misunderstanding of ELF. In this presentation, I shall first provide a brief history of lingua francas and then compare and contrast two major Asian lingua francas -- Bahasa Indonesia and Putonghua -- in order to show how different their developmental paths have been. The presentation will then consider the current role that English is playing as a lingua franca, with a particular focus on its role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia. Examples of linguistic features of English as a lingua franca in Asia will be provided. These will be contrasted with linguistic features of vernacular varieties of English, varieties of world English and European ELF. Finally, possible implications of ELF in English language teaching, and the 'multilingual model' will be proposed. Suggestions on ways in which English/regional lingua francas and local languages might work together as languages of education will conclude the presentation. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study investigates the use of this and these as pronouns versus determiners in a corpus of research articles in Applied Linguistics and Materials and Civil Engineering. The study reveals that authors in the two disciplines use both structures in a similar manner, with pronominal uses constituting one-fifth of all occurrences. Five types of nouns were found to follow this/these as determiners: concrete, deictic, shell ([Hunston and Francis, 2000] and [Schmid, 2000]), adverbial head, and other abstract nouns. Shell nouns constituted over 40% of all nouns following this/these as determiners. The functions of shell nouns and their high frequency of occurrence lead to the conclusion that this/these + shell noun is a frequently used cohesive structure in academic research articles. The knowledge gained by this study can increase awareness of these demonstrative structures in composition instructors and L2 writers, leading to clearer, more cohesive texts. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：This paper presents an analysis of the introductory sections of a corpus of 20 doctoral theses on computing written in Spanish and in English. Our aim was to ascertain whether the theses, produced within the same scientific-technological area but by authors from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, employed the same rhetorical strategies to introduce the work presented. The analysis follows the Swalesian approach and is based on a move/step/sub-step model proposed for PhD introductions in Spanish (Carbonell-Olivares, Gil-Salom, & Soler-Monreal, 2009). The Spanish academic conventions appear to be that move 1 (M1-Establishing the Territory) and move 3 (M3-Occupying the Niche) are obligatory moves in PhD thesis introductions in Spanish, while move 2 (M2-Establishing the Niche) is optional. The structure of English thesis introductions reveals that they conform more closely to the M1-M2-M3 arrangement. Moreover, combinations of moves and patterns, cyclicity and embedding make their organisation more complex. The step analysis suggests that introductions in both languages rely mainly on the presentation of background information and the work carried out. However, the English introductions tend to stress the writer's own work, its originality and its contribution to the field of study. They also present more embedding and overlapping of steps and sub-steps than the Spanish texts. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

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摘要：This study investigated the effectiveness of an intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL) program on Turkish learners' vocabulary learning. Within the scope of this research, an ICALL application with a morphological analyser (Your Verbal Zone, YVZ) was developed and used in an English language preparatory class to measure its effects on students' achievement in vocabulary acquisition as well as their attitudes towards such an ICALL environment. The study employed a pre-test-post-test control group design. The sample consisted of 42 low intermediate learners who were assigned to experimental and control groups. The independent samples t test was used to study the differences in continuous variables between the experiment and the control groups. The improvement in the vocabulary knowledge of the participants was measured as to two different aspects, i.e. morphological knowledge and the knowledge of words' definitions and usage. The results indicate that reading activities with YVZ have proved to have positive effects on both learners' vocabulary learning and their attitudes towards the use of an intelligent computer-assisted language learning application in the classroom. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Intelligent language tutoring systems (ILTS) typically analyze learner input to diagnose learner language properties and provide individualized feedback. Despite a long history of ILTS research, such systems are virtually absent from real-life foreign language teaching (FLT). Taking a step toward more closely linking ILTS research to real-life FLT, in this article we investigate the connection between FLT activity design and the system architecture of an ILT system. We argue that a demand-driven, annotation-based natural language processing (NLP) architecture is well-suited to handle the demands posed by the heterogeneous learner input which results when supporting a wider range of FLT activity types. We illustrate how the unstructured information management architecture (UIMA) can be used in an ILTS, thereby connecting the specific needs of activities in foreign language teaching to the current research and development of NLP architectures in general. Making the conceptual issues concrete, we discuss the design and realization of a UIMA-based reimplementation of the NLP in the TAGARELA system, an intelligent web-based tutoring system supporting the teaching and learning of Portuguese. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The development of adequate collocational knowledge is important for foreign language learners; nonetheless, learners often have difficulties in producing proper collocations in the target language. Among the various ways of learning collocations, the DDL (data-driven learning) approach encourages independent learning of collocations and allows learners to directly use corpora and tools to search for proper collocations. Concordancers have been one of the key tools in the DDL approach. However, based on the findings of empirical studies, many existing web concordancers have not been very helpful in retrieving collocations. To help EFL students and teachers quickly locate proper collocates, this article introduces a web-based collocation retrieval tool, WebCollocate, which is based on a large part of speech-tagged Gutenberg corpus. To determine if the new tool can facilitate the searching of collocations, this tool and the Hong Kong Polytechnic web concordancer were used by two groups of college EFL students to find proper collocates in a translation task. The results showed that the students who used the WebCollocate tool found more proper English collocates. In addition, a group of 35 pre-service English teachers were also invited to evaluate the effectiveness of this collocation tool. These EFL teachers indicated that they could easily find proper English collocates with the help of WebCollocate. However, they also suggested that the search options and the presentation of search outcomes of this tool can be further improved. It seems that a more dedicated collocation retrieval tool can facilitate collocation teaching and learning, but the functions of this tool can be further enhanced. The findings of this study can be useful for language teachers, researchers, and developers of corpus-based tools. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Within a European project on Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research (NIFLAR), Second Life was used as a 3D virtual world in which language students can communicate synchronously with native speakers in the target language, while undertaking action together. For this context, a set of design principles for interaction tasks was developed aiming at maximizing authentic social interaction and intercultural awareness, while exploiting the specific affordances of the virtual environment being used. These design principles were applied and tested in a case study in which two foreign language learners of Spanish and two pre-service teachers carried out four interaction tasks in the virtual world of Second Life. In this article we first present and discuss the framework for task development and assessment. We then show the results of the case study conducted in Second Life which aimed at: (1) applying and assessing the design principles for task elaboration, (2) analyzing the kind of interaction the tasks elicited in the virtual world, (3) exploring whether the specific affordances of the virtual environment were adequately used for enhancing interaction, and (4) studying whether and how the condition anonymity versus familiarity may play a role in modeling virtual interaction. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The present study aims to conduct a comprehensive investigation of flashcard software for learning vocabulary in a second language. Nine flashcard programs were analysed using 17 criteria derived from previous studies on flashcard learning as well as paired-associate learning. Results suggest that in general, most programs have been developed in a way that maximises vocabulary learning. For instance, seven of the nine programs allow flashcard creation, offer multilingual support and allow learners to add contexts, audios or images to flashcards. Furthermore, eight programs provide various types of exercises, and nine programs support scheduling. At the same time, the present study has also shown that existing flashcard programs have some room for improvement. More specifically, most programs are limited in their ability to support data entry, increase retrieval effort and promote generative use of target words. When individual programs are compared, iKnow! seems to be the best program among those investigated. It offers the most comprehensive support for data entry, automatically generates distractors for multiple-choice exercises and increases retrieval effort by systematically introducing various types of exercises. The variations among the programs in their design suggest that there do not exist commonly accepted guidelines for how flashcard software should be designed. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study examines (1) the effects of hypertext gloss use on L2 vocabulary acquisition in computerized reading contexts; (2) which specific combination of either text-only (single) or text+visual (multiple) hypertext glosses is more effective on L2 vocabulary acquisition; and (3) potential moderators to systematically account for between study variation. In addition, it aims to synthesize characteristics of studies, technology use, and research methods from empirical research studies for a comprehensible and insightful review of the effect of hypertext glosses on L2 vocabulary acquisition. Meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize overall findings of empirical studies by calculating a standardized mean difference effect size. On the basis of 35 weighted mean effect sizes, the magnitude of text+visual (multiple) hypertext gloss combination was moderately effective on L2 vocabulary acquisition when L2 learners were given two conditions: text-only and text+visual hypertext glosses. The results revealed that studies with large samples (Mes=0.43) provided a bigger effect size. In addition, the variable of learner proficiency was found statistically significant: the impact of multiple hypertext glosses was likely more on L2 vocabulary acquisition of beginning learners. Test type formats were also found as a significant factor across the studies. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Texts are routinely simplified to make them more comprehensible for second language learners. However, the effects of simplification upon the linguistic features of texts remain largely unexplored. Here we examine the effects of one type of text simplification: intuitive text simplification. We use the computational tool, Coh-Metrix, to examine linguistic differences between proficiency levels of a corpus of 300 news texts that had been simplified to three levels of simplification (beginner, intermediate, advanced). The main analysis reveals significant differences between levels for a wide range of linguistic features, particularly between beginner and advanced levels. The results show that lower level texts are generally less lexically and syntactically sophisticated than higher-level texts. The analysis also reveals that lower level texts contain more cohesive features than higher-level texts. The analysis also provides strong evidence that these linguistic features can be used to classify levels of simplified reading texts. Overall, the findings support the notion that intuitively simplified texts at the beginning level contain more linguistic features related to comprehensible input than intuitively simplified texts at the advanced level. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

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