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Using the Sketch Engine for second language learning: an experiment. Simon Smith & Alice Chen [email protected] | [email protected]. Personnel. Designers of the Sketch Engine Adam Kilgarriff, Lexical Computing, Brighton David Tugwell, Tech University, Budapest - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Using the Sketch Engine for second language
learning: an experiment
Simon Smith & Alice Chen
2
Personnel Designers of the Sketch Engine
– Adam Kilgarriff, Lexical Computing, Brighton– David Tugwell, Tech University, Budapest– Pavel Rychly, Masaryk University, Brno
Chinese implementation– Huang Chu-ren, Simon Smith and colleagues at Academia Sinica
This work– with Alice Mei-rong Chen, and previously with Cecilia Li-zhen
Lin– the generous support of the NSC (grant 95-2411-H-130-005-) is
acknowledged
Sketch Engine… is at http://www.sketchengine.co.uk is a software program which
– analyses VERY large linguistic corpora– gives short summaries of word usage
has been used for dictionary production has not yet been used extensively in language
teaching and learning is available for Chinese, English and others gives a lot of information about context 語境 and
collocation 詞語搭配 of words
Word Sketch example
Concordance example
Synonyms in language learning
Language learners find it difficult to distinguish between (near) synonyms
strong powerful, but– *powerful tea– *strong car (J R Firth, 1957)
can consult Sketch Differences
Sketch differences example
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How can students use Sketch Engine?
Read, or do homework, as normal Try to guess new words from context, as normal Before using dictionary, go to Sketch Engine
– get a word sketch (short summary) of the new word’s usage
– explore the word’s usage further, by clicking on links in the word sketch
– use Sketch Differences to compare similar words
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Experiment: How useful is the Sketch Engine for Chinese learning?
1. Select some intermediate foreign students of Chinese
2. Test their knowledge (pre-test) of collocations in Chinese
3. Ask them to use Sketch Engine regularly in their studies
4. After a period, test them again (post-test)5. Evaluate their progress
Background of participants
Used 23 volunteers from two internet discussion boards
Asked them to assess their own Chinese standard
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
1
3
5
Proficiency
12
Sample pre-test questions (4 of 16)
Collocation type questions (harder):
1. 李德朝侵入機場控制區並侵入飛機的行為造成了惡劣的 ___。 [ 結果 | 後果 ]
2. 這個小孩很聰明 , 可是不太守 _____的。 [ 規定 | 規矩 ]
Broader context questions (easier):
3. 為什麼我問你的時候，你沒有 ____我這件事？ [ 告訴 | 告知 ]
4. 上課很認真，下了課也認真，可是她的 ___一直都不太好。 [ 結果 | 成績 ]
Pre-test results
Number of Tests Graded
2316
Maximum ScoreMinimum Score
157
Mean ScoreStandard Deviation
11.307.39
Work outstanding Distribute post-test and collect results Determine improvement, if any, on
– collocation questions – broader context questions
Get feedback on extended Sketch Engine use from participants
How can CSL/ESL teachers integrate SkE into their syllabi?– currently a hot issue in ELC at MCU
Future project, next semester Will teach two very similar English classes
– PE7 in MCU’s ELC One control group
– Traditional vocab teaching One Sketch Engine user class
– Strong reliance on SkE» Teacher and students» In class, and for class prep
Compare grades on certain activities Predict that SkE class will outperform control group
through exposure to real, authentic language!
http://www.sketchengine.co.uk [email protected]
Please sign up for a free trial accountMCU has an academic license: see me for
login details! (mcu01)
