using the sketch engine for second language learning: an experiment

Using the Sketch Engine for second language

learning: an experiment

Simon Smith & Alice Chen

ssmith@mcu.edu.tw | mralice@scu.edu.tw

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 Taiwan’s National Science Council (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 and

collocation of words (demo now, party? save?)

Word Sketch example: note collocation AND colligation

Concordance example

Collocation in language learning

Language learners find it difficult to distinguish between (near) synonyms

strong powerful, but– *powerful tea– *strong car

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

– explore grammatical relations: colligation patterns – 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

Attempted to recruit current university students– Need incentives budget– Need teachers committed to project– Could assess progress in class

Used volunteers from two discussion boards– Limited number– 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 ]

Average correct answers by question type

15

15.5

16

16.5

17

17.5

collocationquestions (SD

3.88)

broader contextquestions (SD

4.59)

all questions (SD4.08)

aver

age

times

ans

wer

ed c

orre

ctly

(out

of 2

3pa

rtici

pant

s)

Pre-test results

Number of informants Number of questions

2316

Highest scoreLowest score

157

Mean scoreStandard deviation

11.307.39

Post-test Questions about using SkE

– How often– Did they like it?– …

16 collocation questions– Some same word choices as pre-test (different sentences)– Others different

Problem: only 2 post-tests returned Cannot draw any conclusions

– Both commented that SkE had helped

Future project, next semester Will teach two very similar English classes

– same major, same motivation, same class size 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

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