An annotated Spanish corpus for Corpus-based CALL in professional contexts

María Sánchez-Tornel

Pascual Pérez-Paredes

José M. Alcaraz Calero

Authenticating Language Learning: Web Collaboration Meets Pedagogic Corpora February 17-19, 2011. University of Tübingen

OUTLINE:

1. Corpora in FLT• Background• Our proposal

2. The Backbone project

3. The Spanish subcorpus• Features• Our approach• Corpus compilation• Pedagogic enrichment• Corpus exploitation

4. Conclusion

1. Corpora in FLT

Background

1. Scant scholarly attention

Tertiary education Non-tertiary education0

102030405060708090

10067

9

Number of empirical studies (1991-2010)

CONTEXT

Source: Boulton (2010)

CAUTION!

2. Different contexts different students with different objectives, abilities and needs

Advanced corpus users

Research purposes

Translation

L2 learning at university

Novice corpus users

L2 learning at high school

CLIL

Novice corpus users

L2 learning at high school

CLIL

CLIL – Content and Language Integrated Learning

CLIL

Using the

language to learn

Learning to use

the languag

e

Coyle (2007)

CLIL – Content and Language Integrated Learning

Eurydice (2006:51)

OBSTACLES

Legislation

Qualified staff

Financial restrictions

Materials

Content

Language

Our proposal

1. Scant attention2. Learners’ profile

3. CLIL obstacles (materials)

PEDAGOGIC

CORPORA

Why pedagogical?

Large, general corpora

Novice users

Photo: Kordite, Flickr

Homogeneous and systematic

Thematic relevance

Recontextualisation Authentication

Easy to use query tools and search optionsBraun (2006)

Past initiatives

ELISA

English Language Interview Corpus as a Second-Language Application

• 2003 – 2004

• 25 video interviews in English

•5-15 minutes per interview

• 60.000 words

• Search interface

• Learning materials

• 2005 – 2008

• Video interviews in 7 EU languages - Teen talk

• Corpus compilation and exploitation tools

• Learning materials

• Corpora + tools freely available

2. The project

Lesser taught languages

DIY approach – small spoken corpora

Non-standard regional varieties

Non-native varieties of ELF

CLIL settings: vocational training, secondary education, university.BLENDED LEARNING PRINCIPLES

Learner centeredness

Relevant topics

Connection to CEF progression

ICT implementation

Free online corpora + materials

Moodle integration

Language authentication

Small homogeneous

corpora

Pedagogically relevant topics

MultimodalityFull texts – sections –

concordances

Data-driven learning but…

… pedagogically selected,

annotated and enriched data

3. The Spanish subcorpus

Features

Size

25 interviews 53000 words

300 minutes of video recordings

Speakers from 9 different provinces

Regional varieties

Northern and southern accents

Cultural issues

Topics

Science and research

The environment

World of work Social issues

Economic issues

Healthcare and social security

Government and Politics

EducationUrban and rural life

Our approach

COLLABORATIVEANNOTATION

TRANSCRIPTION

MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

Corpus compilation

Speaker selection

Age range: 18 - 83

9 provinces

Diverse professional fields

doctor

teacher

archaeologist

sportswoman

ex-lawyer

confectioner

bio-farmertop researcher entrepreneur

Transcription

Orthographic

TEI-compliant markup

<trunc> </trunc>

<unclear> </unclear>

<break/>

<foreign> </foreign><alternative> </alternative>

Backbone Transcriptor

Transcribing and sectioning

Supports metadata information

Video formats: DIVX, XVID,AVI,MPEG, Quick Time, RM,

Audio formats: MP3, WAV, ASF 

Timestamping audio-text

Pedagogic enrichment

Step 1: Annotation

Photo: J_O_I_D

Pedagogic annotation

Unit-bound not

text-bound

Pérez-Paredes (2010)

Pedagogic annotation

Teacher-driven &

Learner-oriented

Pérez-Paredes (2010)

Pedagogic annotation

Backbone Annotator

TEI-compliant XML

Drag & drop

Edit options in XML

Manages several corpora

Integrated with Transcriptor and Search Tool

Backbone annotator

Corpus Management

Tool

Collaborative

annotation

Corpus Management Tool

CMT

Annotator 1Bob

Annotator 2 David

Annotator 3

Helen

Annotator 4 Hugh

Annotator 5

Jane

Sánchez-Tornel et al. (Forthcoming)

CORPORA OUTPUT

Backbone Search

Tool

Step 2: Materials development

Photo: the waving cat

Thematic relevance

Two types of materials:- Learning modules

- Corpus-based communicative and exploratory activities

The Virtual Resource Pool

Integration in Search Tool

Learning modules

19 modules – 107 activities

Telos Language Partner

1 section – 1 module – several activities

Comprehension & focus on form

Sample module: Science and society

Learning modules

Comprehension activities

Learning modules

Multiple choice: comprehension

Learning modules

Fill in the gaps

Learning modules

Multiple choice: vocabulary

Learning modules

Matching: idiomatic expressions

Learning modules

Production: word order

Learning modules

Exploratory and communicative activities

10 packages – 93 activities

Corpus exploration:- lexis-grammar

- communication

Lexi

s an

d gr

amm

ar

Com

mun

icati

on

Online integration of learning materials

Learning modules and C&E packages linked to interview sections

The Virtual Resource Pool

The Virtual Resource Pool

Corpus exploitation

The learning space

Access to corpora + learning materials

Four search modes: - Browse

- Section search- Concordances- Co-ocurrences

Wordlists

The Search Tool

The browse mode

The section search mode

The section search mode

The co-occurrences search mode

The concordances search mode

The word lists view

Moodle integration

4. Conclusion

Previously on...

Scant scholarly attention in non-tertiary education settings

CL methods and tools

Pedagogic mediation!

Where we are now…

From the possibilities scenario

the feasibility scenario

Corpora can be exploited in the

language classroom in different ways

FLT

Language research-oriented

paradigm

CL Methods Sampling

RepresentativenessMorphological

tagging

The possibilities scenario

Alcaraz & Pérez-Paredes (2008)

Corpora are devised to be exploited in the language

classroom by language learners in different ways FLT

Language learning-oriented

paradigm

Mediation roleTheory-informed taggingParametric framework-

awareLearner-oriented tagging

Representative of the world of the learner

The feasibility scenario

Alcaraz & Pérez-Paredes (2008)

References• Alcaraz, J.M. & Pérez-Paredes, P. (2008). What do annotators annotate? An analysis of language teachers' corpus pedagogical annotation. In A. Frankenburg-Garcia (Ed) Proceedings of the 8th Teaching and Language Corpora Conference. Lisbon, Portugal: Associação de Estudos e de Investigação Cientifíca do ISLA-Lisboa, (p. 27-37).

• Boulton, A. (2010). Learning outcomes from corpus consultation. In M. Moreno Jaén, F. Serrano Valverde & M. Calzada Pérez (Eds), Exploring New Paths in Language Pedagogy: Lexis and corpus-based language teaching. London: Equinox. Expanded web supplement available at http://arche.univ-nancy2.fr/file.php/967/DDL_empirical_list.pdf

• Braun, S. (2006). ELISA – a pedagogically enriched corpus for language learning purposes. In S. Braun, K. Kohn & J. Mukherjee (Eds.), Corpus Technology and Language Pedagogy. New Resources, New Tools, New Methods (pp. 25-47). Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang.

• Coyle, D. (2007). Content and Language Integrated Learning: Towards a connected research agenda for CLIL pedagogies. The international journal of bilingual education and bilingualism 10(5), 543-562

• Eurydice Report. (2006). Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at School in Europe. Retrieved February 2011 from http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/eurydice/ressources/eurydice/pdf/0_integral/071EN.pdf

• Pérez-Paredes, P. (2010). Appropriation and integration issues in corpus methods and mainstream language education. In T. Harris & C. Pérez Basanta (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics and Language Teaching. Linguistic Insights Series. Berlin: Peter Lang

• Sánchez-Tornel, M., Alcaraz Calero, J.M. & Pérez-Paredes , P. (in press). Collaborative annotation in implementing corpora for content and language integrated learning web services. Proceedings of the 2009 Eurocall Conference: New trends in CALL – Working together. Madrid: Macmillan ELT

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. BACKBONE 143502-2008-LLP-DE-KA2-KA2MP

María Sánchez-Tornel gratefully acknowledges the support provided by the University of Murcia under its PhD Scholarships Programme (R.-549/2009).

María Sánchez-Tornelmstornel@um.es

Pascual Pérez-Paredespascualf@um.es

José M. Alcaraz Calerojmalcaraz@um.es

Authenticating Language Learning: Web Collaboration Meets Pedagogic Corpora February 17-19, 2011. University of Tübingen

Thank you!

www.um.es/backbone

http://u-002-segsv001.uni-tuebingen.de/backbone/moodle/