Latviešu valodas apguvēju korpusa (LaVA) izmantošana pētniecībā un mācību uzdevumu izstrādē

2021 ◽  
pp. 142-161
Author(s):  
Ilze Auziņa ◽  
◽  
Kristīne Levāne-Petrova ◽  
Roberts Darģis ◽  
Kristīne Pokratniece ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Repeated Analysis ◽  
Reflexive Verbs

The Latvian Language Learners Corpus (LaVA) developed at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Latvia, includes more than 1000 texts created by foreign Latvian language learners studying at Latvian higher education institutions for the first or second semester reaching A1 (possibly A2) Latvian language proficiency level. The size of the corpus is more than 180 000 words. The morphologically annotated texts have been checked manually; the language learners' errors have been manually annotated. In addition, each text is accompanied by information about the author of the text (metadata): gender, age, native language, knowledge of other languages. When analysing the data, this information can be used to determine how the learner's mother tongue and language skills, in general, affect the acquisition of the Latvian language. Users of the corpus can analyse the data both on the LaVA website (see http://lava.korpuss.lv/search) and in the SketchEngine tool, where the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data can be performed. The quantitative approach makes it possible to find out the tendencies of the use of a word, word form, or construction and allows to determine the frequency of mistakes made by language learners. In addition, the objectivity of the research is ensured by looking at the data of language learners from different aspects and performing repeated analysis. For example, by statistically analysing the nouns used in learners' texts, it can be concluded that declension 4 nouns are most often used. The next in terms of frequency of use are declension 1, 5 and 2 nouns, while declension 3 and 6 nouns and indeclinable nouns are used very rarely. Qualitative analysis reveals certain features of morphology and word formation, including aspects of syntax, based on empirical data. It is possible to qualitatively analyse the erroneous use of nouns, verbs, or other parts of speech, trying to understand what rules determine this. For example, consider using non-reflexive verbs instead of reflexive verbs, using infinitives instead of finite forms (person forms), using a suffix that does not fit the noun paradigm, etc. According to LaVA data analysis, including learners error analysis, exercises and tests are generated. The exercises are intended to help the language learner to strengthen the linguistic competence of the Latvian language, for example, the use of verb forms in the indicative mood, both in indefinite and perfect tense forms. Exercise creation consists of three stages: (1) analysis of LaVA errors and identification of typical errors, (2) Collecting of sample sentences from various corpora of the Latvian language, for example, LVK2018, Saeima, with word forms and constructions in which language learners most often make mistakes in LaVA texts, (3) generation of different exercises using the selected sample sentences.

scholarly journals THE SIOP MODEL AS AN EMPOWERING TEACHING METHOD FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS - A STUDY CASE

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustapha Boughoulid
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Quasi Experimental

The increase in the needs of the English language learners (ELLs) and their endless demands in terms of achievement and proficiency in all the educational systems all over the world urged teachers and educators to call for new teaching strategies that sound more adequate and appropriate in the classroom. The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model emerged as one of the worldwide prominent teaching methods that guarantee the ELLs success, especially when it has to do with the understanding of the content and language learning meanwhile. With its diverse culture and prominent engagement in terms of education, Morocco represents a fertile field for the implementation of the SIOP Model that has proven in different contexts its adequacy in helping ELLs achieve proficiency. This study is about a quasi-experimental research that is implemented in an urban school known for its diversification in terms of mother tongue, socio-economic status, gender, and background. Given these different circumstances of the learners, the findings reported after the adoption of the SIOP Model as a teaching approach showed that it is a reliable and adequate teaching method in terms of content and language proficiency. The use of wh-questions as key indicators to measure the learners’ capacity of understanding and responding correctly throughout the experiment phase showed the superiority of the ELLs in the SIOP classes in contrast to the learners in the mainstream classes. This superiority is embodied, especially in terms of the high scores obtained in providing correct answers in a short duration of time. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0726/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Tickle Your Tenses

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Dayang Zarinah Awang Bohari ◽  
Ch'ng Looi Chin ◽  
Sueb Ibrahim ◽  
Abang Fhaeidzhyall Abang Madaud
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Teaching Tool ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Alternative Teaching ◽  
Interactive Environment ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Learning tenses is an uphill task for ESL (English as a Second Language) learners, especially children. One of the reasons is that grammatical structures in English are inherently different from those of the mother tongue. More often than not learners find it difficult to comprehend and apply the rules accurately for effective communication. Hence, they become frustrated and give up trying to learn the language. The main purpose of TYT is to address the said problems faced by these learners besides providing a fun, exciting and interactive environment to reinforce the rules of tenses learnt. Presently, English language games tend to focus on parts of speech and vocabulary learning but not many emphasise on tenses. TYT fills in the gap to reinforce the learning of tenses and its application in different everyday contexts. Children can learn with their peers while playing in an enjoyable setting which will promote better retention of their tenses knowledge. TYT is also useful for language educators as an alternative teaching tool to drill the rules of tenses which otherwise would be too monotonous and dry for students in the classroom.

Papier Is Geduldig

1993 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 45-52
Author(s):  
J.P.M. Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Classroom Situation ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Correspondence Course

Translation usually is a solitary activity, but it is often taught in the classroom and not as a skill (or art) leading to a goal, a text in a target language, but as a means of helping language learners to increase their awareness of the subtleties and intricacies of a foreign language. Unfortunately, teachers are rarely sufficiently equipped to anticipate all the variants which students may come up with in a classroom situation. It may difficult to convince students that certain options are wrong, and others acceptable only in a certain context. When the translation training does not take place in the classroom, but rather in a written form, on the basis of a large number of translations sent in by students, the teacher/author can select all variants in the quiet of his study, and argue his choice carefully and with an eye for details. An added advantage is that the teacher/author will be able to distinguish between very common mistakes, between variants which occur very often, and those that are very rare. For more than a century, the Dutch magazine De Talen [the languages] has offered students (in the broadest sense of the word) the opportunity to increase their language proficiency through carefully discussed translations. Five times a year, students are offered texts in French, German, Spanish and English for translation into Dutch, and five times Dutch texts must be translated into these foreign languages. Subscribers to the magazine can send in their attempts at a translation, using a pseudonym. These translations are corrected and used as the basis for a thorough discussion of all possible variants. It does not concern a correspondence course, although the submitted translations are graded, and these grades are published under the pseudonym. It is assumed that the mother tongue of the subscribers is Dutch, although quite a number of people whose native language is not Dutch use the magazine to improve their command of Dutch. This article, by the editor of the English part of the magazine, describes in some detail the history and setup of De Talen.

scholarly journals Analyzing lexical emergence in Modern American English online

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACK GRIEVE ◽  
ANDREA NINI ◽  
DIANSHENG GUO
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Quantitative Method ◽  
Large Time ◽  
American English ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Semantic Classes ◽  
Word Forms

This article introduces a quantitative method for identifying newly emerging word forms in large time-stamped corpora of natural language and then describes an analysis of lexical emergence in American social media using this method, based on a multi-billion-word corpus of Tweets collected between October 2013 and November 2014. In total 29 emerging word forms, which represent various semantic classes, grammatical parts-of-speech and word formation processes, were identified through this analysis. These 29 forms are then examined from various perspectives in order to begin to better understand the process of lexical emergence.

scholarly journals Promoting multilingualism: Foundation Phase teachers’ experiences in teaching isiXhosa to native speakers of Afrikaans

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. S1-S9
Author(s):  
Edwin Darrell de Klerk ◽  
June Monica Palmer ◽  
Maseeeng Papashane
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
South African ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Teachers Experiences ◽  
Northern Cape

After 1994, South African policy changes brought about variations in language education resulting in many monolingual classrooms becoming multilingual. Much of the current literature focuses on either providing recommendations to diverse approaches of teaching a second language or describing the experiences of second language learners while limited studies unearthed teachers’ experiences in multilingual classrooms, especially where the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) was Afrikaans. In this article we examine responses of teachers in the Northern Cape to teaching isiXhosa to learners whose mother-tongue is Afrikaans. From an interpretivist lens and using a case study design, we present 6 Afrikaans Foundation Phase teachers’ (FPTs) experiences in teaching isiXhosa as a second First Additional Language (FAL) to non-isiXhosa speakers. Data from in-depth email interviews were coded and thematically analysed. The results from this study show that, while teachers regard multilingualism as fundamental, they equally regard the isiXhosa curriculum as a tool to develop learners’ language proficiency.

The Involvement of Native Speakers in Teaching and Learning Japanese Language at UiTM

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Choong Pow Yean ◽  
Sarinah Bt Sharif ◽  
Normah Bt Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Lexical Density

The Nihongo Partner Program or “Japanese Language Partner” is a program that sends native speakers to support the teaching and learning of Japanese overseas. The program is fully sponsored by The Japan Foundation. The aim of this program is to create an environment that motivates the students to learn Japanese. This study is based on a survey of the Nihongo Partner Program conducted on students and language lecturers at UiTM, Shah Alam. This study aims to investigate if there is a necessity for native speakers to be involved in the teaching and learning of Japanese among foreign language learners. Analysis of the results showed that both students and lecturers are in dire need of the Nihongo Partner Program to navigate the learning of the Japanese language through a variety of language learning activities. The involvement of native speaker increases students’ confidence and motivation to converse in Japanese. The program also provides opportunities for students to increase their Japanese language proficiency and lexical density. In addition, with the opportunity to interact with the native speakers, students and lecturers will have a better understanding of Japanese culture as they are able to observe and ask the native speakers. Involvement of native speakers is essential in teaching and learning of Japanese in UiTM.

Conquer and Score: A Word Formation Game for Language Learners

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Anealka Aziz Hussin ◽  
Tuan Sarifah Aini Syed Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
English Language ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Safe Environment ◽  
Learning Path ◽  
Derivational Morphemes ◽  
And Linguistics ◽  
Formation Game

Engaging students in language activities can sometimes be challenging for language educators. One of the ways to engage students in language activities is through language games. Language games can motivate students to communicate, strengthens their ability to comprehend the language and enhance their problem-solving and cognitive skills. Language games also have a vast potential to increase engagement of the students, thus lead to the creation of the Conquer & Score: The Derivational Island. It is a word formation enrichment game catering to students learning lexicology and linguistics. The topic was chosen based on the result of an online quiz on the types of morphemes. The game focuses on the derivational morphemes used to form the English language words. The game requires knowledge of morphology as well as basic lexical analysis skills. The game provides educators a fun and engaging reinforcement activity for the students. Gamification elements used in the game such as rewards, flexible learning path and progress indicator offer a safe environment for competition, which can motivate students to outdo each other to win the game. This paper also highlights some important aspects of games in learning.

Translating ambiguous and nonambiguous Words in a foreign Language

2003 ◽  
Vol 139-140 ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Paul Bogaards ◽  
Elisabeth Van Der Linden ◽  
Lydius Nienhuis
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
University Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Lexical Ambiguity ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Bilingual Lexicon ◽  
The Individual

The research to be reported on in this paper was originally motivated by the finding that about 70% of the mistakes made by university students when translating from their mother tongue (Dutch) into their foreign language (French) were lexical in nature (NIENHUIS et al. 1989). This was partially confinned in the investigation described in NIENHUIS et al. (1993). A closer look at the individual errors suggested that many problems were caused by words with more than one meaning which each require different translations in the target language. In the research reported on in this paper, we checked our fmdings in the light of what is known about the structure of the bilingual lexicon and about the ways bilinguals have access to the elements of their two languages. On the basis of the model of the bilingual lexicon presented by KROLL & Sholl (1992) an adapted model is proposed for the processing of lexical ambiguity. This leads to a tentative schema of the mental activities that language learners have to perfonn when they are translating from their mother tongue into a foreign language, The second part of the paper describes two experiments we have carried out in order to find empirical support for such a schema. The last section of the paper contains a discussion of the results obtained as well as the conclusions that can be drawn.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document