Abstract
This paper illustrates the usefulness of natural language processing (NLP) tools for computer assisted language learning (CALL) through the presentation of three NLP tools integrated within a CALL software for French. These tools are (i) a sentence structure viewer; (ii) an error diagnosis system; and (iii) a conjugation tool. The sentence structure viewer helps language learners grasp the structure of a sentence, by providing lexical and grammatical information. This information is derived from a deep syntactic analysis. Two different outputs are presented. The error diagnosis system is composed of a spell checker, a grammar checker, and a coherence checker. The spell checker makes use of alpha-codes, phonological reinterpretation, and some ad hoc rules to provide correction proposals. The grammar checker employs constraint relaxation and phonological reinterpretation as diagnosis techniques. The coherence checker compares the underlying "semantic" structures of a stored answer and of the learners' input to detect semantic discrepancies. The conjugation tool is a resource with enhanced capabilities when put on an electronic format, enabling searches from inflected and ambiguous verb forms.
Highlights
Computer assisted language learning (CALL) emerged in the early days of computers
The error diagnosis system described here is made of a spell checker identifying unknown words and proposing existing alternatives, a grammar checker handling some morpho-syntactic and syntactic errors, and a coherence checker dealing with the appropriateness of learners' answers for given questions
We present first the proposals retrieved by the ad hoc rules, followed by phonological reinterpretation, showing last the alpha-code recuperated words
Summary
Computer assisted language learning (CALL) emerged in the early days of computers. Since the early 1960's, CALL software was designed and implemented. Linguistik online 17, 5/03 techniques are used, requiring exercise authors to enter many different correct and wrong answers. This very tedious and time consuming task yet only provides appropriate feedback when the learner types in one of the expected answers. We illustrate the usefulness of NLP for CALL based on the presentation of three NLP tools designed for French and integrated within a CALL software, namely: (i) a sentence structure viewer displaying information on the words of a sentence and on its principal constituents (section 2); (ii) an error diagnosis system, including a spell checker, a grammar checker, and a coherence checker (section 3); and (iii) a conjugation tool (section 4).
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