Title: Automatising language creativity for learning second language vocabulary

Authors: Gozde Ozbal, Carlo Strapparava

Addresses: FBK-Irst, Via Sommarive 18 38050, Povo-Trento, Italy. ' FBK-Irst, Via Sommarive 18 38050, Povo-Trento, Italy

Abstract: Vocabulary acquisition constitutes a crucial but difficult and time consuming step of learning a foreign language. There exist several teaching methods which aim to facilitate this step by providing learners with various verbal and visual tips. However, building systems based on these methods is generally very costly since it requires so many resources such as time, money and human labour. In this paper, we introduce a fully automatised vocabulary teaching system which uses state of the art natural language processing (NLP) and information retrieval (IR) techniques. For each foreign word the user is willing to learn, the system is capable of automatically producing memorisation tips including keywords, sentences, colours, textual animations and images. Our preliminary results are very promising and they highlight a new perspective for vocabulary learning systems which is worth to be further explored.

Keywords: second language; vocabulary acquisition; latent semantic analysis; LSA; Levenshtein distance; text animation; language creativity; foreign languages; automatised teaching; natural language processing; information retrieval; foreign words; memorisation tips; keywords; sentences; colours; textual animations; images; learning systems; Italian language; English language; Italy; continuing education; life-long learning; automatic free-text evaluation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEELL.2011.040200

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 2011 Vol.21 No.2/3, pp.222 - 234

Published online: 16 Oct 2014 *

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