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Bootstrapping in a language learning environment
Author(s) -
Wible D.,
Kuo CH.,
Tsao NL.,
Liu A.,
Lin HL.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of computer assisted learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.583
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-2729
pISSN - 0266-4909
DOI - 10.1046/j.0266-4909.2002.00009.x
Subject(s) - bootstrapping (finance) , computer science , affordance , language acquisition , interlanguage , grasp , process (computing) , heuristic , language education , natural language processing , dilemma , artificial intelligence , mathematics education , linguistics , human–computer interaction , psychology , programming language , philosophy , financial economics , economics , epistemology
This paper addresses a fundamental dilemma in the design of intelligent language learning environments: the more freedom a system offers to learners in the use of the target language, the more unwieldy the data is which the learners produce and the less able the system is to support inferences about learners from that data. It is shown how in a platform where learners and teachers interact, the teachers' feedback which is archived in the system and indexed to the learners' target language production can constitute affordances that support a process of bootstrapping from raw language output to potential insights into the learners' interlanguage and gaps in their grasp of the target language. The approach is illustrated with three types of learner errors uncovered in the corpus of learner English through this bootstrapping heuristic.