Experiences of using Authentic Assessment with English Language Young Learners

Facilitating vocabulary acquisition of young English language learners.

PURPOSE This study examined whether English-only vocabulary instruction or English vocabulary instruction enhanced with Spanish bridging produced greater word learning in young Spanish-speaking children learning English during a storybook reading intervention while considering individual language characteristics. METHOD Twenty-two Spanish-speaking children learning English (ages 4-6) who part...

Automatic Assessment of the Speech of Young English Learners

This paper introduces some of the research behind automatic scoring of the speaking part of the Arizona English Language Learner Assessment, a large-scale test now operational for students in Arizona. Approximately 70% of the students tested are in the range 4-11 years old. We cover the methods used to assess spoken responses automatically, considering both what the student says and the way in ...

Enhancing Authentic Texts for Language Learners

Enhancing Authentic Web Pages for Language Learners

Second language acquisition research since the 90s has emphasized the importance of supporting awareness of language categories and forms, and input enhancement techniques have been proposed to make target language features more salient for the learner. We present an NLP architecture and webbased implementation providing automatic visual input enhancement for web pages. Learners freely choose t...

Performance of a trialogue-based prototype system for English language assessment for young learners

This paper describes a trialogue-based system for assessing the spoken language abilities of young learners of English. Specifically, the system employs spoken dialogue system components in interactive, conversation-based assessment tasks involving the test taker and two virtual interlocutors. The tasks are designed to be engaging for young learners of English at the elementary school level by ...