Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) is a relatively young field of interdisciplinary research exploring the integration of natural language processing in foreign language teaching and learning. The course will introduce conceptual issues and practical system development aspects of ICALL and provide the student with an overview of current research issues. Key questions discussed include the following: Where is the automatic analysis of language relevant for foreign language teaching and learning? What conceptual and practical issues are involved in natural language processing (NLP) of learner language, and what is the current state of the art in detecting errors and providing feedback to learners? How can NLP-supported research on learner corpora inform Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research? What are task and learner models and what roles do they play in ICALL systems? Where is the automatic analysis of native language relevant for foreign language learners and how can it be turned into innovative applications of real-life relevance?

Nature of course and our expectations: This is a research-oriented Hauptseminar, in which we jointly explore perspectives and approaches on complexity in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and computational linguistics. You are expected to

Academic conduct and misconduct: Research is driven by discussion and free exchange of ideas, motivations, and perspectives. So you are encouraged to work in groups, discuss, and exchange ideas. At the same time, the foundation of the free exchange of ideas is that everyone is open about where they obtained which information. Concretely, this means you are expected to always make explicit when you’ve worked on something as a team – and keep in mind that being part of a team always means sharing the work.

For text you write, you always have to provide explicit references for any ideas or passages you reuse from somewhere else. Note that this includes text “found” on the web, where you should cite the url of the web site in case no more official publication is available.

Class etiquette: Please do not read or work on materials for other classes in our seminar. All portable electronic devices such as cell phones and laptops should be switched off for the entire length of the flight, oops, class.

References

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