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Intelligent CALL: Individualizing Learning Using Natural Language Generation

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The Post-pandemic Landscape of Education and Beyond: Innovation and Transformation (HKAECT 2022)

Part of the book series: Educational Communications and Technology Yearbook ((ECTY))

Abstract

This chapter describes the theoretical underpinning, development and evaluation of an online natural language generation app, the Question Generator. This app individualizes language learning by creating interrogative statements from declarative statements using a natural language generation pipeline, enabling learners to create their own individualized practice activities. Learners can discover inductively how negation and auxiliary verbs are used in questions. A classroom observation of learners using the web app was conducted with junior high school students and university sophomores. Both groups were engaged and stayed on task with minimum supervision. The individualization appeared to motivate learners as they input sentences that were of interest to them. Learners were observed to be particularly active when working in pairs. The Question Generator is the first online tool that enables learners to generate questions based on user input, and thus breaks new ground in the growing set of intelligent CALL tools.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Https://elc.polyu.edu.hk/cill/.

  2. 2.

    Https://cloud.google.com/dialogflow/docs/.

  3. 3.

    Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Aizu, Aizuwakamatsu, Japan

    John Blake

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  1. John Blake
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Correspondence to John Blake .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. HKAECT, Hong Kong, China

    Anna Wing Bo TSO

  2. Ming-Ai (London) Institute, London, UK

    Steven Kwan Keung NG

  3. Faculty of Arts, Centre for Applied English Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong

    Locky LAW

  4. The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Tiffany Shurui BAI

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Blake, J. (2023). Intelligent CALL: Individualizing Learning Using Natural Language Generation. In: TSO, A.W.B., NG, S.K.K., LAW, L., BAI, T.S. (eds) The Post-pandemic Landscape of Education and Beyond: Innovation and Transformation. HKAECT 2022. Educational Communications and Technology Yearbook. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9217-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9217-9_1

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