TESL/Applied Linguistics: Conference on Technology for Second Language Learning

Towards Adaptive CALL:

Natural Language Processing for Diagnostic Language Assessment

 

Selected Papers from
the Fifth Annual Conference on Technology for Second Language Learning

 

About the Authors

 

Cristina Pardo-Ballester (Ph.D., University of California, Davis) is Assistant Professor of Spanish in the World Languages and Cultures Department at Iowa State University. Her primary areas of research are second language acquisition (SLA), Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), and Language Assessment. She is currently working on the development of Spanish hybrid courses integrating different uses of technology in Spanish instruction. One of her goals is to create better listening tests by including the use of visual, collaborative listening and computer-based testing. The integration of the hybrid courses into the Spanish curriculum program at ISU is intended to assess students’ performance, students’ attitude and students’ voice about learning with environments, the technology and the contact with humans.

Doe-Hyung Kim (MA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Project Coordinator for the Curriculum, Technology, and Education Reform (CTER) online Master of Education program at the University of Illinois. His research interests include feedback and behavior tracking in computer-assisted language learning, electronic corpora for ESL writing, and online learning. He maintains the CTER online program, which in its 10th year, serves practicing teachers nationwide wishing to integrate technology in classrooms by offering graduate courses online. He is currently working on a Flash/Actionscript-based program for testing explicitness of feedback for improving ESL grammar.

Elena Cotos is a doctoral student in the Applied Linguistics and Technology program at Iowa State Univeristy. Her research interests include automated scoring, learner corpora, computer assisted language learning, computer assisted language testing, academic writing, and materials design. Elena has presented at CALICO, TESOL, and TSLL, and has reviewed for the TESOL Quarterly. She has also designed online materials for the English Listening Lounge and participated in the development and implementation of "Life in a Second Language" Simulation and Enhancing and Advancing Science for English Language Learners projects.

Eunice Eunhee Jang (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Assistant Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include cognitive diagnostic assessment, validity and fairness of educational and language assessment, Differential Item Functioning, and test dimensionality. She is currently working on integrating formative diagnostic assessment into ESL literacy instruction. She also collaborates with Dr. Jim Cummins on the validity project for “Steps Toward English Proficiency” with over 50 ESL teachers across Ontario. STEP is intended to serve teachers to assess and track all English language learners’ literacy development in Ontario schools.

Jinhee Choo is currently a graduate student at the department of Educational Psychology at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her field of experience includes second language acquisition, language data analysis, corpus linguistics, teaching ESL and computer-assisted language learning. She participated in a CALL project, the ESL Tutor to aim at eliminating typical Korean ESL learners' errors from written compositions.

John M. Levis (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Associate Professor of TESL/Applied Linguistics at Iowa State University. His research interests include speech intelligibility, intonation, and English pronunciation. His articles have appeared in TESOL Quarterly, World Englishes, Applied Linguistics, ELT Journal, System, TESOL Journal, Language Awareness, and Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.  He is currently writing a book on English pronunciation.

Maja Grgurovic is a doctoral student in the Applied Linguistics and Technology Program at Iowa State University. She holds an MA degree in TESL/Applied Linguistics from Iowa State. Her research interests are CALL, multimedia, materials design, and integration of technology into language teaching and teacher education. Maja has presented at TSLL, CALICO, WorldCALL, TESOL, and SLRF and published in Language Learning and Technology, ReCALL, and TESL-EJ.

Mathias (Mat) Schulze is Associate Professor of German at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. He obtained his PhD in Language Engineering at UMIST in Manchester (England), co-authored a book on the application of artificial intelligence to computer-assisted language learning (Heift and Schulze, 2007), and has published a number of papers on Computer-Assisted Language Learning and grammar. His main interests are in the application of artificial intelligence techniques, such as student modeling and natural language processing, and second language acquisition research to CALL.

Melissa Baralt is a PhD candidate studying Second Language Acquisition in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Georgetown University.  Her research interests include technology incorporation in SLA, bilingualism, and task-based language teaching.

Nathan T. Carr (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles) is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Fullerton in the TESOL Program, part of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. His primary research interests include computer-based testing, particularly with respect to automated scoring of constructed response tasks; writing materials for training teachers in language testing; and validation studies, particularly those involving the relationship between test task characteristics and examinee performance. He is also involved in his department’s efforts to develop and validate proficiency tests in a variety of languages.

Nick Pendar (Ph.D., University of Toronto) is Assistant Professor with the Applied Linguistics & Technology and Human Computer Interaction programs at Iowa State University. His specialty is computational linguistics and natural language processing. His research interests include the use of machine learning techniques in natural language processing, as well as intelligent computer assisted language learning and automated scoring.

Quan Zhang (Ph.D., Guangdong University of Foreign Studies at Guangzhou) is Chair Professor at College of Foreign Studies, Southern Med. Univ. in Guangzhou, China. His research interests include cognition and testing, computerized cognitive assessment, IRT computer software and linguistics. He is currently working on SEM and EQS for language testing and moderating his Cognitive Response Theory. In 2002, he was invited as senior visiting scholar to ETS. From July 2006 to July, 2008, he is invited as a research scholar to Department of Applied Linguistics &TESL, UCLA. In China, he is a good collaborator with Prof. Lyle F. Bachman.

Robert Mislevy (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is Professor of Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation (EDMS) at the University of Maryland. He applies developments in statistical methodology and cognitive research to practical problems in educational and psychological measurement. His work has been recognized with honors and awards such as the American Educational Research Association's Raymond B. Cattell Early Career Award for Programmatic Research, the National Council of Measurement in Education's Award for Technical Contributions to Educational Measurement (three times), the ETS Senior Research Scientist Award, and the International Language Testing Association's Samuel J. Messick Memorial Lecture Award. In 1992, he was elected president of the Psychometric Society and nominated as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and in 2003 he was presented the National Council of Measurement's Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement.  His work has included a multiple-imputation approach for integrating sampling and test-theoretic models in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a Bayesian inference network for updating the student model in an intelligent tutoring system, and a demonstration of a framework for monitoring and improving portfolio assessment evaluation (in the context of the Advanced Placement Studio Art Portfolio assessment).

Tony Becker is a Ph.D. student at Northern Arizona University in the Applied Linguistics Program. His research interests include assessment and computer-assisted language learning. His dissertation interest focuses on the assessment of declarative and procedural knowledge in online computer tests.

Viviana Cortes (Ph.D., Northern Arizona University) is Assistant Professor in the TESOL/Applied Linguistics Program in the English Department at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Her research Interests include corpus-based studies of register variation, and the study of the use of fixed word combinations in different academic registers. Her latest articles can be found in English for Specific Purposes, Applied Linguistics, Linguistics and Education, and the Journal of English for Academic Purposes, as well as in various edited volumes.

Xiaoming Xi is a research scientist in the Research & Development Division at Educational Testing Service. She earned a doctorate degree in second/foreign language assessment from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her areas of interest include factors affecting performance on speaking tests, rating scales for speaking tests, rater bias issues in speech scoring, automated scoring of speech, and validity and fairness issues in the broader context of test use. Xiaoming has published in leading journals and wrote a chapter on “Methods of Test Validation” for the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Language and Education.  She also serves on the Editorial Boards of Language Testing and Language Assessment Quarterly. She is a recipient of the 2002 Lado Best Student Paper Award, the 2003 Spann Fellowship Award for Second/Foreign Language Assessment, the 2005 ILTA Best Paper Award, and the 2005 and 2006 ETS Presidential Award. 

 

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