2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Developing a diagnostic language assessment of Japanese EFL learners' English language email writing
| Project/Area Number |
19K00826
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| Research Institution | The University of Aizu |
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Principal Investigator |
Nicholas Allan 会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 准教授 (50811048)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
BLAKE John 会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 准教授 (80635954)
Mozgovoy Maxim 会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 准教授 (60571776)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
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| Keywords | pragmatics / pragmatic failure / politeness / formality |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In this year, we made a number of achievements relating to the project. Email text data was collated into a corpus of approximately 1,300 texts. Using expert English users, the corpus data were manually annotated for specific instances of pragmatic failure, relating to email organisation, formality and politeness. We used multiple expert English users to ensure that the annotation done was reliable.
In this way, we were able to identify patterns of pragmatic failure by the Japanese EFL learners when writing English language emails in a variety of different scenarios. The scenarios varied in terms of difficulty, with the participants required to adapt their language to suit the varying social contexts. For each email text, the annotators identified instances of perceived pragmatic failure (pragmatically inappropriate language), and tagged them using software specifically designed for the project.
After carrying out an analysis of the findings, we used the results to begin developing a basic prototype of a computerised assessment of EFL learners' English emails. This online system aims to be able to automatically identify pragmatic failure in learner emails, and offer feedback that will allow them to improve their writing. It will also track their progress across tasks.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The project is progressing smoothly in terms of creating the corpus, manually annotating the text data, and beginning the prototyping of the computerised assessment. One issue that has not been smooth relates to the current Coronavirus pandemic- because of the pandemic, it has been more difficult to disseminate findings to the community than would normally have been the case.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Continuing the project, we aim to continue developing the basic prototype of the computerised email assessment. Upon initial completion of the prototype, we will pilot it with a small number of volunteer participants. We will use the feedback to improve the system until it is ready to be used by a larger number of participants. We then aim to trial the system with larger groups of participants, and gather data on how effective the system is in terms of: a) accurately identifying pragmatic failure; b) promoting improvement in participants' English email writing.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Because of the Coronavirus pandemic situation, planned travel was not possible, so travel expenses were not incurred. Providing the pandemic situation improves, we plan to carry out the delayed travel plans this year, meaning that the budget for the previous year will be used for this purpose. We also plan to continue developing the computerised assessment system, which will entail personnel and hardware costs.
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